The 2025-26 NBA season is here! Over the next few weeks, we’re examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.
2024-25 finish
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Record: 39-43 (9th in the East, eliminated in play-in tournament)
Offseason moves
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Additions: Isaac Okoro, Noa Essengue, Yuki Kawamura, Lachlan Olbrich
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Subtractions: Lonzo Ball, Talen Horton-Tucker, E.J. Liddell, Jahmir Young
Josh Giddey scored a $100 million contract this offseason. (Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Big Question: How do you build a contender around Josh Giddey?
The Bulls answered the big question of their offseason by agreeing to terms on a four-year, $100 million extension for restricted free agent Giddey — a deal that, in the context of the current state of play in the NBA, probably generates more sticker shock than financial stickiness.
A $100 million total and $25 million average annual value mark the 35th-richest deal of any guard in the NBA, and while many NBA contracts start with a lower first-year salary and feature built-in year-over-year increases, Giddey’s extension will reportedly pay him a flat $25 million per year — meaning that, as the salary cap rises, he’ll account for a smaller percentage of the Bulls’ total balance sheet. In the final year of the deal, 2028-29, Giddey is projected to take up less than 14% of Chicago’s cap figure. All of which is to say: It’s not a contract that should preclude the Bulls from constructing a competitive team. It’s a deal you can build around.
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Which brings the Bulls to the next existential quandary they face: What should a team built around the 6-foot-8 point forward even look like? And would it be capable of meaningful contention?
First, the former. Newly minted Hall of Fame head coach Billy Donovan wants the Bulls to move fast, break things and bomb away: As John Schuhmann notes, no team made larger year-over-year leaps in pace of play, passes per game and average distance traveled than the Bulls, who also became one of the highest-volume 3-point shooting teams in the NBA. That offensive evolution actually started before Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas dealt Zach LaVine in February and effectively tossed Giddey the keys; Chicago averaged more possessions per 48 minutes before the trade (103.9) than after (103.2), and only slightly sped up its average time-to-shot after the deal, according to Inpredictable.
Giddey was its biggest beneficiary, though, taking advantage of the opportunity to push the pedal to the metal in a higher-usage role. He led the Bulls in touches, time of possession and passes per game after the trade, trailed only Coby White in usage rate, and put up the best numbers of his career: 20.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 8.3 assists and 1.4 steals in 33.3 minutes per game over the final two-plus months of the regular season on 50/46/80 shooting spits, scoring more efficiently on a higher volume of 3-point shots and free-throw attempts while increasing his assist rate and coughing the ball up less frequently.
The Bulls didn’t play faster after Giddey took the reins, but they did play fast more effectively, improving from a bottom-10 team in transition scoring efficiency before the LaVine trade to a top-10 unit afterward, according to Cleaning the Glass — and were at their most efficient on the break when Giddey was on the floor. After the LaVine trade, the Bulls scored 117.8 points per 100 possessions in Giddey’s minutes, which would have been a top-five rate of offensive efficiency over the course of the full season; they also allowed 114.7 points-per-100 with Giddey on the court, which would’ve ranked just above the bottom-10 on the defensive end.
Given the lack of changes to the roster — only the Thunder and Timberwolves return more of last season’s minutes than the Bulls — it seems likely this will remain the plan. Surround Giddey with sprinters and knockdown shooters, play fast and hunt every opportunity to attack in transition (and thus stay out of the half-court, where defenses will continue to duck under on Giddey’s pick-and-rolls until he can prove that his 3-point shot is real). Try to be good enough offensively to overcome the defensive issues endemic to lineups bookended by the defensively creaky Giddey and about-to-be-35-year-old non-rim-protector Nikola Vučević. Hope that, before too long, an emerging young core highlighted by 6-foot-10 rising sophomore Matas Buzelis and 6-foot-9 rookie Noa Essengue will give Chicago enough positional size to be able to cover for Giddey’s weaknesses on the ball … and hope that increased block and steal rates for the still-just-22-year-old Giddey indicate you eventually might not have to protect him so much.
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On a roster without elite talent, it’s an approach that requires a lot to go right. The Bulls need White to accomplish his goal of a career-best 3-point shooting season (once he’s healthy after suffering an offseason calf strain), and Kevin Huerter to continue the post-trade resurgence that saw him shoot 37.6% from deep after coming over from Sacramento. They need guard Ayo Dosunmu — who, like White, is heading into the final season of his contract — and new arrival Okoro to make an impact defending at the point of attack while continuing their offensive growth. They could really use at least one or two members of one of the league’s least notable wing groups — Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry, Julian Phillips — taking a serious step away from anonymity.
Maybe most important: They need infectiously confident young swingman Buzelis, who averaged 13 points on .586 true shooting to go with 4.5 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.1 blocks in 26.8 minutes per game as a starter after the LaVine trade, to actually approach the lofty standard he set for himself as he heads into his second pro season … and, ideally, to inspire the rest of the Bulls to dream bigger than another play-in appearance and summary elimination, too:
As refreshing and invigorating as it is to hear Buzelis identify winning a championship as the collective goal toward which the Bulls should be striving, it feels notable that Karnišovas — now entering his sixth season leading Chicago’s front office, with one over-.500 finish and one single playoff game victory in that span, a résumé that this summer resulted in contract extensions all around — seems to continue to aim lower:
Not necessarily the most rousing battle cry you’ve ever heard, you know?
Best-case scenario
Everything works just the way they drew it up around Giddey — fastest pace in the league, launching 3-pointers like the Celtics, elite transition game and a top-eight offense, with Giddey and White flirting with All-Star nods and Buzelis stamping himself as a rising star, all of which is enough to earn a top-six seed and the opportunity to make actual playoff noise in a shuffled-up East.
Or, conversely: Things disintegrate spectacularly, with injuries and dysfunction resulting in one of the worst records in the NBA, the franchise’s first top-three pick since Derrick Rose, and the chance to potentially land the sort of transformative talent that can actually spark a renaissance in one of the league’s longest-languishing markets.
One direction or the other. Either way.
If everything falls apart
Honestly? Another year of “We kind of muddle around between 15th and 21st on both ends of the ball, nobody looks like an All-Star, we win 38 games and don’t make it out of the play-in” seems like falling apart to me.
2025-26 schedule
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Season opener: Oct. 22 vs. Detroit
The Bulls are bringing back the lion’s share of a team that won 39 games last season almost in spite of itself, with the potential for continued growth from the likes of Giddey, White, Buzelis and Co. I don’t think they’ll be good, but I do think they’ll be mediocre, which we’ll define here as “not seven games worse than last season.”
More season previews
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz
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