Cheer Up Chicago Sports Fans: The Bears May Have Their Issues, But At Least The Bulls Avoided Disaster And Re-Signed Josh Giddey!

Luke Hales. Getty Images.

Coming off last night's Bears' debut on MNF, it's safe to say things are a little tense among Bears fans

And while it's still very early in the NFL season and blah blah blah, I get that Bears fans might not want to hear that spinzone right now. At the same time, everyone deserves a little bit of a pick-me-up when one of your favorite sports teams kicks you squarely in the dick, which brings me to the focus of this blog.

Outside of their football team, Chicago sports fans had to spend all summer also dealing with a bit of a standoff taking place between the Bulls and restricted free agent Josh Giddey. You know, the player they traded Alex Caruso for. They really had two options

1. Come to some sort of extension agreement

2. Risk Giddey playing on his qualifying offer, which would have been a disaster given he could then leave next summer for nothing

With the regular season quickly approaching, we've already seen fellow RFA Cam Thomas decide to play on his QO, and as of now, RFAs like Jonathan Kuminga and Quentin Grimes are seriously considering it as well. Thankfully, that won't be the case with the Bulls and Giddey

Now I know what you're probably thinking

"$100M for Josh Giddey?!?!?!?!?"

Yes. Welcome to the price of doing business in today's NBA market. Considering Giddey was looking for $30M+ a year, I actually don't really mind that number. In reality, it's only 14-15% of their cap, which is fine. My guess is the compromise was going to a 4th year instead of keeping it at a 3 year extension (we'll see if that's guaranteed, a player option, or a team option), but the AAV isn't some crazy figure that can't be moved should the Bulls need to go that route down the line. The cap is going up, Giddey actually showed some legit flashes last year

Advertisement

and even if in reality he's only 75% of the player we saw post-All Star Break, $25M per is pretty much what that type of player costs nowadays. Now you could make the case that the Bulls should be blowing it up and selling all their pieces instead of doing something like this, but I look at it a little differently. To me, this at the very least was about asset protection.

This is where I consider the "good news" to be for the Bulls and their fans. This could have been much worse. Remember, the Bulls front office did not get a single draft pick from OKC in return for Alex Caruso. That seems insane given OKC has no fewer than 10,000 future picks available, but the Bulls didn't even secure a heavily protected 1st for a player that, as we saw, played a vital role in helping OKC win the NBA title.

So the possibility that Giddey would choose to play on his qualifying offer and then bolt next summer, leaving the Bulls with nothing but their dicks in their hands, would have been a complete disaster form both a roster standpoint and an asset management standpoint. That easily would have been the worst-case scenario. Even if you think this 4/$100M is a slight overpay, it's not like the Bulls had a ton of leverage here. Can you imagine if they got rid of Caruso and then had nothing to show for it 2 years later? No player. No picks. No nothing?

That's why I consider this extension a win for no other reason than at the very least, it protected the asset. Especially since both Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu are UFAs after this season. There's no guarantee they both stay in CHI moving forward, so imagine losing all three of those players in the same summer for nothing?

Again, that's a disaster.

In my opinion, this extension will age depending on just how much of Giddey's 2024-25 season was real. He finished the year at 37.8% from deep on 4.0 3PA a game. If that's real, that's pretty big. Given you're now going to have to build your team around Giddey, him being a legit threat from behind the arc is important. If he's actually more like the OKC version and floats around 32-33%? You might have some issues. 

It's no secret that the Bulls have a long road ahead of them when it comes to getting back into being a top 6 seed or better. It did feel like Billy Donovan's system adjustments last year to play faster and up their 3P volume worked, but the roster still needs help. A big part of that is making sure you don't lose your "good" players for nothing. Depending on which cap holds they let walk in free agency (Vucevic, Collins, Huerter), really, the only players they now need to keep are Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White. Maybe you flip one of those this summer as you round out your roster, but the Bulls should have a decent chunk of cap space next summer as they reshape their roster.

Advertisement

So cheer up Chicago sports fans. Sure, things might feel awful right now given what took place last night. That's to be expected. But considering things could have been even worse had Giddey not reached this extension, I say take the win.