The Chicago Bulls tried their best to become one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference when they acquired Nikola Vucevic, Alex Caruso, Lonzo Ball, and DeMar DeRozan in 2021. Their experiment worked when everyone was healthy, with the Bulls holding the No. 1 seed in December 2021. However, injuries led to the team slinking away from competitiveness to being stuck in the Play-In tournament for the last two seasons.
The Bulls want to be competitive but haven’t had the good fortune necessary to build a contender. They’re expected to tank this season after losing DeMar DeRozan and trading Alex Caruso, but they still have the nucleus of a roster that can be competitive. Instead of doing what everybody expects and selling their players for picks, the Bulls could make a surprising win-now trade by acquiring versatile wings from the Washington Wizards.
Trade Details
Chicago Bulls Receive: Kyle Kuzma, Saddiq Bey
Washington Wizards Receive: Patrick Williams, Jevon Carter, 2030 First-Round Pick (CHI)
Kuzma has proven himself capable of being a featured star on a tanking team, with this trade allowing him to be the same for a team looking to win games. Most contenders interested in Kuzma will want him to accept a role as a rotational forward, but this deal allows Kuzma to show how much his game has advanced by being the piece that turns the Bulls into a winner.
The Chicago Bulls Continue Trying To Win Now
The Bulls have been hard-done with injury luck in recent seasons which have nuked every year they tried to be a winning team. It started with the untimely injuries to Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso in 2021-22 and continued with Zach LaVine last season. With the trade market for LaVine expected to be bleak, the Bulls might be better off trying to make a win-now trade to take advantage of the weak East toward the bottom of the Conference.
Kuzma averaged 22.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.2 assists last season, establishing himself as a capable scorer on a tanking team. He’s a proven defensive asset and has played a big role on a championship-winning Lakers squad in 2020. The Bulls offer him an opportunity to be a featured star on a team with winning intentions, supplemented by LaVine’s scoring and Josh Giddey’s playmaking.
Saddiq Bey averaged 13.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists last season, still carrying injury concerns from his torn ACL a few years ago. He’s a solid 3-and-D wing option to have on the squad for depth and has shown a tendency to get hot and be a difference-making player.
Both of these players could add the winning element to the Bulls roster they’ve lacked in recent seasons and make them competitive in the East once again. This is a massive bet on Kuzma specifically being a productive player for a winning team, but if the Bulls can keep Kuzma’s numbers high and add wins, this would be a steal deal for them.
The Wizards Focus On Rebuilding
The Wizards are going to tank to the bottom of the Eastern Conference once again to try and land one of the many incredible prospects in the 2025 Draft. They’ve made moves to that same effect, trading young forward Deni Avdija away this summer. With a focus on developing young stars like Bub Carrington, Alexandre Sarr, and Bilal Coulibaly, Kuzma might hinder their growth rather than help it.
Patrick Williams would be a great young forward for the Wizards to add to their young core. He averaged 10.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.5 assists last season, promising to be a supremely talented defender who can stretch the floor. He could form a vicious defensive duo with Coulibaly and be a building block for the Wizards going forward.
Similar to how the Bulls are taking a bet on Kuzma, the Wizards will be doing the same while hoping Williams can live up to the All-Defensive potential the Bulls selected him No, 4 overall in 2020. Getting a Bulls first-round pick could be a huge return for the Wizards given the inconsistency the Bulls have shown when it comes to building a winning team.
The last first-round pick they gave away in a trade turned out to be Franz Wagner on the Orlando Magic, so the Wizards will hope the Bulls experiment fails and they can be the biggest beneficiaries of it.
The Bulls Take A Massive Risk For Success
Kuzma could be a game-changer for the Bulls, bringing offensive panache and defensive stability with him as an elite 3-and-D forward. He’s mocked by fans for his lowlights, but there’s no doubt that Kuzma has developed into a highly productive NBA player over the last three seasons. The Bulls can directly benefit from that development if they take this risk.
There are more winning players on the Bulls roster right now than young prospects, so it’s in their interest to try and continue competing until contracts such as Nikola Vucevic and Zach LaVine are more tradeable. Young players like Josh Giddey and Coby White also can be win-now players already while providing hope for the future as well.
The 28-year-old Kuzma and Saddiw Bey will be risky bets for the Bulls, but running out a roster with them alongside guards like White, Giddey, Ayo Dosunmu, the returning Lonzo Ball, LaVine, Vucevic, summer signing Jalen Smith, and 2024 draft pick Matas Buzelis could lead to success instantly for the Bulls. Instead of tanking to be the 11th or 12th seed in the East, this deal could give the Bulls what they need to make a push to the top six and return to the Playoffs.
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