NBA Team Analysis: The Bulls Needs to Improve a LOT
A bad season can not be repeated for one of the great NBA Franchises in the league. A negative record with 40-42, finished tenth in the Eastern Conference. It’s going to be a very big challenge for coach Billy Donovan, who will be interring his fourth season with the team, six victories less than the previous campaign, not making even 50% of wings since arriving in Windy City.
Same Core Players
Zach LaVine is their franchise player, the 28-year-old in his prime time, needs to show more leadership as the shooting guard and times as their point guard, had good numbers in the past campaign with 77 games played, 24,8 ppg, and shooting for 48,5 FGP. The two-time all-star had signed a five-year contract worth $215,159,700 and will earn a base salary of $40,064,220 for this NBA season.
Lonzo Ball
The 25-year-old point guard has been having knee injuries for several campaigns, to the point that the team has confirmed that he will not play for the next season, with a little chance to return at the end of this new season. It’s been over a year since Chicago Bulls‘ point guard Lonzo Ball last played basketball on an NBA floor. In January 2022, he suffered a meniscus tear during a game against the Golden State Warriors. Following the injury, he underwent two surgical procedures. Despite that, Ball has come no closer to returning to the Bulls lineup, and the team recently announced that he would be missing the rest of the 2022-2023 season. Not good news for the team to lose their point guard.
DeMar De Rozan
The veteran will be 34 years old, and played almost all the games, participating in 74 of them in the regular season, with good numbers averaging 24,5 over his career average, shooting for 50,4 FGP. He has a three-year contract worth almost 94 million, making $28,600 for next season.
LaVine and De Rezon are the two players for the Bulls to rely on, need a third good player to replace Ball and see if they can get deeper in the playoffs. This could perfectly affect NBA Lines in this upcoming campaign.
But the team has several good players that can help improve this team if they are healthy, let’s look at several of them.
The position at Center is Nikola Vucevic, the 32-year-old veteran, from Switzerland, who signed using a veteran extension/Bird for three more years, averaging $20 million a year until 2026 when he will be an Unrestricted Free Agent. The big man averaged 17,7 ppg, and 11,0 Total rebounds. Nikola was able to play all 82 games in the regular season.
Patrick Williams with just 21 years old and three seasons all with the black and red uniform, had a great campaign and also played 82 games, with 10.2 ppg and 46,4 FG% and also 41,5 FG3%, and has been a consistent player.
Coming off the bench, is the 28-year-old charismatic player Alex Caruso, playing his second season with the Bulls, after playing four campaigns with the Los Angeles Lakers. Played 67 games the past season and averaged a low 5.6 ppg, way under his first year with the franchise when he scored 7,4 ppg last campaign.
For next season their five starters will be
- PG: Jevon Carter, Alex Caruso, Carlik Jones
- SG: Zach LaVine, Coby White
- SF: DeMar De Rozan, Dalen Terry
- PF: Patrick Williams, Torrey Craig, Julian Phillips
- C: Nikola Vucevic, Andre Drummond, Marko Simonovic
New Additions:
- Julian Phillips, drafted No. 35 overall
- Adarna Sanogo signed as an under-drafted free agent
- Jevon Carter, signed a two-year deal, a player option for two years.
There are still some holes to fill and some moves to be made. This can make the NBA odds improve their roster.