Part 12 of the offseason guides leads us to the Midwest states, where we have two Eastern Conference teams at a peculiar stage in their current franchise direction: the Chicago Bulls and the Milwaukee Bucks.
Chicago Bulls
If I’m being honest, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to write about the Chicago Bulls' offseason because each season it seems to be the same: they continually give contracts to players who aren’t game-changers or franchise-changing types. It was an interesting season for the Bulls, who traded away Zach LaVine at the deadline, finally, and probably a year or two too late. That’s not a knock on LaVine; he had a terrific shooting season and some playmaking strides in the process as well. It’s more of an indictment of the Bulls' front office. They were unable to trade away Nikola Vucevic for a price they deemed worthy. He is the sole player who remains from the vaunted big three of him, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach LaVine. It’s a shame because many of those same front office executives and fans hold on to the first 35 games of the 2022 season, where they jumped into a top 3 seed in the Eastern Conference until Lonzo Ball injured his knee and everything seemed ot fall apart after losing in 5 games to the Bucks in the postseason that season. The Bulls weren’t exactly sellers at the deadline this past season, a position I expected many to take. They got their first-round pick back from the Spurs as part of facilitating the De’Aaron Fox trade. To me, this signaled an elegant tank, but the front office seemed to take the weak Eastern Conference as a sign to press onward and take on the play-in, which should be called the Hawks, Heat, and Bulls invitational at this point. The push eventually led to fans seeing Tyler Herro take and make a barrage of threes while Vucevic sat in drop coverage the entire night and saw the Bulls' brutal season end in the demolishing effort. Now, the question everyone is asking is, what does Chicago do?
Financially, they have a holdup with Josh Giddey, who had a nice season this past year. He took a willingness to shoot more threes and made more. He’s seemingly the only player they can run offense through, and for all of his flaws on both ends of the floor, Giddey isn’t the worst player to have on the floor considering he's smart enough to figure out how to attack defenses given they are forcing him into some tough positions based on his weaknesses as a basketball player. The Caruso-Giddey, I’ll be honest, the second it was made looked like a home run for OKC, and it was, but Giddey has been solid for the Bulls. It’s clear he wants to develop his jumper, and he’s not scared to take those types of shots. However, it’s very difficult to pay a guy $30 million a year, who has a usage of 21.4% and can’t shoot. For note, Cody White had a usage of 23.7, and yes, he can shoot. Giddey is in unrestricted free agency, which isn’t a great place to be, honestly. The Bulls should try and bring him back on a more team-friendly deal. If they can’t, what’s the worst that happens? They tank? I think Giddey is a good NBA player, but not the type to build your offense around. If they jump shot somehow pops, he’s the ideal guard teams are looking for, but the downhill driving isn’t there to punish the defense enough, and the defense is still pretty bad. Once the Bulls figure out the situation with Giddey, much of their offseason is already finished. They traded away Lonzo Ball for Isaac Okoro, not sure why, they didn’t get a draft pick, AGAIN. They sit around $152 million in salary for the upcoming season with no important extension available, unless they re-sign Vucevic, I probably wouldn’t, and need to move on from him to start some type of rebuild. Patrick Williams is still under contract for the next 3 seasons, including an $18 million player option, nice. They also extended Head Coach Billy Donovan, who I like and think is a good coach. It’s not his fault that the front office has taken his legs out with the roster at times during his tenure. The Bulls have a couple of top-8-protected picks out to the Spurs in the two drafts, which they should try to keep. Outside of those two picks, they don’t have anything else out the door, thankfully.
For a player development perspective, the only player that intrigues me is Matas Buzelis. Buzelis had a solid rookie season after being in and out of the lineup at times this season. He made the second team All-Rookie this past year and showcased some real shotmaking, creation, and handle. That’s a fun time at 6’10. He still needs to figure out the defensive side of the ball, as Billy Donovan noted to some last season, but an EFG of 54.1% and TS% of 57.1 is something he can build on. I’d like to see the passing playmaking come along as well. Part of this is that he’s not initiating the offense at a high level and hardly runs any pick-and-rolls as well. Buzelis had an ATO of 1.07 this past while having a usage of 18.1% as well. Buzelis is the only reason I would watch the Bulls, but rookie Noa Essenge is another reason. He’s pretty raw from an eye-test point, as many of the spreadsheet warriors love him, but should be an intriguing player for the Bulls to monitor. Hang in there, Bulls fans. Hopefully, they do the right thing and end up at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, but with the decision they’ve made drafting players, outside of Buzelis, I’m not too hopeful they’ll make the right decision.
Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks, since winning the 2021 NBA championship, have been mediocre in all honesty. Yes, winning an NBA championship is quite challenging, and you’re never guaranteed to win one, even if you have a top 3 NBA player in Giannis Antetokounmpo. However, injuries, poor shooting, and overall bad luck have contributed to a second-round exit, a loss to the 8 seed, and two first-round exits to the Pacers, which isn’t a great track record after winning an NBA championship. The 8th seed loss to the Heat prompted them to go all-in on getting Damian Lillard from Portland; however, it forced them to give up Jrue Holiday, who helped the Boston Celtics win the 2024 NBA championship. This past season found the Bucks starting well below .500 early on. They couldn’t figure out the defensive assignments and rotations. Both Damian Lillard and Giannis looked great too, which caused some concern amongst the team, as they were losing games with both of their franchise player doing their job. However, they figured it out and, through a league-leading 38.7% 3-point percentage, they were able to win the NBA Cup. However, that would be the only banner they would hang. The playoffs were short-lived as they were bounced in 5 games by the Indiana Pacers and gave up an 8-point lead in close to 45 seconds. To make matters worse, Damian Lillard tore his Achilles. I usually ask the question Where do the Bucks go now, but they’ve already shown what they’re willing to do.
Financially, the Bucks have some type of relief after they waived Damian Lillard and are now paying him $22.5 million over the next 5 seasons to not play for the team, effectively ending the Giannis-Dame tandem, which, when clicking, produced one of the highest scoring duos in the NBA. The unprecedented move allowed the team to sign Myles Turner in free agency and lure him away from re-signing with the Pacers. Is a 4-year $107 million a possible overpay, maybe, but it’s a move the Pacers needed to make to appease Giannis. While the Bucks aren’t in the second apron, there’s not much they can do financially as they didn’t have room to sign a defensive wing, and they are bare for draft capital, as they only have 1 first-round pick available to trade in 2031, a pick I would advise not to move. Giannis is still under contract for the next three seasons, while he has a player option in the final season. He’s also extension eligible in 2026-2027. I’m sure the franchise regrets trading for Kyle Kuzma as he put on a 22 trilly in the first playoff games, but they were able to re-sign Gary Trent Jr, Kevin Porter Jr, and Ryan Rollins, all players who will be large pieces in helping the team win games. They’ll likely have a lot of point-Giannis this year, but it’s interesting to see where the team goes from here.
From a player development perspective, Ryan Rollins is probably the most important player for the Bucks to develop. Rollins had one of the better net ratings on the Bucks, with an on/off split of a +6 net rating on the floor (114 off rating and 108 def rating). He showed flashes of developing into a POA defender and spacing the floor nicely for Giannis as he knocked down 40% of his 3s this past season. It’ll be important for him to continue this along with developing as a cutter. Another player who showed flashes this past season was AJ Green. Green was one of the better perimeter defenders for the Bucks and was an absolute laser from 3 this year. He shot 42.7% from 3. He did an amazing job of playing the handoff game with Giannis and developing the passing out of the handoffs, similar to how Duncan Robinson does a nice job with it as well. Andre Jackson's development of the shot will help him stay in the lineup, as many teams explored putting their centers on him to clog up the line for Giannis. Tyler Smith also needs to show something, as he had as poor a summer league as a second-year player could. I also feel the need to highlight the poor draft picks in recent years for Milwaukee, as they traded away AJ Johnson as part of the Kyle Kuzma, ouch. Overall, the East isn’t great, and I’m not entirely sure the Bucks can make a run given the limited help Giannis has around him, but if some guys take steps forward and Kuzma doesn’t put up playoff trilly’s then there’s a chance for the Bucks to make some noise in the Eastern Conference.
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