Isaac Okoro spent part of his 2026 offseason behind a camera, and one of the clips he shared offered a look at a Bulls group gathering in Miami for an informal training camp.
Okoro’s vlog, which began in August 2026 and is mostly built around lighthearted personal updates, included footage of several Bulls teammates together during the trip. The players visible in the vlog were forward Caleb Wilson, guard Jaylin Sellers, forward Matas Buzelis, guard Norman Powell, forward Patrick Williams, guard Rob Dillingham, forward Noa Essengue, guard Tre Jones, guard Josh Giddey, forward Jalen Smith, forward Leonard Miller, and center Zach Collins.
The optics are easy to like. A roster with plenty of new faces and unfamiliar relationships spending 72 hours together in Miami looks, at least on the surface, like the kind of thing that can help a team settle in before the 2026-27 NBA preseason. But whatever that bonding may or may not produce will only get answered where it counts: on a 94-foot court with an NBA regulation basketball.
There’s nothing wrong with team-building exercises. In a setup like this Bulls group, they can make sense. Still, the league has a way of stripping away the glow fast, and the Bulls have already seen how far off the floor those feel-good moments can be.
Back in the 2023-24 season, at the urging of former front office leaders Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley, the Bulls held an out-of-town training camp in Nashville, TN to open preseason. The presentation was strong, the camaraderie looked real, and the whole thing seemed to land exactly as intended. Then the regular season started.
Chicago’s first game was a 20-point loss to a then-ascending Oklahoma City Thunder team, and the shine from Nashville didn’t survive the night. That defeat was followed by reports of a players-only meeting after just one game, a sharp reminder that good vibes don’t stop a bad roster from looking like one. The season eventually ended the way it had often looked headed, with a play-in tournament loss to the Miami Heat.
The lesson for Bryson Graham, who replaced Karnisovas, is straightforward. If the Bulls are going to turn things around, the priority has to be building a roster with real upside talent and actual cohesion.
If that group also likes video games and burritos, fine. But the Bulls are not going anywhere until the talent level rises.
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