Chicago Bulls' Top 3 Priorities During 2026 NBA Offseason
The Chicago Bulls finally acknowledged a teardown was necessary. After several seasons hanging around the middle, they swung deadline deals to trim cash and bottom out.
Now comes the hard part.
It's easy to sell off assets, clean up the books and lose on purpose. The rebuilding process is where things get trickier. Chicago must use the upcoming offseason to establish its leadership structure, identify any keepers on the current roster and then draw up a plan to build the next competitive version of the team.
Uncertain in the executive suite and wielding a mountain of cap space, the Bulls could come out of the summer looking very different. Considering the struggles of the past few seasons, almost any change will be for the better.
3. Revel in the Power of Cap Space
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We all know cap space isn't the ticket to superstar additions it once was, but it's still a good thing that Chicago has more money to burn than anyone else.
The hard part is figuring out how to use up to $63.5 million in spending power.
Restricted free agents like Jalen Duren, Walker Kessler, Peyton Watson and Tari Eason are all young enough to make sense in Chicago's timeline. Even if it meant tying up money with an offer sheet that an incumbent team might match anyway, targeting one of those players would be more logical than throwing big salaries at veterans—Norman Powell, Trae Young (player option), James Harden (player option)—who'd age out long before the Bulls could build a real roster around them.
Isaiah Hartenstein (team option) or Austin Reaves (player option) would be good split-the-difference choices, though Reaves would be a tough fit alongside Giddey.
If the Bulls don't use their cap space to sign players, they could leverage it in unbalanced trades that bring bad money aboard with draft picks attached. That route would signal an intention to rebuild deliberately, potentially over multiple seasons.
2. Make a Decision on Josh Giddey
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Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis are the Bulls' most important players going forward, but building anything around the former is tricky.
Giddey is a guard who can't defend the position and has limited value away from the ball. It's certainly easier to justify making accommodations for a player with strengths like Giddey's—vision, size, respectable standstill shooting—but it's far from a given that he's good enough to be a cornerstone.
Step back, and Giddey's production during his age-23 season is eye-opening. He and Nikola Jokić were the only players to average at least 17.0 points, 9.0 assists and 8.0 rebounds per game this year, and he'll wind up the easy team leader in Value Over Replacement Player.
At the same time, Giddey's impact on winning is purely theoretical, and his $25 million annual salary doesn't mark him as someone Chicago must feature as a core piece in its rebuild.
Everything the Bulls do with their cap space, draft picks and overall direction has ties to Giddey—a good, young player who might be helpful in the team's next era but who also might needlessly complicate the rebuild. If Chicago isn't convinced he's a keeper, an offseason trade would make a lot of sense.
1. Decide Who's In Charge
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We can't start listing all the decisions the Bulls need to make this offseason without first establishing who'll be making them.
Head coach Billy Donovan has exactly one playoff win on his six-year NBA resumé, which might be enough on its own to spur a change. Ownership remains committed to him nonetheless.
Discount Donovan's well-documented aversion to rebuilding and the appeal of some collegiate coaching opportunities at your own risk. Just because the guy who signs the checks likes Donovan, it doesn't mean the long-time head coach has to reciprocate.
Of course, it might help to know who'd execute a hypothetical coaching search if one were to arise.
It took executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas six seasons to realize his team needed a teardown. That was about five years too long. That process is now mercifully underway, but neither Karnisovas nor general manager Mark Eversley will be around to oversee it. Both were dismissed on April 6.
The Bulls have a heap of cap space, might possess two first-rounders in the 2026 draft and must choose a clear direction after selling off much of the roster at the most recent trade deadline. Before they can get to any of that, they need to settle on their front-office shot-callers.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
