The Chicago Bulls are past the point of debating the Alex Caruso-for-Josh Giddey deal. That trade is in the books, the front office that made it is gone, and the franchise is building for what comes next. The real question now is whether Giddey belongs in that next phase at all.
Chicago should move him. Not because he hasn’t improved, but because his game asks for too much of the offense and leaves too little room for the Bulls’ young core to breathe.
The roster is supposed to be built around Caleb Wilson and Matas Buzelis, with Norman Powell serving as a mentor. Giddey’s style doesn’t line up with that plan.
There’s no getting around how lopsided the original swap looks. Chicago sent out an elite role player in Caruso for a bigger guard who had just been benched in the playoffs.
Caruso went on to help the Oklahoma City Thunder win the title in 2025, then helped them reach the conference finals in 2026. Giddey, meanwhile, has seen his jumper improve, but the Bulls have missed the playoffs in both of his seasons in Chicago.
That’s why the focus has to shift. The Bulls can’t get a do-over, and they shouldn’t spend more energy trying to salvage the optics of a deal they can’t undo. The only sensible move is to stop looking backward and start clearing the runway for the players who are supposed to matter most.
Giddey’s numbers tell you why this is a tricky fit. He made 37.1 percent of his 561 3-point attempts since the trade, and he hit 5.2 long-range tries per game last season.
That’s real progress from deep. But the bigger issue is still how much the offense bends around him.
Last season, Giddey posted a 24.4 usage percentage, trailing only Coby White and Collin Sexton on the Bulls. Both of those players did it in fewer than 30 games.
Giddey played 54. The 6’7 guard averaged 17.0 points, 9.1 assists, and 8.3 rebounds per game, but the production came with diminishing returns.
The team numbers weren’t pretty, either. Chicago had a minus-3.3 net rating with Giddey on the floor last season. Its defensive rating was 119.3, and the Bulls were 1.6 points per 100 possessions worse when the 23-year-old played.
That’s the problem in a nutshell: Giddey needs the ball to matter, and the Bulls are trying to build something bigger than one high-usage creator. Even if he develops into an All-Star, that doesn’t solve the larger roster issue. His best version still doesn’t naturally push this team toward contender status.
The new direction has to be about Wilson and Buzelis. Wilson flashed enough in summer league to make a case that he could be the best player in this loaded draft class. At 6’10, he has the kind of talent Chicago should be nurturing into a star, with room to create off the dribble and grow his game.
Buzelis is already on that path. In year two, he expanded as a scorer, rebounder, and defender.
That’s exactly the sort of growth the Bulls want to keep seeing. But development only works when the minutes and possessions are there, and Giddey can swallow a lot of both.
That’s where the fit breaks down. Chicago can’t let Giddey and Powell dominate the offense if the goal is to accelerate the young forwards.
The Bulls need Wilson and Buzelis to make mistakes, experiment, and take over more of the floor. Giddey’s ball-dominant style makes that harder, not easier.
The larger truth is that the Arturas Karnisovas era is over in Chicago. The Bulls have made enough regrettable moves already.
They don’t need to spend another season trying to defend one of them. They need to build from the ground up, and that means making the uncomfortable choice to move on from Giddey before he blocks the path to what’s next.
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Bulls Preseason Opener Already Puts Their Rebuild Under Pressure
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Chicago also moved quickly to address its depth, bringing in Jordan Hawkins to fill the last roster spot. The early injuries only sharpen the pressure on a team trying to make its rebuild look like progress, and the next few days will say plenty about how much the Bulls can learn before the games start counting for real. [Read more 🡒]