The Bulls bet on Josh Giddey as part of their rebuild, but early in 2026-27, that call is starting to look shaky.
Chicago moved on from Ayo Dosunmu, Nikola Vucevic, and Coby White in 2025-26, and in doing so made Giddey the guard they wanted to build around instead of Dosunmu or White. That decision is now under the microscope, because Giddey and Caleb Wilson haven’t formed the kind of partnership the Bulls needed.
Wilson has held up well on his own for a rookie, but the support around him hasn’t made life easier. Giddey, despite being younger and more versatile offensively than Dosunmu and White, has not given Chicago the kind of steady scoring punch that takes pressure off a first-year centerpiece. Under new head coach Tiago Splitter, he still hasn’t found a groove as either a scorer or a teammate.
The biggest issue is simple: when the Bulls need someone to seize control, Giddey hasn’t done it. And the defensive concerns that followed him before are still there.
That doesn’t mean Dosunmu or White are flawless players, or that keeping either one would have been easy. Both were pending free agents, and both ended up re-signing with the teams they were traded to - clubs with more realistic postseason hopes than Chicago.
But if the Bulls had the chance to bring one of them back, the fit with Wilson looks a lot cleaner than what they have now.
Wilson has been the Bulls’ go-to scorer, leading the team with 19.1 points and 17.5 field goal attempts per game. For a rookie carrying that kind of load, help matters. Young players always run into a learning curve when they’re asked to score that much, and having another reliable option beside them can ease the pressure.
Giddey has helped some as a passer, but his own production hasn’t done much to lighten Wilson’s burden. He’s averaging 9.3 points and 9.0 field goal attempts per game, which doesn’t exactly force defenses to shift their attention away from the rookie.
Dosunmu, by contrast, is putting up 16.3 points per game for an injury-hit Minnesota Timberwolves team while shooting .513/.382/.800. He also carries a reputation as a plus defender, which would have made him a far more natural complement to Wilson.
White has been limited by a minutes restriction as he works back into the Charlotte Hornets’ rotation, but his scoring track record is already established. Over his past three completed seasons, he’s averaged 19.1 points while shooting .441/.370/.856.
Instead of pairing Wilson with a proven scorer who can handle tough possessions, Chicago has him working alongside a player who has been cautious, at best, on offense. That only increases the load on Wilson and makes his adjustment even tougher.
There’s value in letting a young player learn on the fly, but that doesn’t mean the Bulls couldn’t have kept Wilson in the same role while giving him a more helpful running mate in Dosunmu or White. And now the financial side makes the choice even harder to ignore.
Giddey is set to make $25 million per season over the next three years. Dosunmu will earn $22.4 million per year over the next five, while White will make roughly $24.67 million over the next three.
Maybe Giddey still turns the corner and proves the flashes he showed in 2025-26 were real. If he doesn’t, the Bulls won’t just have missed on a guard - they’ll have left Wilson with the wrong partner.
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Sellers has looked comfortable both as a scorer and as a creator, knocking down shots from deep while also setting up teammates in the flow of the offense. For the Bulls, that kind of two-way production only adds to the intrigue around what comes next, because his play is making the front office think carefully about how much longer they can keep him in this role. [Read more 🡒]