The Chicago Bulls have officially entered a new era as they traded away DeMar DeRozan to the Sacramento Kings. A few summers ago, the Bulls made big-time moves, bringing in DeMar Derozan, Lonzo Ball, and Nikola Vucevic. For about half a season, the Bulls were the one seed in the Eastern Conference and looked like a championship team. Since then, it has been entirely downhill due to injuries to Lonzo Ball and the poor performance of the entire team.
Trading DeRozan away is a statement from the Bulls front office saying that they will enter a rebuild and focus on their young players. The Bulls also traded Alex Caruso a few weeks ago, and It is safe to say that Zach Lavine and Nikola Vucevic will be on new teams next season as well. While the Bulls’ young core looks promising with Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, and newly acquired rookie Matas Buzelis, it is not enough to satisfy Bulls fans. Since Jordan left, the franchise has been in a loop that consists of having a promising team, struggling with injuries, and then trading everyone away. Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Jimmy Butler, and now DeMar Derozan are all names that once brought the Bulls to relevance, just for the front office to blow it all up.
As the Bulls enter yet another rebuilding season, they must approach it differently this time. The entire focus of the coaching staff needs to be developing their young players. While the Bulls have struggled with young talent in the past, they have some players who have shown flashes of being elite players. This time around, the Bulls will not be building around a single player like they have in the past with Derrick Rose and Zach Lavine. Ascending star Coby White, along with newly acquired young talent in Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis, need to build team chemistry for a few seasons. The Bulls will almost certainly lose many of their games, but in a few seasons, the front office can once again make a splash by signing a big-time player. The Bulls must stay patient with their young players before signing a superstar player, and this might mean firing current head coach Billy Donavan, who seemingly wants to win now. This method of rebuilding was also done by the Cleveland Cavaliers, as they slowly developed their young talent, and then signed superstar Donavan Mitchell, making them instant contenders.
In the past few seasons, we have seen many teams try to sign many superstar players and fail. The Brooklyn Nets had Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and James Harden, and could not make it past the second round of the playoffs. The Phoenix Suns also created a big three just to lose in round one. Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have been arguably some of the best teams in the NBA, built their teams entirely off of the young players on their team. They remained patient and now will be winning for the next 10 seasons at least. If Bulls fans want to see their team win again, it will have to be another few years of waiting.
Third Down With Devin 