D’Angelo Russell is suddenly available, but that doesn’t mean the Bulls need to be in a hurry to grab him.
On Friday, the Memphis Grizzlies waived the guard as part of a move to trim the roster ahead of the start of the 2026-27 NBA regular season, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. That sent Russell into unrestricted free agency and, naturally, raised the question of whether Chicago should use its final active roster spot on him.
At first glance, the idea has some appeal. Russell is an 11-year NBA veteran who’s been through the kind of roster churn a rebuilding team tends to live with. He spent time with the post-Kobe Bryant and pre-LeBron James Los Angeles Lakers from 2015 to 2017, then moved on to the pre-Kevin Durant & Kyrie Irving Brooklyn Nets from 2017 to 2019.
But the Bulls are not exactly starving for experience. Norman Powell is there, Nic Claxton is hopefully healed, and Zach Collins remains one of the more familiar pieces from the Zach LaVine trade return. Chicago already has veteran presence in the room, which takes some of the shine off the argument that Russell solves a leadership problem.
The bigger question is whether he helps on the floor. That’s where the case gets a lot shakier.
Russell has never been shy about firing from deep. Over his NBA career, he averages 6.8 three-point attempts per game.
There was a stretch when that volume came with real efficiency, too. In five combined seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, he shot 37.6% from three.
Across four seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, he hit 36.6%.
But the recent numbers tell a different story. Over his last 84 NBA regular-season games with the Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn Nets, and Dallas Mavericks, stretching through the end of the 2025-26 season, Russell shot just 30.9% from three on 5.6 attempts per game.
He can still rack up assists, and he has long fit the mold of a point guard who can also function as a secondary creator next to a true lead option like LeBron James. The problem is that if Chicago asked him to run point, the spacing issues around him would make that setup look a lot like Josh Giddey before he was traded to the Bulls and found his off-ball three-point shot.
Russell’s game has always been built behind the arc, which also means he doesn’t often bring the kind of guard physicality that has become more common in paint-touch heavy players like Cade Cunningham, Stephon Castle, or TJ McConnell.
For Russell to be a useful NBA piece at this stage, the three-ball has to fall at an above-average rate. Without that, the Bulls would be adding a player who doesn’t really solve a need as they work through their rebuild.
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