BULLS COVERAGE
Everything Chicago, all season
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The highest Tar Heel drafted since 2005, and the first player in years the Bulls did not have to talk themselves into. He walks into a front line that's already stacked. Buzelis, Patrick Williams, Essengue, Jalen Smith, Yabusele. Nobody's handing him minutes, he's got to take them.
Watch the shot diet, not the shot chart. Everybody grades rookies on flashes, but what actually tells you about year three is where the shots come from. Rim pressure and corner threes, good. Long twos off the bounce is how a lottery pick quietly turns into a role player.
Simpler tell: is he on the floor in the fourth quarter come February? Spurs guys make rookies earn every minute. That says more than any box score.
Filled by the build job every game day. Left empty rather than guessed at.
Two years of flashes is a compliment. Three years of flashes is a diagnosis. Buzelis is the older young guy now, on a team that just drafted a younger one at his spot. That role has a long, sad history in this building.
His best traits survive a real rotation: length, weak-side shot-blocking, and the ability to put it on the floor at 6′8″. The question has never been whether he belongs. It is whether the jumper arrives.
Year three is when the league decides what you are. Is he creating or just finishing? A wing his size who can make plays starts for a decade. One who only finishes is a bench guy on a rookie deal.
Filled by the build job every game day.
Everybody currently listed, and what they are actually here to do. Roles, not projections.
The Madhouse · Chicago Bulls · 2026–27Head Coach: Tiago Splitter
| Player | Pos | Ht | Age | The role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caleb Wilson | PF | 6-9 | 20 | Fourth overall. The season is about him whether the minutes say so or not. |
| Matas Buzelis | SF | 6-8 | 21 | Year three. Needs to answer the jumper question before it gets answered for him. |
| Josh Giddey | PG | 6-7 | 23 | The engine, and the closest thing to an established piece. A 6-7 point guard who rebounds and passes; the shot decides the ceiling. |
| Nicolas Claxton | C | 6-11 | 27 | Rim protection and lob finishing. The defensive backbone a young team hides behind. |
| Norman Powell | SG | 6-3 | 33 | The veteran bucket-getter, and the most obvious deadline chip on the roster. |
| Patrick Williams | PF | 6-6 | 24 | Still only 24, still unresolved after six years of the same conversation. New staff, last real chance. |
| Tre Jones | PG | 6-1 | 26 | Steady backup point guard who does not turn it over. Every young team needs one. |
| Rob Dillingham | PG | 6-2 | 21 | Instant offense off the bench. Whether he can defend at 6-2 is the whole career question. |
| Zach Collins | C | 6-9 | 28 | Backup five with real skill and a long injury history. |
| Guerschon Yabusele | PF | 6-8 | 30 | Veteran frontcourt body on a team with too many of them. |
| Isaac Okoro | SF | 6-4 | 25 | Point-of-attack defender. Plays if the offense can survive it. |
| Jalen Smith | PF | 6-8 | 26 | Productive in short stretches, buried on the depth chart. |
| Noa Essengue | PF | 6-8 | 19 | Nineteen. A three-year project, and that is fine now. |
| Leonard Miller | SF | 6-10 | 22 | Rebounds like a big, moves like a wing. Needs minutes that may not exist. |
| Mac McClung | PG | 6-2 | 27 | The most famous player on the roster in February and the least important one in April. |
| Dailyn Swain | SF | 6-7 | 21 | Young wing, deep on the bench. |
| Tobe Awaka | PF | 6-8 | 22 | Deep bench. |
| Jaylin Sellers | SG | 6-5 | 23 | Deep bench. |
Roster as currently listed, retrieved 24 August 2026. Jersey numbers left off. The source lists duplicates, which usually means camp and two-way guys are in there. "The role" is editorial.
Hired June 16, 2026. Went 42–39 as Portland's interim and made the West playoffs. Four years a Nets assistant. Seven seasons as a Spur.
Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley both out at the end of last season. New basketball operations leadership hired over the summer.
Essengue is 19. Wilson is 20. Buzelis, Dillingham and Swain are 21. That has not been true here in a very long time.
Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf, as ever. Every rebuild in this building starts from that fact.
Billy Donovan stepped down on April 21, 2026, after six seasons, rather than work under whoever came next. His whole run here was one playoff trip, 46–36 back in 2021–22, gone in the first round, then three straight play-in losses. Six years of almost mattering.
Karnisovas and Eversley were fired near the end of the season, and the reasons given were the ones fans had been shouting for years: no franchise cornerstone was ever acquired, and the team refused to bottom out long enough to draft one. The Bulls spent half a decade insisting the play-in was a foundation.
So this is the first honest reset since 2020. Four picks in the June draft, including fourth overall. A twenty-year-old and a nineteen-year-old on the front line. And a coach out of the Spurs lineage, which is either the most encouraging thing about this operation or a phrase Bulls fans have learned not to trust.
The bar for this season is not the play-in. The bar is whether, in April, you can name three players you are certain about.
72–10