The 2023 NBA trade deadline has come and gone, and the Chicago Bulls did nothing. The team that sits in ninth place in the Eastern Conference and loses its 2023 first-round pick if it’s not in the top four didn’t make a move to get better or to get worse. However, the biggest Bulls trade deadline mistake was not at least making a mid-level deal with the Golden State Warriors, sending them Alex Caruso and getting James Wiseman in return.

Bulls 2023 NBA trade deadline mistake: Not trading Alex Caruso for James Wiseman

The Bulls trade deadline in 2023 could have changed the franchise for the better one way or another. Chicago approached the 2023 NBA trade deadline with two good options. The team could be buyers and try to get better, or be sellers and try to get worse.

Either way, the Bulls would win.

If the Bulls went out and tried to acquire another piece to make the team better for when Lonzo Ball hopefully comes back at the end of the season, that would have made sense. It wouldn’t be the route I or many Bulls fans would go, but with the money and capital already committed to the 2023 squad, at least it would be understandable.

The much better option would be to have a fire sale and bottom out. Get what you can for Nikola Vucevic, DeMar DeRozan, and maybe even Zack LaVine to try and keep your 2023 pick and do a soft rebuild around players like Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmu.

This path would be a lot more likely to result in a championship someday, but either way, at least the Bulls' trade deadline strategy would lead toward a solid goal.

Doing nothing was the only way to mess this up, and that’s exactly what the Bulls did.

There was even a small move that could have had a big impact on the future, and general manager Marc Eversley whiffed on it.

The biggest Bulls trade deadline mistake was not moving Alex Caruso for James Wiseman. Instead, the Warriors took a lesser player — Gary Payton II — back for Wiseman (who ended up in Detriot in a 3-team deal), and Chicago was left with no chair to sit in when the music ended.

A Caruso for Wiseman deal wouldn’t be huge, but it would get something back for a guard on a guard-heavy roster. And that something would have been the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.

Wiseman played just three games at Memphis before coming to the NBA. He then played 39 games for the Warriors in his rookie season, missed his whole sophomore campaign with an injury, and has 21 appearances under his belt in 2022-23.

James Wiseman hasn’t taken the league by storm like a young Shaquille O’Neal, but he doesn’t turn 22 until March 31, and he’s shown a willingness to play hard and try to develop throughout his career.

Getting Wiseman at the 2023 NBA trade deadline would have been such a shrewd move by the Bulls. Especially in a year where losing their first-round pick is likely, getting a lottery-level talent for such a minimal cost would have been huge.

Alex Caruso is an excellent NBA player who has come a long way since his “Bald Mamba” days playing little buddy to Kobe Bryant. Caruso now averages 5.6 points, 3.3 assists, 3.1 rebounds, 1.7 steals and shoots 38.2% from 3-point range this season. He can also pester opposing guards with excellent defense.

Overall, he is a player that any contender would like to have. Unfortunately for the Bulls, they are not a contender. That’s why trading him for Wiseman at the deadline could have been so clutch.

The worst place to be in the NBA is in the middle. If you’re not competing for championships, then bottom out because picking 10-20 each season is not a recipe for success. But that is what the Bulls aimed for at the 2023 NBA trade deadline.

Best case, Ball comes back, and the team gets better. Right now, they are four games out in the loss column of the No. 6 seed, which would guarantee them a playoff spot. If they could make that ground up, their reward would be Joel Embiid, James Harden, and the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round.

Does that sound like a series the Bulls can win? How about against the Boston Celtics or Milwaukee Bucks if they get out of the play-in tournament?

Spoiler alert: The answer is no. And that’s why the biggest Bulls' trade deadline mistake of not at least dealing Alex Caruso for James Wiseman could come back to haunt them in the future.