The Chicago Bulls' rebuild is already off to a strong start.
They stripped down the roster at the trade deadline, moving on from Nikola Vucevic, Ayo Dosunmu, and Coby White in a series of trades that, at the time, yielded them a rather confusing roster mix. But now that many of those contracts will be off the books at the start of the offseason, Chicago is in a strong position to push the franchise in whatever direction they see fit.
Once Bryson Graham finds the team's next head coach, the challenge will be to leverage their pair of first-round picks, which are slated at fourth and 15th overall, the bring an influx of talent to the team. If they hit on both those picks and are able to continue the development of budding forward Matas Buzelis, they could quickly find themselves with a solid young core to build upon.
But ESPN's recent ranking of every team's draft assets shines a spotlight on a painful truth. Chicago isn't in a terrible position, per se. They're in the third tier of cap expert Bobby Mark's rankings. But given their position relative to other teams whose rebuilds are well under way, there's clearly some more work to be done in order to truly cement their rebuilding intentions.
Bulls need to accumulate additional draft capital over the coming months
As mentioned, the Bulls aren't in a bad position in terms of their draft capital. Over the next seven years, they have all of their own first-round picks and 12 future second-round picks to work with. In Marks' rankings, the third tier is reserved for teams who have no additional first-round picks outside of their own over the next seven seasons.
This puts them firmly behind the teams in Tiers 1 and 2, which feature organizations like the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder and even the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers.
These teams all have different intentions for their hoards of draft capital. The Wizards and the Jazz are attempting to exit their rebuilds— both will likely be attempting to compete next season after making major trades at this year's deadline. The Grizzlies, for their part, are entering their own roster teardown. The Thunder, Rockets, and Trail Blazers will likely try to leverage their extra draft capital to acquire additional talent for their coming playoff pushes. No matter what though, the extra capital these teams have will grant them an enviable flexibility over the next few seasons.
The Bulls, though, largely missed their best chance to acquire additional first-round capital at this year's trade deadline. Across the trades of Vucevic, White, and Dosunmu, the Bulls did not acquire a single first-round selection. They swapped second-rounders in the Vucevic trade, and they gained six second-rounders between the Dosunmu and White trades.
The prior front office failed to maximize the value of virtually all of their assets, and this new regime must now pay the price. If they plan on entering a long-term rebuild instead of a short-term reset, which appears to be the direction the team is heading, they will need to find a way to break into the first or second tier of Marks' ranking system.
Whether that involves taking on bad contracts or attempting to find a suitor for Josh Giddey, they need to explore their paths forward on that front.
As strong of a position as the Bulls are in now, therefore, there's still more work to be done before the rebuild can truly be cemented.
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