It seems so long ago, but it was only on Jan. 14, 2022, that the Bulls unexpectedly found themselves in first place in the Eastern Conference with a 27-13 record. That was notably the last game that Lonzo Ball played for them. They've been a consistently mediocre 59-65 in the year and a half since Ball's injury.
It would be madness, then, for the Bulls to run that same blah group back. But with the three-year, $60 million extension of Nikola Vucevic, it seems like that is their plan.
Trading away their core pieces is by far their best option available, but given their plan of trying to be as good as possible for as cheap as possible, here's what they should do.
MORE: NBA free agency predictions: Guessing landing spots for top stars
Bulls free agency spending options
With Vucevic's extension, the Bulls will operate as an over-the-cap team. They will have the $12.4 million midlevel exception and the $4.5 million bi-annual exception available to add outside free agents, as well as various Bird Rights to bring back their own free agents.
The Bulls can add some good rotation players with those bigger exceptions, but they come with caveats. Using them will put them into the luxury tax. That has almost never been an option for them, but lead decision-maker Arturas Karnisovas has said he's been given the green light to do so if the team is within the top four or six in the East, per 670 The Score's Cody Westerlund.
The Bulls are also in danger of becoming hard-capped at $174 million if they use more than $5 million of the midlevel exception. This would severely limit their flexibility if they wanted to make more moves throughout the season.
The most likely outcome is probably that the Bulls use part of their $12.4 million midlevel exception and get close to or a few million above the tax, leaving themselves enough flexibility to get under with some midseason trades if the writing is on the wall that they will remain uncompetitive.
MORE: Finding the next Bruce Brown in free agency for the NBA's top contenders
Donte DiVincenzo, Max Strus, Yuta Watanabe and other midlevel exception targets for the Bulls
Given that the Bulls have limited means available to improve their roster, what type of player should they target?
Their most obvious need is volume 3-point shooting. They also need a backup big man if Andre Drummond leaves, which, according to Substack's Marc Stein, is likely (UPDATE: Drummond has opted into his $3.4 million deal, bringing him back to the Bulls per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski). And they have among the most shallow point guard and wing depth in the league.
They're not going to be able to address all of those needs in free agency, which is why a trade should be imminent (more on that later). But with the constraints that they have, here are some of their best options.
Point guards
Free agent options: Jevon Carter, Dennis Schroder, Gabe Vincent, Cory Joseph, Patrick Beverley
Carter is the best realistic option of this list, but he doesn't address the lack of passing on the team and operates almost as a wing. Joseph would be a really nice get as well. He's gotten much better as a shooter and is a good veteran floor general who tries hard on defense. Beverley has hinted on Twitter that he plans on re-signing.
Backup big men
Free agent options: Mo Bamba (team option), Thomas Bryant, Paul Reed (restricted), Dario Saric, Drummond
There are some decent shooting big man options here, but they will eat up a big chunk of the MLE. Saric would be my favorite fit as a high skill small ball center who can stretch the floor.
Wings
Free agent options: Donte DiVincenzo, Max Strus, Josh Richardson, Jalen McDaniels, Keita Bates-Diop, Torrey Craig, Yuta Watanabe
Cheap, quality wings are almost impossible to find in the NBA. DiVincenzo, who has been rumored to the Bulls by SNY's Ian Begley, and Strus will almost certainly be priced out of the Bulls' plans. McDaniels is an Arturas Karnisovas specialty — a toolsy athlete whose shooting is a question mark. The Suns will likely overpay to keep Craig.
Watanabe will be sought after by a ton of teams, but he would be my favorite pick for the Bulls.
Shooters
Free agent options: Seth Curry, Damian Lee, Joe Ingles, Georges Niang, Malik Beasley (team option), Jae Crowder
Most of the players that I've listed for point guard, backup big and wings have some shooting ability. The Bulls could also use some pure shooters to the group. Any of these guys would help, but the best realistic cheap signing is Niang.
MORE: Here are the best bargain 3-point shooters available, from Yuta Watanabe to Joe Ingles
Should the Bulls retain Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and other free agents?
The Bulls have decisions to make on their own free agents as well. Fortunately, these won't dip into that $12.4 million midlevel exception bucket.
Coby White has seen marked improvements in his defending and playmaking. He's young and brings volume 3-point shooting, which are two attributes that the Bulls should absolutely be targeting. But they need to set a walk-away number because giving him too much will impact their ability to stay out of the tax.
I pegged fair value for White as four years, $45 million. Any more than that and it might be time for him to say farewell.
Free agents Ayo Dosunmu, Patrick Beverley, Derrick Jones Jr. and Javonte Green all fall into the same bucket — they're good players with great energy who are too reticent as shooters to space the floor. They would be fine on close to minimum deals, but they would fit much better on other teams. If the Bulls can replace any of them with minimum-salaried shooters, then that would be the better use of resources.
Marko Simonovic is on a non-guaranteed contract and has (allegedly) played for the Bulls.
Trades for Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan
Listing out all the holes on the roster and the limited means to patch them shows how difficult this run-it-back plan is going to be to pull off. With great health and an A+ offseason, this is a team that can hit the mid-to-high 40s in wins and maybe steal a playoff series. But that's if everything breaks perfectly.
The more realistic outcome is that the Bulls finish around .500 again and find themselves back in the Play-In Tournament for the foreseeable future. A trade is the only way out of this.
The Bulls have been gauging interest in LaVine, but there hasn't been much out there per Yahoo's Jake Fischer. They're doing the smart thing in waiting to see if his value creeps up rather than trading him just to trade him. Trying to bottom out is also made more difficult by the two weak upcoming drafts in 2024 and 2025. But if they can get a good package for him, then they should pull the trigger.
After years of accusations of being overrated, DeRozan has completely flip-flopped to being one of the most underrated players in the league. He's gotten significantly better from his Raptors days, yet he is a total afterthought in most NBA discourse.
DeRozan has never played with the spacing around him that other stars have. It's tantalizing to think how much better he could be if he were surrounded by four shooters. That will probably never happen in Chicago. Entering his age-34 season, he's worth way more to a contending team than the Bulls. He'll be an unrestricted free agent next year, at which point the writing will be on the wall even more that the Bulls will have to pivot.
Like LaVine, they should be aggressive in seeking out offers for DeRozan and see if anyone gets desperate near the trade deadline.
Vucevic should also be on the trade market, although he can garner significantly less than DeRozan or LaVine.
I'm not completely sold that the Bulls can't be a good offensive team around the three of LaVine, DeRozan and Vucevic. They did create open 3s, but teammates refused to shoot them. Getting four or five better shooters on the roster will fix their biggest problem.
Even with those changes, this is an aging roster with no real path to long-term upside. Their latest move, extending Vucevic, was emblematic of their drift towards mediocrity. It was neither a good move nor a bad move. It was uninspired and aimless, allowing them to go wherever the gods of health and luck direct them to.
Anyone who has watched even one game of this team over the last year and a half knows that they are delaying the inevitable by holding onto this core. It's up to them if they want to wait until there is no other option, getting a Bradley Beal type of return in their reset, or get the most value possible for their good players and springboard into a product that at least their fans can get excited about.
