In a few short hours, our Chicago Bulls will officially tip off their third roster rebuild, under their third front office regime, since their traumatically insane 2017 trade of Jimmy Butler, in his absolute prime at age 28.
Chicago has made the playoffs exactly once since that moment. Butler, meanwhile, has made two Finals as his team’s best player. The Bulls are also on their fourth head coach in Tiago Splitter. And their new top front office mind, having already auctioned off his second-round picks this past summer, is explicitly embracing the concept of a “rebuild” season — with a likely lottery-bound run.
So why do I have this weird spring in my step while I gear up for Wednesday’s regular season opener against the Toronto Raptors?
GAME ONE.? @CHSN_Bulls ? @thescorechicago pic.twitter.com/9KK4wvGFgH
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) October 21, 2026Because Splitter and new executive vice president of basketball operations appear to have picked a real direction and style around their two core future All-Star players (hopefully), rookie forward Caleb Wilson and third-year forward Matas Buzelis.
This year’s games feel like they’re actually going to mean something. Between Wilson, Buzelis, and young pieces Josh Giddey, Dailyn Swain, Leonard Miller, and Noa Essengue — none of whom are yet 25 — the Bulls have a clear, exciting, development-focused season ahead.
Chicago Bulls rookie Caleb Wilson.How to Grade the Bulls’ Season on a Curve
2026-27 should serve as a great table-setting year for the Bulls’ new front office and coaching staff to thoroughly evaluate what the team has. There is a pretty clear positional and skill set overlap between Wilson, Buzelis, Miller, and Essengue — and maybe lost cause Patrick Williams —but that doesn’t really matter. These are swings. Not everyone will hit.
And not everyone will be on this team, growing together, even three years from now.
We need to temper expectations in the win-loss column. Can the Bulls overtake BetMGM’s projected win total over/under of 29.5 (hit that over, baby)? Absolutely, especially if the club’s pair of $20 million-plus vets Norman Powell and Nicolas Claxton can suit up for at least 65 games and end the season still on the team.
Powell and Claxton should at least be fun, competent players for whom fans can easily root. Still, Graham did kind of punt the team’s cap space this year in the service of bringing aboard fill-in options to raise Chicago’s floor. He did not take the kind of blockbuster swing other clubs did to bring aboard restricted free agents (specifically Jalen Duren, Walker Kessler, Peyton Watson, and Bennedict Mathurin) with high long-term ceilings whose aging timelines would have been better aligned with the Bulls’ youth movement.
Fans should grade this team on a curve. The Bulls’ projected top eight — starters Giddey, Powell, Buzelis, Wilson, and Claxton; plus top bench cogs Tre Jones, Jalen Smith, and Miller — should be fun to watch and at least be good enough to beat the league’s absolute dregs and help the team avoid the dreaded new relegation zone of a bottom-four record.
Speaking of the Bulls’ bench, it will behoove Splitter to give Swain and Essengue real run when possible.
The impulse might be to trot out solid veteran shooting guards Isaac Okoro and/or Buddy Hield as the Bulls’ ninth and tenth men. They are better players, right now, than Swain and Essengue — but far less critical to the team’s future. At least Okoro is, like his fellow 2020 lottery pick Patrick Williams, only 26. But Swain and Essengue have these appetizing ceilings, and are on cheap, team-controlled deals. The Bulls need to, if anything, overplay that dynamic duo and give them long enough leashes so that they can play through inevitable mistakes as they learn the NBA.
Thanks to health issues for Claxton and unnecessary $17 million re-signing Zach Collins, it seems likely that at least Essengue will be pressed into regular rotation service at some point — perhaps sooner than later. Given that Chicago is headed nowhere fast, the Bulls need to make sure these fringier young guns do get some significant run.
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