The Chicago Bulls have some big-time decisions to make about their future, but none are particularly dramatic. The Bleacher Report staff recently ranked all 30 teams by how drama-filled their offseason is shaping up to be, and they placed the Bulls in 20th place (the fourth tier among all squads).
“Normal teams in the Chicago Bulls’ situation would be a notch or 12 higher up these chaos rankings,” wrote Dan Favale. “These Bulls, as we know, are not a normal team. DeMar DeRozan, their best player, turns 35 in August and is scheduled to hit free agency. Patrick Williams is headed for restricted free agency on the heels of left foot surgery. Andre Drummond, an Early Bird free agent, is due for a raise. While possible, re-signing everyone would probably vault Chicago into the luxury tax. That’s not an acceptable outcome for a 39-win core. And that should drum up the pandemonium potential one way or another.
“Do the Bulls burn it down? Let DeRozan walk or move him in a sign-and-trade? Deal Zach LaVine, even though he’s at the nadir of his market value coming off right foot surgery that ended his season? Will they look to capitalize on Alex Caruso’s remaining trade mystique as he heads into the final year of his contract? Or could the Bulls go the other way completely and attempt to quadruple down on what’s already in place with a blockbuster swing? They owe a top-10-protected pick to San Antonio in 2025, but they have the contracts, future firsts and unimpressive vibes that inflate the value of those firsts to do something substantial (reckless?). Once more, though, these are the Bulls. So we already know how this ends: with their embracing action somewhere between nuclear and nothing, preserving their place inside the Eastern Conference pecking order above the Charlottes and the Washingtons but below the line of mediocrity.
“Am I taking such a hardline stance in hopes it acts as a reverse jinx and Chicago, at long last, injects a little lot of much-needed chaos into its banal existence? Who’s to say, really?
The Bulls should get busy, but will they?
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