The Bulls’ next roster move may not need to be flashy to matter. With 14 active main roster contracts in place Wednesday, and the pending official arrivals of Norman Powell and Nic Claxton factored in, Chicago’s most obvious hole in this 2026 offseason rebuild is still the same one it’s been: shooting.
That’s why Jett Howard deserves real consideration for the 15th spot. If the Bulls use their mid-level exception to round out the roster, Howard fits as both a shooting bet and an upside swing. Chicago could have access to either the $9.4 million room exception as a cap space team or the $15 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception for teams operating over the cap and under apron restrictions, and Howard looks like the kind of player worth targeting with that kind of flexibility.
Howard is now on track to hit unrestricted free agency in 2026 after finishing his rookie-scale contract with the Orlando Magic at the end of the 2025-26 NBA season. Orlando declined the team option for the 2026-27 season, which set him up to reach the market.
The fit starts with the frame. Howard stands 6’8” and weighs 215 pounds, a physical profile that lines up with the Bulls’ emphasis on positional size, something lead front office executive Bryson Graham has described as a roster-building priority.
There’s also a bit of draft-day symmetry here. Howard would be a Bulls addition with a strange kind of full-circle feel, since Orlando used the draft pick that became him after acquiring it in the Nikola Vucevic trade with Chicago at the 2021 deadline. That deal sent Vucevic to the Bulls along with multiple first-round picks, center Wendell Carter Jr., and forward Otto Porter Jr.
And if Howard ended up in Chicago, it would add another layer to that old connection, since Vucevic is set to return to the Orlando Magic as a 2026 unrestricted free agent.
Howard’s first three NBA seasons haven’t exactly jumped off the page, but that’s not really the point here. The appeal is less about what he already is and more about what he could become with the right development path.
The shooting résumé is what keeps him interesting. In his lone college season at Michigan, Howard hit 36.8% of his threes on 7.3 attempts per game during the Wolverines’ 2022-23 season, according to Sports Reference. That kind of volume never fully carried over to the NBA, where his career average sits at 2.7 three-point attempts per game, according to Basketball Reference.
Still, there was a real step forward in his final season with Orlando. In 55 regular-season games during the 2025-26 campaign, Howard shot 37.2% from three.
For the Bulls, the idea would be simple: take a shot on a young wing with size, see whether his career 7.5 three-point attempts per 36 minutes can grow into a bigger role, and find out if he can keep enough efficiency to be a real floor-spacer.
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