The Chicago Bulls need to continue to focus on bringing in as much young talent as they can to fully complete their latest rebuild.
The Chicago Bulls are in an intriguing spot, perhaps the best spot for a rebuilding team with a newly installed vice president of basketball operations in Bryson Graham. They jumped up five spots in the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery to the 4th overall spot. This allowed Graham and the Bulls to select North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson at No. 4, giving the new regime their first hand-picked franchise cornerstone, with 15th overall pick Dylan Swain representing their second.
Graham and Co. will have an intriguing and young group to evaluate. Playmaker extraordinaire Josh Giddey and big-time shot-blocker Matas Buzelis joins Wilson and Swain to make up the majority of the Bulls young core moving forward. Other players could be included in that group, such as young forward Leonard Miller and recent 2025 1st round pick Noa Essengue, but Giddey, Buzelis, Wilson and Swain are the big four.
This leads into what I feel will be of the utmost importance to the Bulls in 2027: collecting multiple 1st round picks.
Having multiple bites at the apples--especially in the first round--is not something that the Bulls have accomplished routinely.
The Bulls No. 4 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft was their own, but the 15th overall pick they used to select Swain out of Texas was actually a lottery-protected Portland Trail Blazers pick that made its way to Chicago via the Lauri Markkanen-Derrick Jones Jr.-Larry Nance Jr. trade in 2021.
Only time will tell how fruitful that swap was for the Bulls, but the idea was a sound one. Netting the lottery-protected 1st was one of the few completely-logical-on-paper transactions from previous VP of Basketball Op Arturas Karnisovas. Now it is time for Graham to craft his version of such a deal.
Amid a much improved East, there are reasonable avenues for the Bulls to fall into the dreaded "relegation zone," which gives you reduced odds at the No. 1 overall pick. To be exact, teams drop to a 5.4% chance at the top pick if they finish as one of the three worst teams in the league by record.
Meanwhile, the non-playoff/play-in teams that finish in the 4-10 range in terms of worst records receive 8.1% odds to grab the top overall pick in the draft. The Bulls have been accustomed to finishing exactly in that 4-10 sweet spot as a constant fixture in the play-in from 2023-to-2025, but that will be a more difficult task this season with all the change in the East.
On top of a deeper and improved Eastern Conference around them, Chicago will be dealing with the normal growing pains of a team led by four players under 25 years of age. This is why I believe acquiring draft picks for veterans is perhaps the most important thing for the Bulls this season outside of internal development.
The opportunity should present itself. Bryson Graham did a great job of signing Norman Powell--coming off of his first All-Star season--to a team-friendly deal, acquiring Nic Claxton for relatively little in a trade, and swapping unproven guard Rob Dillingahm for unexciting, but stable sharpshooter Buddy Hield.
Powell, Claxton and Hield all have skill-sets that aid the Bulls' young core, but should also allow them to shine as well in context of the team setup. Claxton gets a fresh start and a PG who should provide lobs and easy scoring opportunities. Hield and Powell are shooters on a team full of lanky, drive-first athletes who will need their shooting to provide the necessary space for them to attack.
It is obviously a big "if," but if the Bulls can swap some of their veterans for picks, they will be in an even better spot heading into a murky 2027 NBA Draft. Kansas-bound forward Tyran Stokes currently projects as the No. 1 pick, but there is a litany of explosive freshman guards who will make a strong case as the NCAA season ramps up.
On top of the big freshman names like Stokes, Jordan Smith Jr. (Arkansas), and Bruce Branch III (BYU), there is a solid number of returning players who have a chance to jump high in the order amid a class that is projected to be worse than 2026. Players like UConn sophomore Braylon Mullins, and Florida Gators senior Thomas Haugh have a chance to be Day 1 NBA rotation players even if they don't necessarily project as franchise players.
If Chicago wants to stay on the right track in their rebuild, Bryson Graham ironically needs to take a page out of Karnisovas' book and swing a trade for additional draft assets. Thankfully for Graham, he has better ingredients and is being asked to make the same meal.
