Predicting 3 Most Likely Outcomes for Josh Giddey, Chicago Bulls
Mostly by sheer (un)luck of the draw, Josh Giddey, Jonathan Kuminga, Cam Thomas and Quentin Grimes all entered restricted free agency in perhaps the worst possible summer to enter restricted free agency.
Even before the offseason started, there was little to no spending power around the league, meaning the common RFA approach of signing a lucrative offer sheet with another team and waiting to see if the incumbent would match it was out the window.
Players such as Kuminga and Giddey may want to be paid around $30 million per year, but no one outside the teams they're already with has the ability to offer that much. And so, understandably, those teams aren't offering it themselves.
It's why all four of the aforementioned young players remain unsigned midway through August. And it's why we may see the exceptionally rare situation in which a restricted free agent plays one season on a qualifying offer and then reenters free agency next summer, when he'll be unrestricted and in a more favorable market.
That potential situation feels a bit less likely for Giddey than it might Kuminga, just because there's actual reporting that the latter might take that gambit.
For the soon-to-be-23-year-old Chicago Bulls playmaker, who averaged 20.2 points, 9.5 rebounds and 8.3 assists after last season's Zach LaVine trade, a return to the red and black seems inevitable (though not guaranteed).
It's largely a matter of how the Bulls will bring him back.
3. Signs an Offer Sheet with Someone Other than the Bulls
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As of this writing, the Brooklyn Nets are the only team in the league with any cap space, and even they can't get to the $30 million per year Giddey is reportedly after.
There's also no hint that Brooklyn, which just loaded up on young playmakers in the 2025 draft, has any interest in the 22-year-old.
That means if Giddey wants to go the "sign an offer sheet and see if Chicago matches it" route, he's likely limited to a handful of teams that still have access to the non-taxpayer's mid-level exception.
But those contracts would start at $14.1 million, which is well shy of the average annual value of the four-year, $80 million offer the Bulls reportedly made at the start of free agency.
So, if Giddey did sign one, Chicago refusing to match it would truly be shocking.
2. Sign-and-Trade to an Eastern Conference Rival
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According to The Stein Line's Jake Fischer, "Giddey has managed to attract some external interest from rival teams since free agency began, with multiple Eastern Conference teams contacting Giddey's representation to register sign-and-trade interest."
But when you canvas the East for teams in need of a lead playmaker, you quickly realize there really aren't a ton.
Add in the fact that any team taking on Giddey would then be hard-capped at the first apron, and this scenario starts to feel pretty unlikely, too.
Still, he hasn't even turned 23 yet, and he's shown an intriguing combination of rebounding and playmaking ability throughout his career. If the three-point shooting he showed off last season (when he hit 37.8 percent of his attempts) is real, he still has future All-Star potential.
And if some team is willing to offer the Bulls real value for that, they may have to entertain moving him.
1. Re-Signs with the Bulls
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The final deal may not be for four years or an average of $20 million, but it feels like the eventual outcome of this saga is Giddey's return to Chicago.
Perhaps threatening to play on the qualifying offer could force the Bulls to mold the deal a bit more to his liking. That could mean a bit more money each year or a shorter-term deal that gets him back into free agency sooner.
But there's not a ton of leverage there, so the length and number probably won't be dramatically different than $80 million over four years.
And while that may not be an ideal economic outcome for Giddey, it would be a win for the Bulls and his on-court development.
Chicago actually does have a need the Australian fills, and it allowed him to grow into his game in a way he never really could with the Oklahoma City Thunder. And his stock should keep going up if he's able to develop and maintain the continuity he has with the Bulls.
The sample size isn't huge, in large part because Kevin Huerter didn't show up until he was part of the LaVine deal, but Chicago was plus-11.7 points per 100 possessions when Giddey, Coby White, Huerter and Matas Buzelis were all on the floor.
The Bulls should be keen on seeing what that group can do in 2025-26 (and potentially beyond).
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