The NBA has officially progressed into the 2026 offseason. The Chicago Bulls finally have a new head coach and, presumably, soon will make multiple selections in the 2026 NBA Draft. Once the picks are in for the Bulls, their lead front office executive, Bryson Graham, will have an NBA free agent agenda to address.
Barring an outlier big-name free agent signing that would hold sound basketball logic for the Bulls roster, the Bulls’ NBA free agency objectives should primarily focus on value.
How does one go about defining ‘value’ for NBA free agent targets? The Athletic’s John Hollinger wrote a column (subscription required) that answers that very question!
Hollinger is a former NBA front office executive, serving as the Vice President of Basketball Operations for the Memphis Grizzlies from 2012 to 2019. Perhaps a bigger claim to fame for Hollinger is his basketball analytics invention, the Player Efficiency Rating (PER) metric.
In Hollinger’s column, he uses a newer analytics formula to quantify the basketball production, in salary dollar value, of the 2026 NBA free agency class.
Using Hollinger’s column as a starting point, there are two logical groupings of free agent signings the Bulls should consider, with a caveat that Sandro Mamukelashvili is the only true value free agent to prioritize signing (or even acquiring via trade) during the 2026 NBA offseason.
Category one for the Bulls should be “fliers” as in young distressed free agents that would be gettable on a cheap 2-3 year contract. Category two for the Bulls are the venerable “culture vets” who are older free agents that can contribute on the court and teach young players the NBA ropes.
Bulls flier candidate: Jonathan Kuminga
The remainder of Atlanta Hawks power forward Jonathan Kuminga’s current contract is a $24.3 million club option on the 2026-27 NBA season of his deal, which the Hawks must accept or decline by Jun 29, 2026. If the Hawks decline Kuminga’s club option, he immediately becomes an unrestricted free agent.
Bryson Graham already knows Kuminga from their mutual overlap in the Hawks organization post-2026 NBA trade deadline. A price tag of $30 million over two seasons would be a reasonable cost to evaluate Kuminga’s potential as long-term Bulls front-court depth.
Bulls culture vet candidate: De’Anthony Melton
De’Anthony Melton is a well-traveled guard who probably played at peak perimeter defensive powers during his last season with the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2021-22 NBA season, immediately followed by his two seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers. Melton enters the 2026-27 NBA season with a veteran’s minimum player option he must accept or decline by Jun 29, 2026.
Adding Melton on any reasonably cheap contract would be a great investment in bringing in a vet who can still play rotational minutes and teach NBA defense to a young roster.
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