Bulls need to start thinking differently about rebuild; look to trade

It’s still way too early to call the experiment a complete failure but it is time to start re-evaluating the thought behind it.

Not that the bottom-half teams of the NBA talent pool were wrong in the strategy on paper. However, as often in analytics and letting too many of the nerds in, paper doesn’t take into account human nature and feel.

It doesn’t fully weigh the competitive side of a Norman Powell.

The Bulls need to and soon.

Like a handful of franchises, the Bulls looked at the new 3-2-1 draft lottery system and realized finishing in the bottom three was now rolling snake eyes, while positions 4-10 were the sweet spot. The NBA wanted to discourage tanking so the first seven teams outside the bottom three have the best odds at the No. 1 pick. The bottom three have the same odds (5.4%) as play-in teams.

The other important caveat in the new system is a team cannot win the No. 1 overall pick in back-to-back seasons and can’t be in the top five three consecutive years.

It was the NBA saying, “OK, get in and get out.”

So the likes of the Bulls added an All-Star vet like Powell to make sure they were good-bad. Just as Brooklyn added a Julius Randle and held onto Michael Porter Jr., Sacramento kept veterans Zach LaVine and Domantas Sabonis, and Utah surprised everyone at the trade deadline by acquiring Jaren Jackson Jr. last February.

Bad teams that wanted a vet to keep them afloat outside the bottom three, and in Utah’s case maybe even higher.

Powell is more than just an organizational life preserver. Same with Randle. These are highly competitive vets that want to do the right thing but also need to get their numbers and keep themselves relevant on the trade market.

They understand the business of basketball.

So if Powell is taking questionable three-pointers early in the shot clock – the words of Bulls coach Tiago Splitter – don’t hate the player, hate the game front offices are trying to play.

Meanwhile, Memphis is playing the competitive basketball the Bulls, Kings, Jazz and Nets were hoping to play by simply having a former Sixth Man of the Year candidate in Ty Jerome supplement their two last top draft picks Cameron Boozer and Cedric Coward.

They’re not suffocating the youth movement by relying on an All-Star to act as a buoy.

To Powell’s credit, he is trying to balance helping the young guys get theirs but also get his own.

“We’ve got to do a better job of competing,” Powell said of the uncompetitive basketball being played in a 1-7 start. “We’ve got to have some heart out there, some mental toughness, some fortitude to bring a compete level. Teams are coming in, looking at us like it's lunch.”

And the Bulls have been making sure lunch is served. Almost daily.

What they now need to start wrapping their minds – and analytics department – around is come December, aggressively exploring new homes for Powell – first and foremost – as well as Isaac Okoro, Tre Jones and Jalen Smith.

This 2027 draft class is not worthy of chasing a No. 1 at the expense of clearing a better runway for Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis to develop. They need to take what they can get from it and position themselves in that 4-10 range for a more talented ’28 class. Then reassess where the rebuild is.

Better results are coming for the Bulls just with the schedule about to lighten up and veteran center Nic Claxton (hamstring) set to make his season debut on Sunday. That shouldn’t matter. Roster construction is not an exact science even though teams are dumping millions into a strategy department to try and tell them it is.

The NBA is still a player-first business.

In the case of the Bulls, that business needs to pick up.