The Chicago Bulls pushed all their chips on the table two years ago, forming a new-look core and ending their rebuild. They traded for Nikola Vucevic at the deadline and followed up that move by signing DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso the following summer, solidifying Chicago’s push for the postseason.
And while they got off to a head start in the 2021-22 season, Chicago quickly fell apart, as Ball went down with an injury 35 games into his Bulls career and hasn’t been back on the court since. In his absence, the Bulls have only won a single playoff game over the course of two years.
According to Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report, the Bulls “should consider” trading Ball in favor of getting the most out of their current core.
“As sad as it is to acknowledge, he’s mostly a question mark at this point, which is hard on the Chicago Bulls as well. He’s their third-highest paid player and has a $21.4 million player option for 2024-25.
If he returns to 85-90 percent of his healthy self for that campaign, great. But the Bulls can’t bank on that.
Instead, if the trio of DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević has the Bulls in the playoff hunt, they probably need to see what they can get for Ball’s contract as salary filler,” Bailey wrote.
He also noted that a team looking to tank could be willing to take on Ball’s salary and send back win-now assets.
“A team more concerned with pingpong balls in the lottery than wins in the standings may be willing to send a difference-maker to the Bulls for Ball and a draft asset,” Bailey wrote.
Ball is the perfect fit for this Bulls team, but he just can’t get healthy, and Chicago doesn’t have time to wait.
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