The Chicago Bulls will have a ton of salary cap space this offseason, and should go after Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler. He is expected to command a contract north of $25 million.
The Chicago Bulls will be looking to fill their center position. The 2025-26 season saw Nikola Vucevic, Jalen Smith and Zach Collins start as the center rotation, but a mid-season trade that sent Vucevic to the Boston Celtics saw Nick Richards, the aforementioned Smith and Guerschon Yabusele manning the five spot for Chicago post-trade deadline.
Chicago Bulls new Executive VP of Basketball Ops Bryson Graham will surely look into all of the top centers on the free agent market, including Utah Jazz shot-blocker extraordinaire Walker Kessler.
ESPN's Tim Bontemps recently stated that the Utah big man could command a pretty sizeable deal that would see him return to Utah.
As per usual for this era of NBA basketball, the sticker shock is probably strong when you hear Kessler commanding a salary of $25-$30 million per season, even more so considering he is coming off a torn labrum (left shoulder) injury that forced him to miss 77 games of the 2-256-26 season.
Kessler went down five games into the season averaging 14.4 PPG, 10.8 RPG, and 1.8 BPG. The 1.8 blocks per game were the lowest of his career, and likely would have perked up seeing as he has never averaged less than 2.3 BPG over a full season.
The Chicago Bulls probably won't be able to pry Kessler away from the Jazz, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.
Kessler isn't necessarily the player you think of in terms of up-tempo offense or rim-running, but the Bulls won't find a better shot-blocker on the market. Chicago has an immense amount of salary cap space, and could afford to go after one of the top centers on the market while still bringing back Nick Richards for depth, as he was solid in his time here.
Richards and Smith were second and third respectively behind Matas Buzelis in block rate. Richards, specifically, seemed to have been brought to Chicago at the NBA Trade Deadline to give Josh Giddey and Buzelis the experience of playing with a rim-running, shot blocking big man.
The issue with that was that Richards, while being the archetype I described, is not a very effective version of that archetype.
Richards is a rim-runner, but has a world of trouble holding on to passes. He possesses solid athleticism and can clearly block shots (1.4 blocks per 36 minutes over the 2025-26 season), yet per Cleaning The Glass, the Chicago defense was 1.2 points per possession worse with Richards on the floor.
Richards goes for blocks, but doesn't do a great job of keeping active bigs off of the offensive glass. In layman's terms, opponents know they have opportunities for second-chance points when Richards is on the floor. Kessler flashed that same issue in his limited action this season, but didn't have that problem throughout his career otherwise. In his limited action over the 2025-26 season, the Jazz defense was a whopping 6.8 points per possession better with Kessler on the floor (per Cleaning The Glass).
Chicago is essentially entering this offseason with a blank canvas, and throwing money at the best rim protector on the market despite Utah's preference to keep him, could prove to be a masterful stroke.
