Even as the true contenders of the NBA square off in the Conference Finals, the Chicago Bulls are in the midst of the 2025 offseason. The best season for the Bulls, if we’re being honest. It’s the only season they have a chance at winning. It’s also the time of year fans can pretend there is a sliver of hope left for this listless franchise.
Is that too bleak? Probably, but as I watch Tyrese Haliburton (a player the Bulls should have drafted) power the Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals, as I watch Tom Thibodeau (a coach the Bulls dismissed after a winning season) exhaust the Knicks to those same EC Finals, I can’t help but be a little pessimistic about the Chicago Bulls. They are a terribly unserious organization.
But it’s the Offseason! And that is a time of Hope and Renewal, or something like that. And I, like most Bulls fans, am expecting a very “busy” offseason for Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley.
Here’s the to do list:
- Figure out this draft pick.
- Sign Josh Giddey and any other Free Agents
- Sort the roster out
First on the list is figuring out what to do with the 12th overall pick in the draft. Trade up? Trade back? Package Nikola Vucevic, one of the plethora of guards on the roster, and/or Patrick Williams with #12 to move up in the draft? It seems like there are some teams picking in front of the Bulls that are open for business, why not get something done?
Is there a player that won’t slide to the Bulls at 12, that the front office absolutely must have? Khaman Maluach, Derik Queen, or Asa Newell? Are they worth trading up for?
Is there a value player available later in the draft that you can give up your pick for? Thomas Sorber, Rasheer Fleming, or Cedric Coward? What else can you get in a trade back?
Ultimately, these questions will be moot, because we know what will happen with the Chicago Bulls and the 12th overall pick. AK will hem and haw from now until the Bulls are on the clock. There will be a ton of rumors about them moving the pick, with Vucevic or Williams attached, but none of that will materialize, and the Bulls will end up picking someone like Kasparas Jakucionis or Egor Denim, because they fit the AK Type.
Great! We’re done with the first check list of the Bulls Offseason. Welcome to Chicago, Kasparas Jakucionis. On to signing Josh Giddey.
Reports have already surfaced that Josh Giddey is looking for $150 million dollars over 5 years. Regardless of whether or not you think he deserves that kind of money, that’s what he’s asking for. Based on how the season ended for the Bulls I think it’s obvious that they want to re-sign Giddey, but are there any other teams interested in him?
Based on the current salary cap restrictions, there are less than a handful of teams that can offer Giddey anything even close to what he’s looking for in his next contract: The Brooklyn Nets, the Detroit Pistons, and the Chicago Bulls. No other team in the league, at this point in time (I guess there could be some draft night shenanigans that open up some cap space for teams), can offer Giddey $30 million a year for 5 years.
The Bulls have a lot of leverage. Josh Giddey is a restricted free agent. The Bulls can match any offer he receives in free agency. Giddey is unlikely to receive any interest from the Detroit Pistons. They are working on building around Cade Cunningham, and I’m not sure Giddey fits their plans. Brooklyn might be a threat to offer Giddey a large contract, they have the most financial flexibility of any NBA team, and they are at the very beginning of a rebuild. If Brooklyn decides Giddey is the young but experienced point guard they need to help develop a bunch of NBA prospects, they might overpay to get him on their squad.
If I was running the Bulls, I would let Giddey test free agency. If he gets any offers, they could be matched. If he doesn’t receive any offers, then you can probably negotiate a slightly more team friendly deal. But what will the Bulls actually do?
While there is some precedence for the front office playing hardball in free agency (i.e. see the recent Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White contracts), I’m fully expecting AK to sign Giddey to a contract worth $150 million over 5 years, with the 5th year being a player option. Sure, there has been some history of hardball, but there has also been a more recent precedence set of the front office bidding against themselves and overpaying for players no one else is interested in (i.e. Patrick Williams and Nikola Vucevic).
So, we’ve knocked out the second item on our offseason to do list. Get comfortable Josh Giddey, you’re going to be in Chicago awhile! But it should be pretty easy to live comfortably on $30 million a year. Now all we have to do this offseason is sort the roster.
This is the easiest part of the offseason, because it’s pretty much already sorted. The Bulls only have three players that are free agents this offseason, meaning 3 open roster spots to fill: Josh Giddey, Talen Horton-Tucker, and Tre Jones.
The Bulls will re-sign Josh Giddey (two open rosters spots to fill). They will have to sign whoever they pick in the draft, I’m assuming they’ll keep the 12th pick (one open roster spot left to fill) and they do have a second rounder (#45 overall) which will probably be a 2-way G-League contract. So when the dust settles, they could have 1 open roster spot to fill, and not a lot of cap space to use on it.
While the Bulls would love to re-sign Tre Jones, his play post all-star break and unrestricted free agency has probably made him too expensive for that to happen. It would be much easier and cheaper to keep THT around, or go out and find someone in the same pay range as THT. But the most likely option is that the Bulls keep it simple and offer their 2nd round draft pick a regular NBA contract. And there you go, all 15 roster spots sorted. They re-sign Giddey, replace Jones with their 1st round pick, and replace THT with their 2nd. The Bulls are running it back and keeping their books clean for the big time free agency class of 2026!
Hooray! We’ve taken care of the Bulls offseason 2025! The Best Season! Love that continuity!
*sigh*
Until it all plays out the way we know it will, thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, and GO BULLS!
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