The Chicago Bulls have finally completed the most complicated task of kickstarting a rebuild: trading long-time star Zach LaVine.
Regret seemed to seize the Bulls the moment LaVine signed a maximum contract with the team in 2022. At the time, executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas and the rest of the front office believed any contract could be moveable — even a supermax. But that proved to be quite untrue.
It didn’t matter that LaVine was the best scorer on the Bulls roster — or one of the best shooting guards in the league. The unbearable weight of his five-year, $250 million deal became a cumbersome riddle the front office couldn’t solve.
Karnišovas finally found a solution Sunday: a three-team deal that resulted in the Bulls sending LaVine (to the Sacramento Kings) and a 2025 second-round pick (to the San Antonio Spurs) in exchange for Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones, Zach Collins and the outright ownership of their first-round pick in 2025.
The Bulls can finally move past the challenge of moving LaVine. But as the dust settles on a tumultuous weekend of NBA trades, one question lingers around this deal: did the Bulls get enough back for the best player on their roster?
Every trade must be graded in context. A year ago, the Bulls couldn’t move LaVine at all. The trade deadline was a non-starter, and the summer was curiously quiet. But LaVine attacked this season with vigor, reshaping himself into a levelheaded leader and efficient scorer who earned quiet praise around the league to help position the Bulls to finally find a trade partner.
That context is important for understanding the four assets the Bulls received in exchange for Lavine. While the trio of players will add reasonable value — particularly Huerter, whose consistent 3-point shooting will be crucial for the Bulls offense — their arrival is mostly a byproduct of the need to take enough contracts back to make the trade viable.
Outside of offloading LaVine’s contract, the main victory of this trade for the Bulls is the reclamation of their 2025 first-round pick, which was previously owed to the Spurs as the final byproduct of the 2022 trade for DeMar DeRozan.
Most of this season has been dominated by the fact that the Bulls owed their 2025 first-round pick to San Antonio if they didn’t finish in the bottom third of the standings. The deal the Bulls struck was tricky — if the pick was not conveyed this year, it would be owed in a future draft. With ownership of the pick fully returned to the Bulls now, the front office no longer has to worry about jumping through hoops to maintain their draft positioning.
This is a sizable gain for the Bulls. Yes, it was a failure they gave up so much to acquire DeRozan. This front office never should have put itself in a position to be scrabbling over top-10 protected picks in 2025. But that was the reality for the Bulls — and the front office got itself out of that situation.
But the fact remains that the Bulls have gone three trade deadlines and three consecutive trades (including the sign-and-trade deal for DeRozan last summer) without adding a single new first-round pick.
The Bulls need picks. Badly. A rebuild can’t be completed without draft capital. That’s been made clear by teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Spurs, who have reached different stages of successful roster builds by stocking up heavily on draft picks. These picks aren’t just potential future players. They also create the capacity for creativity in the front office, opening up the door for crucial trades to create a balanced roster blend of experience and youth.
If the Bulls can pick up at least one first-rounder before Thursday’s deadline — perhaps through moving center Nikola Vučević — then this absence in the LaVine trade will sting a little less. But if the Bulls somehow emerge from a fourth deadline window without a first-round pick in sight, this lack of return will be difficult to rationalize.
There might have been better offers this summer; Karnišovas will have to live with that fact. But the Bulls weren’t in a place to wait any longer.
Moving LaVine had been delayed for too long — by his injury woes last season, by the uncertainty of his potential over the summer. After three consecutive seasons of inaction at the deadline, Karnišovas couldn’t hold off for that picture-perfect deal any longer.
Decisiveness is a trait the Bulls front office has been lacking. Sunday’s move showed, at the bare minimum, an ability to maneuver with enough decisiveness to part with a crucial piece of the roster.
But the Bulls are far beyond accepting the bare minimum. It’s time for the franchise to begin prioritizing draft picks — and doing whatever it takes to acquire them.
