Chicago Bulls Team Review

 

2020-21 Finish: 48-34

 

Season Highlight:

Eastern Conference Finals! The Bulls came into the playoffs as a 6 seed, matched up against a strong Knicks team. They made quick work of them, offering up the gentleman�s sweep. In a very rare 6/7 matchup in the Conference Semi-Finals, they also didn�t flinch too much, taking care of the Sixers in 6. They did get swept in the Conference Finals � but when you�re coming in as a 6 seed, just getting there is a special run.

 

Season Lowlight:

Ending up as the 6 seed to begin with. There was a lot of excitement around the team before the season started. Some of this speaks to the strength of the top teams in the league � but being 6 games out of homecourt advantage in the first round, when a lot of fans were hoping that they may dominate the Eastern Conference behind the collective strength of Bradley Beal and Anthony Davis is definitely a disappointment.

 

Best Trade:

Bulls trade away Nemanja Bjelica, Denzel Valentine, and Jahmius Ramsey and receive Patrick Mills and Wenyen Gabriel as part of a bigger deal.

I like this one for the Bulls. The 3 that they sent out are some variation of non-contributors and Patty Mills came in and averaged 15ppg on an insane eFG% for them. And now they will hope to bring him back on a more affordable deal this season. Getting that without giving up anything of consequence for a win-now team is exactly what you want to do.

 

Worst Trade:

The Chicago Bulls send Eric Gordon to the Indiana Pacers. The Indiana Pacers send Terrance Ferguson to the Chicago Bulls. The Chicago Bulls send a 2nd-Rounder (Por) to the Boston Celtics.

While this was the �right� deal to make � in order to fix up some of their awful salary issues � it stings to give up a (bad) 2^nd and easily the best player in the deal in order to fix it. Ferguson is now out of the league and Gordon is still a guy that could help a team like the Bulls� if they could afford him. In a vacuum, this was a bad deal � but given the team�s situation, it�s understandable.

 

Other Notable Trades:

The Chicago Bulls send Cedi Osman to the Milwaukee Bucks. The Milwaukee Bucks send Chandler Hutchison and Isaiah Joe to the Chicago Bulls.

Some may dislike this because Osman is the most established of the 3 players, but Isaiah Joe has shown some interesting skills in the NBA and while Osman has gotten some good PT for a really bad Cavs team � he doesn�t seem like anything special. Hutchinson was a bit of a flier on a guy that hasn�t really panned out � looks like he�ll be a 2-way guy to start the season.

 All of their other trades were of the 2nds/GM points/guys that will be cut variety. They did heavily pursue some 2^nd round picks with GM points and ended up snagging Kessler Edwards, who they were after all along with a couple of those 2nds.

Free Agency:

This will actually be a pretty interesting FA period for the Bulls in trying to retain their FIVE Unrestricted Free Agents. Of note, all 3 of their centers are in jeopardy of jumping ship � and everybody knows AD hates playing center. Will they try to keep all 3? 2? Focus on guaranteeing the return of the one they like most? Each of them is only willing to sign on for a single year � does that change the math? It will be nearly impossible for the Bulls to pull off bringing all 5 of these guys back, even though they are all contributors. My best guess is that they end up with Lou Williams, Hassan Whiteside, and Patty Mills returning � but can�t convince Zeller or McGee to sign up for another go-round.

Javale McGee � Switched teams in the NBA � great guy to have around as an athletic big. I�m sure the Bulls would love to have him back, but with so many other priorities, they�ll probably have to focus elsewhere.

Lou Williams � Should be returning, still a bench sparkplug, but starting to show the age a bit and look like a recent-Jamal Crawford guy more than the perennial sixth man candidate he�d been up until last season.

Hassan Whiteside � Very similar to McGee � a highly athletic rebounder/shot blocker who switched teams in the NBA. He�s a notch above Javale when it comes to his 2k game though � so my guess is that the Bulls will focus here when it comes to keeping one of their three main centers.

Patty Mills � Switched teams in NBA. It would definitely be nice to see him back in Chicago give how much success he had there with his late season arrival. You would think that they were pretty committed to bringing him back when they traded for him. I think this has to be one of their focus areas.

Cody Zeller � The third and final center that is looking to bolt from Chi-town. Is playing next to AD really that bad? Maybe it is just bad when he tries to play on the wing? Zeller is probably the least effective of the 3 centers, so despite his talent, he may be the odd man out. 

Star:

Bradley Beal

Beal averaged 28/3/5 on amazing efficiency and was easily the leader of the team all season long. He let the team down a bit struggling through injuries in the playoffs � but without him carrying the team along all season long, they would have been in the play-in tournament at best (they only avoided it by 3 games). The bigger news here is probably who was not the star�

 

Flop:

Anthony Davis

Sure � you are probably thinking �he put up 32 pgg in the playoffs on a 6 seed team that made the Conference Finals�.  That is absolutely true. But the Bulls honored AD greatly by choosing him 2^nd overall in the initial NSL redraft. He�s their cornerstone. Everything should be going through him and Beal should be the Robin to his Batman. Instead, he only played 36 games and put up a fairly pedestrian 22 & 9. The number of games played is a huge issue, especially as he wasn�t dealing with some type of season-ending injury. But then to not be ready to dominate in the 40% of the games you do play in is just rough.

 

Draft Grades:

Chicago Bulls / B

Picks - 19, 50

Players - 19. Cameron Thomas, 50. Jason Preston

Two quality players here. Not surprising to see Thomas jump a bunch of his peers here with his sound Summer League performance. He could very well turn out to be a steal of this draft, or get stuck in the rotation behind the three headed dragon at Brooklyn. As for Preston, the irony is that he was getting roasted on air by all the hosts of the draft, then to be drafted by Merencio. That made me laugh, but i do think he could be something. Let's wait and see. 

The Future:

The Bulls have the thing that is the very hardest to get � two true star players to build around. Depending upon where you�re at with John Wall, maybe he�s that third guy and they�re just at a place of continuing to try to fill in role players around those three and find the right combination. The team has huge salary issues, and paying Wall more than $90 mil over this season and next really holds them back from putting those pieces in place. The other 5 of their top 8 players are all UFA, and I think they can manage to bring back 3. But with no money to spend and no big-time prospect ready to burst into the starting lineup in short order, they�re in an interesting spot.

If they can manage to bring everybody back, their lineup looks pretty solid though:

C: Hassan Whiteside (UFA) / Javale McGee (UFA) / Cody Zeller (UFA)
PF: Anthony Davis / Nicolas Claxton / Kessler Edwards
SF: Naji Marshall / Chandler Hutchinson
SG: Bradley Beal / Louis Williams (UFA) / Isaiah Joe
PG: John Wall / Patrick Mills (UFA) / Cameron Thomas