They waited two years too long to do it, but it finally looks like the Chicago Bulls are rebuilding.
Now that Alex Caruso and DeMar DeRozan are gone, the focus will turn to Zach LaVine, but with no real market for him, the Bulls are likely going to have to be patient for now.
Shelving LaVine for the time being, the Bulls have other players they could look to move before next season starts.
Jevon Carter
Good luck.
Carter only played 14 minutes per game last season and didn’t do much, watching all of his numbers plummet from when he was a serviceable backup for Milwaukee.
With two years and over $13 million left on his deal, there won’t be much of a market for Carter, but if the Bulls could get literally anything from a team in desperate need of point guard depth, they should.
Torrey Craig
Craig is still a serviceable backup wing who can defend and shoot the 3-ball, so he might actually have some value, especially given he only has one year left on his deal at a team-friendly $2.8 million.
The Bulls should be looking for ways to pile up second-round picks they can attach to Zach LaVine in a trade and they might be able to get one for Craig to add to the two they got in the DeRozan trade debacle.
Nikola Vucevic
Vucevic is a weird case, as he still puts up numbers, but he doesn’t protect the paint or rim and saw his outside shooting take a dip last season.
His deal isn’t atrocious, as it only has two years/$41 million but given the dearth of teams with cap space, moving him won’t be easy.
There are teams with an obvious need for a floor-spacing center (New Orleans immediately comes to mind), so it’s just a matter of finding a deal they can live with.
The Bulls lack center depth themselves, so dealing Vucevic has several complications.
The best-case scenario for the Bulls might be a protected first-round pick and taking back a contract that extends beyond two years.
If the Bulls are going young, they may as well lean into it, get what they can for the veterans they have and try to keep their top-10 protected pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.