Norman Powell arrived in Chicago with a résumé that gives the Bulls something they badly need: a grown-up voice in a room full of young players. After 11 NBA seasons and a first All-Star year, Powell isn’t just another veteran stopgap. He’s one of only two players on the roster older than 28, alongside newly acquired Buddy Hield, and that makes his presence especially important for a team that will spend plenty of time teaching on the fly.
Powell said he’s ready for that role.
“I’m excited to be that vet leader and help shape these guys,” Powell said. “Not only just leading by example, but talking to them, learning more about who they are individually, asking certain questions just to see where they’re at and what they want to get out of this season and what they want to get out of their career.”
He also brings more than experience. Powell signed with Chicago as a free agent after last season in Miami, and he should be one of the club’s most reliable perimeter threats. The Bulls will also lean on him in closing situations, where his shooting and poise fit neatly with the young core that’s supposed to define the franchise’s next phase.
Lottery pick Caleb Wilson already sounds eager to tap into that knowledge.
“Norm’s been in the league damn near half my life,” Wilson said. “So I feel like, if I’m gonna learn how to stay in the league, and I want to do that. I should ask him.”
Elsewhere in camp, Matas Buzelis says he’ll have “more freedom” this season, though he wasn’t eager to spell out exactly what that looks like. According to Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times, Buzelis felt last season that he may have launched too many three-pointers, but the new staff could be more open to letting him fire away from deep. Head coach Tiago Splitter sees the issue as one of shot selection and pace, not limitation.
“I like good threes,” Splitter said of Buzelis. “I think if he’s forcing threes that’s not a good thing.
I also don’t think that he cannot shoot mid-range. That’s not how I see it.
Now sometimes mid-range is a bad shot for that specific play, but you just got to be smart. I think he’s overthinking it a little bit.
Just play basketball.”
Buzelis and Wilson have already built a strong connection, even if that doesn’t soften things when they go at each other in scrimmages. Julia Poe of The Chicago Tribune reported that the two push each other hard because neither wants to coast through reps. Buzelis said the goal is simple: if they just “mess around” and let each other score, they won’t get better.
He also made clear how close the relationship is.
“He feels like my brother, bro,” Buzelis added. “I don’t know.
It’s like my twin. We’re very similar in the way we talk.
I remember watching some of his interviews and it just reminded me of how I was talking, how I was thinking. He’s very confident.
Sometimes you meet people and you just connect very easily.”
Noa Essengue is another young Bull drawing notice in camp. After a difficult Summer League showing in Las Vegas, the second-year big man has responded well and impressed Splitter in training camp, according to Elias Schuster of SI. Essengue said the message he got after Summer League was straightforward: stop pressing and trust his game.
“After Summer League, I talked a lot with Tiago and (executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham),” Essengue said. “They just told me to just play my game, play free both offensively and defensively … I just have to step up my game.”
In Other News...
Bulls Camp Is Already Changing How Fans Should See These Two Youngsters
The Bulls have wrapped up their first week of training camp, and the early returns have given the team a little more to work with when it comes to two young players trying to carve out roles. Head coach Tiago Splitter has pointed to noticeable growth across the roster, but second-year forward Noa Essengue has stood out for the kind of progress that can change how a prospect is viewed before the season even begins.
Essengues camp showing has looked different from his Summer League run, while Dailyn Swain is working through a bigger adjustment of his own as he settles into a lead-guard, distributor role. It is a meaningful shift for Swain after being used more as an ISO scorer at Texas, and the early stretch of camp suggests the Bulls are still sorting out just how quickly he can translate that change into real backcourt value. [Read more 🡒]
Bulls Have Better Uses For Pelicans Ties Than This Reunion
Bryson Grahams ties to New Orleans have already shown up once for the Bulls, with the Chicago executive helping bring in veteran shooter Buddy Hield, a player the Pelicans originally drafted. So when another former Pelicans connection surfaced this week, it was natural to wonder whether Chicago might have another angle to explore through that familiar pipeline.
Memphis waived Jordan Hawkins, the ex-Pelicans first-round pick, but the fit in Chicago does not appear likely. Hawkins was a prolific college shooter at UConn, yet he has not carried that success into the NBA, and the Bulls are looking for more immediate help than another reclamation project. For now, the more relevant takeaway is that Grahams New Orleans background can still be useful, just probably not in this particular case. [Read more 🡒]