An influx of young talent and experienced veterans could make the Bulls surprise some skeptics this season.
No. 4 overall draft pick Caleb Wilson showed exactly what he was capable of in Las Vegas, earning First Team All-Summer League honors and exhibiting a surprising level of three-point accuracy. No. 15 overall pick Dailyn Swain and 2025 lottery selection Noa Essengue had mixed results but are still promising prospects. Matas Buzelis and Josh Giddey are on the doorstep of NBA stardom following miniature breakouts last season.
Then, there's All-Star guard Norman Powell, whom Chicago nabbed in free agency on a two-year, $44 million contract. The Bulls also landed veteran center Nic Claxton for virtually nothing in a three-team trade involving the Timberwolves and Nets, thanks to the franchise's ample cap space entering this summer.
New executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham has acquainted himself well during his first season at the helm. While Graham has admitted that Chicago's rebuild is a multi-year process, there's still a very good possibility that the Bulls will put a formidable product on the floor in the upcoming season.
Jun 17, 2026; Chicago, Il, USA; Chicago Bulls Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Bryson Graham (R) introduces new Chicago Bulls head coach Tiago Splitter (L) during a press conference at Advocate Center. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Still, the Bulls have doubters, and it's easy to see why. After being stuck in no man's land and the Play-In Tournament for much of the 2020s, Chicago pulled the plug on nearly everything from its previous era: Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Arturas Karnisovas, Marc Eversley, Billy Donovan and more.
Naturally, that would put the Bulls at ground zero of their rebuild, and in The Athletic's most recent NBA power rankings, that's exactly where they were. According to Law Murray, the Bulls are the 29th-best team in the league, ahead of only the Milwaukee Bucks.
"There’s enough change around the Bulls to suggest they might have a slow start," Murray wrote. "Then again, I expect this team to play fast, because that might be the only way some of these players get open and easy shots... I’d expect there to be a lot of points in Bulls games, especially for the opponents."
The Bulls will likely be a worse team than last season, but it may be a stretch to say they'll be the second-worst squad in the entire league.
Graham didn't build the roster this offseason like someone would in a traditional rebuild. Because of the NBA's new lottery rules, in which the bottom three teams are placed into a "relegation zone" with worse lottery odds, rebuilding teams are incentivized to end up near the middle of the standings. Graham went out and signed an All-Star in Powell, and the career 39.6% three-point shooter will undoubtedly raise his team's floor. Claxton is also a much better fit around the rest of Chicago's core than Vucevic.
If Wilson is as good as he looked this summer, he'd instantly vault the Bulls up the rankings. Teams like the Pelicans, Kings and Nets may have been in their rebuilds longer than Chicago, but Wilson's talent could have a higher ceiling than anyone on those three rosters.
With New Orleans, Sacramento, Brooklyn and Milwaukee stumbling over each other at the bottom of the league, Chicago should be able to avoid the relegation zone. That is, unless Graham decides to trade players like Powell, Jalen Smith, Tre Jones and Isaac Okoro at the deadline for future draft capital.
