The lowly Chicago Bulls are apparently primed to move on from their middling core stars, but how many of them will net positive trade value?
On the heels of reports surfacing that team president Arturas Karnisovas was looking to offload Chicago's two most expensive players — injury-prone guards Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball —new intel suggests that the team's third-priciest piece could be on the move, too.
Michael Scotto of HoopsHype reports the Bulls are open to flipping the contract of overpaid starting center Nikola Vucevic in a deal and emphasize younger pieces, assuming unrestricted free agent small forward DeMar DeRozan really does sign elsewhere this summer.
DeRozan, Vucevic's former USC teammate and the best player on the 39-43 Bulls last season, is reportedly being circled by his hometown Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, and the Sacramento Kings this summer.
After spending two seasons as a key component of a Chicago core comprising of himself, DeRozan, All-Star shooting guard LaVine, point guard Ball, All-Defensive Team guard Alex Caruso, former 2020 lottery pick forward Patrick Williams, and guard Coby White, Vucevic had demonstrably proved that the team wasn't good enough to really compete in the Eastern Conference by the summer of 2023.
The team had made the playoffs in just one of those seasons, 2022, when it got decimated by the Milwaukee Bucks.
In 2022-23, with Ball lost all year to a knee injury (he's been out since Jan. 2022), the team finished 40-42 and missed the playoffs. Vucevic, a good passer and average three point shooter, is a poor defender and clearly thrives when he's more featured in a team's (inefficient) offense.
It was clear in 2023 that the Bulls should have let then-impending free agent Vucevic walk.