The Chicago Bulls are ready to dive headfirst into one of the busiest cycles of the NBA calendar.
Free agency will open at 5 p.m. Monday, although contracts can’t be officially signed until July 6. The action began to heat up over the weekend as teams began dealing in an effort to carve out cap space for free agents. This flurry of initial transactions included the Bulls, who traded Lonzo Ball to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Isaac Okoro in another player-for-player swap.
The Bulls have several clear priorities this summer. Chicago is aiming to get even younger as the Bulls focus on development while reconstructing the roster. This means offloading the final contracts of the previous 2021 build, which included Ball’s departure this weekend.
The front office also wants to create as much financial flexibility as possible for the 2026 offseason, which general manager Marc Eversley and executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas have highlighted as their target period to expedite the rebuild process.
So what does that mean for the current roster? And could there be any more new players on the way to Chicago? Here’s what to know about the Bulls in free agency.
What’s the next step for Josh Giddey?
The main free agency concern for the Bulls is contract negotiations with guard Josh Giddey, who is currently a restricted free agent. Giddey averaged 14.6 points and 7.2 assists in his debut year with the Bulls, but closed the season on a tear while averaging 21.2 points and 9.3 assists (against 3.4 turnovers) while shooting 45.7% from 3-point range in the final 19 games after the All-Star break.
Historically, the Bulls prefer to let restricted free agents test the market before entering serious contract conversations. This isn’t exactly playing hardball — for instance, Patrick Williams underwent this same process and still ended up landing a five-year, $90 million deal — but it allows both parties to feel out a starting point for negotiations.
So even if he receives offer sheets from other teams, Giddey is expected to re-sign with the Bulls this summer. He has been made one of the central priorities of Chicago’s rebuild around young talent due to the front office’s affinity for his playmaking and growth in the latter half of the 2024-25 season.
With his return seemingly inevitable, the question around this process is the final price tag. Giddey is likely pursuing a deal around $30 million for a four- to five-year period. The Bulls will want to negotiate this number down — which is more easily accomplished by compromising on a longer contract — but their commitment to the guard has been fairly clear in the build-up to these negotiations.
Is Jonathan Kuminga the answer in the frontcourt?
For weeks, the Bulls have been connected to the Golden State Warriors as a potential landing spot for Jonathan Kuminga.
Kuminga averaged 15.3 points and 4.6 rebounds per game for the Warriors last year despite missing 31 games during the middle of the season with an ankle injury. But he tumbled out of the rotation in the playoffs and didn’t return to a full-time starting role until the last four games of the second round against the Minnesota Timberwolves, when he averaged 24.2 points per game with Steph Curry out due to injury.
As a restricted free agent, the Warriors would need to execute a sign-and-trade deal to move Kuminga. Although they could technically allow the center to walk, the Warriors tendered a qualifying offer this weekend to lock Kuminga into the restricted free agency process. Golden State has expressed optimism about the team’s ability to move the big this summer.
“I’d like to figure something out sooner than later,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said on draft night. “That would be great. But I also acknowledge with restricted free agency these things can drag out a little bit and take some time. I think we feel pretty comfortable with who JK is as a player and what he can do for our organization, and it’s a main priority going into free agency.”
Trading Ball removed one of the potential pieces the Bulls could have included in a trade proposal for Kuminga. And they would also have to negotiate a new contract with the forward, which could go against the team’s goals of keeping the salary sheet tidy and unencumbered for the future.
However, Kuminga doesn’t have to be a long-term solution. The Bulls have adopted a longer scope on their current issues — again, refer back to their 2026 goals — which means this could be a stopgap compromise for the frontcourt.
Can the Bulls trade Nikola Vučević?
The Bulls need to part with Nikola Vučević — if not this summer, then certainly before the trade deadline. The center doesn’t make sense on this roster anymore. With Ball traded, he is the only remaining player from the 2021 series of acquisitions meant to build out the original vision for the Bulls under Karnišovas and Eversley.
At 34, Vučević is at least five years older than any of his teammates and nine years older than any projected starter. He’s staring down the impending arrival of perhaps his final NBA contract. And while the center maintained his professionalism throughout the turmoil of the last two seasons, he made it clear this season that he doesn’t see a future with the Bulls.
Vučević enjoyed a streak of unparalleled shooting last season, but his hot hand had completely cooled off by the end of the year. He might be better as a bench option for a competitive team than a starter for a bad one. And the concerns about his defense — although sometimes overblown — are only going to worsen with time and age.
So, how do the Bulls facilitate Vučević’s departure? The most obvious answer is the Kuminga trade, which could see the Bulls swap one frontcourt player for another with some necessary add-ons — draft picks, additional players — from the Chicago side.
The Bulls have already tried to deal Vučević to the Warriors once in a trade deadline deal that was smothered, in part, by the Jimmy Butler move with the Miami Heat. If that effort fails again, the Bulls will likely turn their attention to teams in immediate need of veteran center depth like the Milwaukee Bucks, Portland Trail Blazers or Atlanta Hawks. And if all of those attempts fail, then it will be hard for the Bulls not to feel as if this summer window was a failure — at least in the short term.
Who else is on the trading block?
The Bulls entered this summer primarily open to trading two guards: Ball and Coby White.
With the Ball transaction already completed, attention turns to White. The runner-up in 2024 Most Improved Player voting, the guard averaged 20.4 points and 4.5 assists last season. The Bulls have shown a slight preference to prioritize Giddey as a starting guard. And with White entering the final year of his second contract, he’s in a position to be traded before seeing another significant hike in his expected salary.
The Bulls have also been open to trading Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmu in the correct circumstances. Dosunmu would have to return a decent value, but could make sense as a piece in a package to move Vučević or to secure Kuminga. Williams is a harder card to deal due to his extensive history of underperforming — which most recently resulted in losing his starting spot to rookie Matas Buzelis — but his youth and physical profile could still attract some interest.