The last grand (massive sarcasm) offseason roster acquisition of former Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas' tenure came in the form of trading guard Lonzo Ball for wing Isacc Okoro during the 2025 NBA offseason. Â
Karnisovas’ fatal flaw in this transaction was a mistaken view that a viable solution to rostering multiple one-way offensive players, such as Nikola Vucevic, Josh Giddey, and Coby White, was to acquire a one-way defensive player in Okoro.
At a bare minimum, the Bulls should be testing Okoro’s trade market throughout the 2026 NBA offseason. Ideally, Okoro should be moved before the Bulls start NBA summer league play in Las Vegas. Â
Okoro’s offensive contributions to the Bulls were unmistakably bad as a starter, and his defense was unremarkably overrated. Basketball defense in general can’t be solved or driven by one person, and Okoro had no problem demonstrating that point in the 2025-26 NBA season.Â
According to Basketball Reference, the Bulls finished the 2025-26 NBA regular season with the 22nd-ranked NBA defense in terms of defensive rating (118.1 points per 100 Possessions). Â
Meanwhile, Okoro’s shooting created spacing recessions for the Bulls' offense on a nightly basis, posting 46% shooting from the field and 33% shooting from three-point range for the 2025-26 NBA season. Â
With the arrival of new head coach Tiago Splitter and his high-speed offensive concepts, it’s probably best to help Okoro find a new NBA home that will tolerate him as a non-shooter who doesn’t consistently display off-ball contributions to offset his lack of shooting ability.
The asset management case for trading Okoro
The 2026-27 NBA regular season is the final year of Okoro’s three-year $33 million fully guaranteed contract. Okoro’s salary is a known quantity, and trading Okoro in the offseason may provide the widest market to deal him as teams typically have clearer understandings of their cap sheets in the offseason compared to in-season or trade deadline trades.
Additionally, given the choice of trading for an expiring contract during the 2026 offseason versus trading for an expiring contract in February 2027, a rival NBA team might be more willing to consider including draft capital in a Bulls return if they get a full season of Okoro in their organization.
Perhaps the optimal Okoro trade looks like packaging him in a deal that returns future draft capital to the Bulls via a 2026 NBA Draft night trade or even a salary dump to help a team manage their cap sheet, while maximizing the Bulls' cap space.
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