Bryson Graham’s first notable move in charge was simple enough: trade for Buddy Hield and give the Bulls a different look than the one they’d been running with before. That deal, swapping Rob Dillingham for Hield, marked a clear break from the old front office approach and showed Graham was willing to act quickly to address a roster issue.
Now comes the next step. With the Bulls already having announced their finalized 2026-27 training camp roster and media day set for two days later, Graham made that move in the middle of a busy NCAA college football Saturday. The message was hard to miss: this front office is not going to sit still.
The Hield trade also peeled away one more player who fit the previous regime’s habit of chasing former lottery names like Josh Giddey, Jaden Ivey, and Isaac Okoro. And with Dillingham gone, there’s room for Graham to keep chipping away at the roster and clearing out the Karnisovas-era holdovers that don’t fit the future of the rebuild, which starts with Caleb Wilson.
Isaac Okoro should be next. The Bulls brought him in after the 2025 NBA offseason trade that sent Lonzo Ball to the Cleveland Cavaliers, a move that ended up producing Okoro as the return. Karnisovas sold him as a piece who could help spark a new defensive identity and bring more physicality.
That never showed up in the results. During the 2025-26 NBA season, the Bulls finished with a bottom-tier defense, and Okoro’s offense did nothing to change the equation.
He became the kind of player defenses didn’t bother worrying about from the perimeter, and the fit never worked. It is beyond time to cut bait on Okoro.
Noa Essengue is a different case, but the Bulls’ handling of him has become its own problem. After a rough run of games in the 2026 summer league exhibition in Las Vegas, he was benched. That alone should have been a strong enough message.
Instead, the situation kept spiraling, with reports leaking out that trashed Essengue during the rest of the offseason. The Bulls have made the point more than once. At this stage, the better move is to let him find his basketball way somewhere else that isn’t Chicago.
Leonard Miller is the last name on the list, and he’s the most complicated one. Some Bulls fans liked what he showed after the 2026 NBA trade deadline, and there may be something there. But that’s exactly why the Bulls should move him now instead of waiting to sort it out later.
The only untapped potential that really matters on this roster belongs to Caleb Wilson. Graham should be building around that and using the roster spots and minutes on players who actually support Wilson’s future, not on another flyer wing in the mold of the old front office.
In Other News...
Matas Buzelis Is Giving Bulls Fans A Real Reason To Believe
Matas Buzelis has become one of the clearer reasons for optimism around the Bulls after a first two NBA seasons that showed real growth on both ends of the floor. His scoring has ticked up, his defensive numbers have improved, and the overall efficiency has followed, giving Chicago something it has been looking for: a young player who can affect the game without needing everything built around him.
The encouraging part for the Bulls is how broad the progress has been. Buzelis is starting to look like a true two-way piece, with better perimeter defense, tougher assignments and sharper shot-making than he showed early on, even if the next step still depends on his consistency and physicality. For a team trying to identify a long-term cornerstone, that kind of development is enough to keep the ceiling conversation alive. [Read more 🡒]
Josh Giddey Faces A Defining Bulls Fit Test This Season
Josh Giddey is heading into his third season with the Bulls in 2026-27, and the timing matters because the organization is trying to reshape how it wants to play. With the front office and coaching staff pushing a faster offense built on pace and ball movement, Giddeys place in that system is no longer just about what he can do with the ball in his hands. It is about how well his game fits the direction Chicago is trying to take.
For Giddey, the next step may be less about proving he can run an offense and more about showing he can thrive inside one that asks for constant movement and quicker decisions. The Bulls are clearly treating this as a fit test as much as a talent test, and how he adapts could shape both his role and how far the teams new approach can go. [Read more 🡒]
Tre Jones Puts The Bulls Next Trade Decision Under Pressure
Tre Jones has already made himself one of the more useful movable pieces on the Bulls roster because of how cleanly his contract and production fit together. Chicago does not have to rush anything, but a player who can steady the backcourt and still carry real value around the league tends to become part of bigger conversations sooner rather than later, especially for a team that has to keep balancing present usefulness with future flexibility.
That is why his name keeps popping up in trade speculation with teams such as the Rockets, Mavericks and Warriors. Each would see a different kind of fit in Jones, and Chicago would have to decide whether the short-term stability he brings is worth more than what another club might put on the table before the 2027 trade deadline. It is the sort of decision that rarely stays simple for long, especially when a low-cost guard starts looking like the kind of asset contenders can justify chasing. [Read more 🡒]