On Saturday, the Chicago Bulls return home to face the Denver Nuggets. They will play before their home crowd with a completely new roster after some notable trades. Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Nikola Vucevic, Dalen Terry, Kevin Huerter, and Jevon Carter are all gone.
In exchange, the Bulls received Anfernee Simons, Jaden Ivey, Collin Sexton, Rob Dillingham, Nick Richards, and picking up 14 second-round picks. Because the NBA Trade Deadline is in the season's second half, the team has little time to adjust.
Chicago head coach Billy Donovan highlighted two immediate obstacles.
“We have several challenges we have to work through as a group,” he said. “One is these guys have never played together. So you got to build some kind of chemistry and cohesiveness together in a very short period of time because there is no training camp. I think the second part is and I don't say this critically because it is the way we play, but none of them are in good enough shape. And it is for a multitude of reasons. One, some of them the minutes they got and received where they were at. Some of them were in the rotation, some of them were out of the rotation. Some are gonna get more of an opportunity to play now.”
Because of these factors, Donovan emphasized that conditioning will be a major factor moving forward.
Bulls coach Billy Donovan speaks to the challenges the new roster faces with a limited schedule and time to adjust pic.twitter.com/b40gYPL8pT
— Zachary Draves (@DravesZachary) February 7, 2026
The Bulls' roster remains depleted.
The Bulls are 24-28 entering Saturday. On Thursday, they lost 123-107 to the Toronto Raptors, marking a three-game losing streak.
Jalen Smith will be out due to a calf injury. Josh Giddey and Tre Jones are also still out with left hamstring strains. Zach Collins remains sidelined with a toe injury. Yuki Kawamura and Mac McClung are still out on two-way contracts.
The Bulls acquired McClung from the Orlando Magic.
