Most of the Chicago Bulls’ offseason has been spent wondering where this team is headed in the immediate future.
The Bulls made a symbolic gesture towards a rebuild by trading Alex Caruso and DeMar DeRozan, but they aren’t there yet, as Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic might be just enough to foil their plans of keeping their draft pick in 2025 and hopefully adding another exciting young talent.
It’s not clear what a “rebuild” would actually be building around, as Josh Giddey is going into his final season, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu have complicated contract situations that may make them trade bait and Patrick Williams and Matas Buzelis are both unproven.
All of this uncertainty is why the Bulls ended up in no-man's land again in recent rankings.
The Chicago Bulls: The rebuild that hasn’t really started
In a recent article, Bleacher Report ranked the NBA’s rebuilds, and as it their modus operandi, the Bulls ended up in the middle.
Chicago was placed in the “honorable mention” section, not even cracking the top-5 when it comes to young teams on the rise.
The rankings were topped by the San Antonio Spurs for obvious reasons, Victor Wembanyama is the best young prospect in years and they have loads of future draft picks to go with him.
The Detroit Pistons were second, which may be a touch high in my opinion, as most of their young talent is unproven, though they do have high upside if they all pan out.
The Trail Blazers are in third and a similar position as Detroit in that they have some high-upside but unproven young players they are counting on to improve.
The Washington Wizards are just bad, so I wouldn’t put them on this list at all. Alex Sarr should be good at some point, but right now the Wizards roster still has too many mediocre veterans blocking the little young talent they have.
The Brooklyn Nets came in 5th, though that could change over the next few seasons after they start cashing in draft assets and cap space.
The Bulls aren’t even good at being bad, as they are still in that hazy area of teams that could possibly compete for a 10th seed, exactly where Chicago does not want to be.
Hopefully, trades of LaVine and Vucevic will put Chicago in a position to grab another elite talent in the 2025 draft and finally move the Bulls into the ranks of teams with young talent on the rise instead of continuing to stagnate in the middle.