The Chicago Bulls reshaped their roster at this year's trade deadline, but one player could tip the scales between success and failure: Rob Dillingham.
Chicago's unusually active deadline was more about outgoings than incomings: Ayo Dosunmu landed in Minnesota as part of the deal that brought Dillingham to the Windy City. Coby White was traded to the Charlotte Hornets. Nikola Vucevic is now a member of the Boston Celtics.
The Bulls acquired Dillingham as the centerpiece of that Dosunmu trade. Taking a flier on a 21-year-old, former top-10 pick like Dillingham was clever on the part of executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas.
Chicago also secured a slew of second-round picks and an opportunity to gauge the value of several young guards, including Jaden Ivey, Anfernee Simons and Collin Sexton. But no asset the Bulls acquired has the upside Dillingham possesses.
Rob Dillingham poised to show Bulls he was a trade deadline steal
The Timberwolves sent a 2031 first-round pick and a 2030 top-1 protected pick swap to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for the No. 8 pick in the 2024 draft, which they used to select Dillingham. Minnesota viewed him as the heir apparent to Mike Conley.
(Conley, coincidentally, came to Chicago along with Dillingham, was traded again, waived, and ended up back in Minnesota. The NBA, am I right?)
But the Dillingham experiment never worked for the Wolves, who needed a point guard ready to lead a title-contender. Dillingham wasn't that. Realistically, the entire situation was more a result of Minnesota's poor insight than a misvaluation of Dillingham's talent.
The intrigue surrounding the former Kentucky standout's game remains. He has an elite first step, is an excellent ball handler and can score from all three levels. He's slight -- listed at 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds -- and raw as a decision maker, but you don't have to squint hard to see Lou Williams or Jamal Crawford.
Chicago's trade deadline is being underrated
Dillingham's development may decide his ultimate grade, but Karnisovas deserves a bit more praise than he's getting. (A bit.)
He grabbed another distressed asset in Ivey, who was becoming one of the league's most attractive young guards before he broke his leg and couldn't regain his footing in Detroit.
Second-round picks are more valuable in today's NBA than they ever have been -- and the one Chicago landed in the Vucevic-Simons swap is a potential game-changer.
No one will call Karnisovas's deadline moves exceptional. But acquiring Dillingham was a shrewd piece of business that's poised to make him look, well, not like a genius ... but a person who can be smart sometimes.