When the Chicago Bulls traded Alex Caruso straight up for Josh Giddey, the move was widely panned.
This had little to do with Giddey as a player, but most people thought the Bulls should have gotten more for an All-Defensive player on a team-friendly deal.
I said that the Bulls got fleeced and stand by it, as OKC has so many draft picks it is inexplicable that Chicago wasn’t able to squeeze at least one out of them when they had more lucrative offers on the table at the trade deadline.
But the Bulls did get a good player in Giddey, who is still only 21 years old and has already played a key role on a good team. He has upside the Bulls were willing to bet on and we'll have to wait to see if they were right.
His talents and flaws were on full display in a recent Olympic showcase game in which his Australian squad lost to Team USA.
Josh Giddey will fill the stat sheet for the Chicago Bulls, but he has big flaws
Giddey saw his role reduced in the playoffs last season because of his shaky outside jumper and poor defense. Teams were just playing off him and daring him to shoot on one end, and targeting him in the pick-and-roll on the other, which will be the strategy until he gets better in those areas.
Giddey put up 17 points, eight rebounds and seven assists against a stacked Team USA and didn’t look the least bit intimidated. It’s possible Giddey will average those kinds of numbers next year for the Bulls in an expanded role on a worse team.
That will all look good in the stat sheet, as Giddey will rack up a few triple doubles, have a solid assist-to-turnover ratio and rebound well for his position.
The rest of his stat line against Team USA shows the problems.
Giddey shot just 7-of-18 from the floor (38.8 percent) and missed the only 3-point shot that he attempted.
Any player in the NBA can get 17 points on 18 shots and Giddey only took one from long range, which is another problem. If you aren’t even a threat to shoot them, teams can sag even more, clogging the paint for guys like Coby White and giving them less space in which to operate.
Giddey will rack up big rebound and assist numbers, there is no doubt, but will he be able to shoot and defend well enough not to be a liability?
He did shoot 33 percent from long range last season as a whole (on only three attempts per game), so he’s not hopeless.
The Bulls have to hope he improves, or that trade is going to look even worse in a year when the Bulls either have to let Giddey walk for nothing or sign him to a lucrative deal that he may not have earned, just as they did with Patrick Williams.