The NBA’s free agency rush has mostly come and gone, but a few former Bulls are still out there waiting for the phone to ring.
Some of the names left on the board are familiar ones in Chicago: Nick Richards, Tony Bradley and Doug McDermott. Each brings a different resume, but all three are still searching for their next landing spot.
Richards is the most puzzling case. The backup center market has already handed out real money this summer, with Jock Landale, Jaxson Hayes, Mo Wagner and Quinten Post all landing deals well above the minimum. Richards, meanwhile, is still unsigned and doesn’t even seem to have a minimum-level market right now.
That’s hard to square with what he showed last season. After arriving in Chicago at the trade deadline, Richards put up 9.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 0.9 assists in 22.4 minutes per game.
He gave teams useful minutes as a rebounder and a steady scoring option around the rim, the kind of production that usually keeps a big man in the mix. There’s still a path to a guaranteed deal for next season, and Chicago could even be a possibility.
The Bulls have an open roster spot and need more center depth.
Bradley’s situation is different, but just as surprising. He’s another backup big man who has somehow slipped through the cracks in free agency, even though he logged rotation minutes for the Pacers in the NBA Finals just a year ago. Not long before that, he was part of Atlanta’s playoff rotation.
The production was never eye-popping in either spot, but Bradley has been on the radar as a backup center for a couple of years now. As teams get closer to filling out rosters and start looking for inexpensive depth, he may still find a home.
Bulls fans, though, probably don’t have much nostalgia here. Chicago brought him in to back up Nikola Vucevic before the 2021-22 season, and it didn’t work.
The Bulls had to sign Tristan Thompson mid-season, Bradley fell out of the rotation the next year, and Chicago waived him after the 2023 trade deadline.
McDermott is the most recognizable name of the bunch, and the one Chicago fans are likeliest to remember with a little more warmth. The 11th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, he came to the Bulls with real expectations as a possible long-term piece. He settled in as a rotation shooter and role player, but never developed into more than that.
After being traded to the Thunder, “Dougie McBuckets” carved out a solid NBA career anyway. He never became a starting forward, but he did enough to stick around as a dependable role player. The last two seasons in Sacramento were quieter, and now the 34-year-old is an unrestricted free agent.
He can still knock down shots, which gives him a chance to catch on somewhere as a veteran who can help a locker room and provide steady minutes. How much he has left, though, is the real question.
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For the Bulls, the interest is obvious because the center spot still needs reinforcement and Milwaukee may be looking for a cleaner way to balance its books. Chicago has a path to help make that happen by using its mid-level exception in a deal for a big man, and Jericho Sims is one name that fits the picture. Nothing is confirmed yet, but this is the sort of cap-driven opportunity that can turn a crowded roster elsewhere into a fix for a need the Bulls have been trying to address. [Read more 🡒]
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Bulls Fest is also expanding well beyond the main court, with a Wheelchair Basketball Division, a kids' zone packed with carnival games and charity challenges among the attractions listed on the team's official website. For Chicago, it is the kind of event that turns the arena district into a summer gathering place, giving fans a weekend-long reason to come together before the basketball calendar shifts back toward the season ahead. [Read more 🡒]