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The 2023 NBA Draft came and went for the Chicago Bulls without much of anything happening. They did make a trade with the Washington Wizards for a second-round pick that turned into Julian Phillips, and he is a prospect that the Bulls are happy to have landed. Still, NBA free agency will now officially get going on Friday with little different in terms of the roster. Albeit going into the NBA Draft without a pick, the Bulls still snagged a second-round selection and made a big mistake with it. In general, the Bulls biggest need this offseason is a playmaking point guard. Trading into the second-round gave them the opportunity to grab that type of player, and they passed for Phillips. Overall, missing out on a point guard was the Bulls biggest mistake from the 2023 NBA Draft.
The Bulls were extremely underwhelming last season and point guard play was lacking all year long. Three-point shooting came at a premium and they had no primary playmaker on the offensive end to open up the lanes for Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. It should have been clear that this was a priority once the offseason began, and they easily could have tried to solve the issue in the 2023 NBA Draft. Instead they drafted Julian Phillips, who could turn into a good player, albeit really not fitting the roster they currently have. It is fairly clear that the Bulls biggest mistake of the NBA Draft was failing to take a point guard, and here is the primary reasons why.
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Missing point guard help
Ever since Lonzo Ball started succumbing to knee injury, the Bulls haven’t looked the same. The acquisition of Lonzo Ball made the Bulls a very intriguing team, and he looked like the glue that held everything together in the early days of his Bulls tenure. However, he has now not seen an NBA court since January of 2022, and it is uncertain when he will be back on one. In fact, Ball’s entire career is in jeopardy and many believe he will never be the same player again. For some reason this didn’t entice the Bulls to draft a point guard.
After Ball, the Bulls primary point guards on the roster are Alex Caruso, Patrick Beverley, and Coby White. All three guys are solid NBA Players, but none are the playmakers that the Bulls need in order to contend. Caruso is coming off of a First-Team All NBA Defensive season, but that is his speciality; he is the perfect guard to have when a team already has a playmaking point guard. Beverley is a very similar player, and there is no guarantee that he is on the Bulls next season since he is a free agent. Lastly, White has not panned out to be the player that the Bulls drafted him to be. The Bulls took him as the No. 7 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, but he has so far turned out to be a streaky shooter who can find himself amid stretches of turnover woes. The 2023 NBA Draft was the perfect chance to take a risk on a young point guard, and the Bulls decided to stick with the three guys that do not inspire much offensive confidence on their roster.
The primary reason that the Bulls needed to go get a point guard and made a mistake by not is their public desire to contend. If this core of LaVine, DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic are going to actually compete, they need to win now and the Bulls need to fill their biggest holes as quickly as possible. This means taking as many chances at the point guard position as possible, something they failed to do in the NBA Draft. This roster is simply not good enough to contend right now, and they are now projecting to look very similar come the start of next season. If this ends up being the case, another down season looks to be on the horizon for the Bulls. When next season ends and the 2024 NBA Draft approaches, the Bulls will probably be much more keen on taking a point guard after another season of underwhelming play from their primary ball-handlers.
Nevertheless, Julian Phillips will have the opportunity to prove that the Bulls made the right decision by trading into the draft to take him. Still, making a trade for a player that they didn’t need will give him very high expectations in the eyes of Bulls fans; for all involved, the Bulls should have just drafted a point guard and stayed true to what their roster needs.
