A lot of quotable phrases have gained a lot of verbal mileage throughout the Chicago Bulls' 2026 NBA offseason, courtesy of new Bulls front office leadership led by Bryson Graham. Championship habits, SLAP, defense, optionality, and perhaps the most exciting one of them all, considering how the last front office regime operated: player development!
The poster child for player development going into the Bulls' 2026-27 NBA season projects to be Bulls two-way contract guard Jaylin Sellers. The undrafted rookie joined the Bulls after completing an inspiring pre-draft process that culminated in receiving a two-way contract offer from the Bulls upon the conclusion of the 2026 NBA Draft.
As an undrafted NBA player, Sellers has a long, arduous journey ahead to prove that he belongs in the NBA long-term. Yet, there’s reason to be optimistic about Sellers sticking around for a while, hopefully with the Bulls, based on this 2026 summer league performance.
With the ramp-up of the Bulls' 2026-27 NBA preseason, a player that Jaylin Sellers would do well to study as an NBA career benchmark is Toronto Raptors guard Jamal Shead.
After entering the NBA as a second-round draft pick, selected 45th overall by the Raptors in the 2024 NBA Draft, Shead has become a bona fide NBA success story by earning a three-year, $24 million contract extension from the Raptors, as reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
How Shead earned his second NBA contract with the Raptors is full of examples of basketball contributions Sellers can and should seek to make in a Chicago Bulls uniform. Defense is the notable Shead example for Sellers to follow.
Defense always has a place on an NBA floor
Jamal Shead, through his first two NBA seasons, has earned a well-regarded reputation as an NBA on-ball defender. Shead holds a career average of 1.5 steals per 36 minutes in two NBA seasons of competition, according to Basketball Reference.
It can’t be overstated how valuable it is to have a point guard who is capable of guarding the point of attack. A point guard who can be trusted to keep the ball in front of them in a defensive stance becomes a catalyst for the other four defenders to up their aggression in disrupting the opponent's offensive flow and ideally creating turnovers that lead to easy scoring opportunities.
This is the way for Jaylin Sellers in terms of making his first impression in real NBA minutes. The Bulls don’t have a long-term, reliable point-of-attack defender, despite whatever Bulls practice press conference rhetoric comes from the Advocate Center. Sellers can entrench himself in the Bulls organization for years to come if he’s able to become the Bulls' best on-ball defender since Alex Caruso.
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