The Chicago Bulls made another trade that has left many in the basketball world scratching their heads. The Bulls reportedly sent Lonzo Ball to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Isaac Okoro. It’s a deal that, when first reported, the logical reaction was “that’s it?” just due to the lack of return the Bulls got for Ball.
Yes, he has a lengthy injury history and his health is certainly a risk here, but there’s no way this was the best offer on the table for Ball. Especially when at the trade deadline, there were reports of several teams with interest, including the Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons, who the Bulls could’ve squeezed at least one first-round pick out of in return.
Lonzo Ball trade grades: Cavaliers ace deal for veteran guard; Bulls agree to another questionable player swap
Sam Quinn
Instead, Chicago held onto Ball for the rest of the season, and now, all they have to show for trading him is Okoro. This isn’t really a knock on Okoro, who is a tenacious defender, but is also a low-volume 3-point shooter and someone who proved to have significant limitations in Cleveland’s postseason run. It’s more about the Bulls.
Once again, they are running off the same playbook that has failed them: Holding onto a player too long to the point their value depreciates, and then, when it’s time to trade them, minimal value comes out of it. The same thing happened with Zach LaVine, who the Bulls sent to the Sacramento Kings this past February for Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones, Zach Collins and a first-round pick that was previously owned by the Bulls. It happened again with DeMar DeRozan, who also was sent to the Kings, and in return, the Bulls got Chris Duarte, cash and a 2028 second-round pick.
If the Bulls had traded both those guys a year or even two years earlier, they probably would have gotten far better packages for them. There was a time when the Lakers were interested in LaVine, and they could’ve extracted one or both of L.A.’s tradable first-round picks for him. Instead, all they got were the protections off a pick they previously sent to the Spurs in a deal to land DeRozan in the first place.
But neither of those deals were more egregious than what the Bulls did last summer, where they traded Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Josh Giddey and nothing else. At that time, Caruso was by far the most valuable asset on Chicago’s roster, and any number of teams would’ve ponied up multiple first-round draft picks to land the defensive anchor. But the Bulls maneuvered that trade as if they didn’t have the more valuable asset in Caruso, and got fleeced by a Thunder team that has an endless amount of draft capital. It’s actually not too dissimilar to what they just did in the Ball trade, in which they traded for a player who is coming off their worst statistical season, while giving up the better asset.
So to add it all up, the Bulls have traded LaVine, DeRozan, Caruso and Ball and got just one first-round pick back in total. A pick they already owned. That’s just poor asset management from a Bulls team that has been content with mediocrity for five years now. Aside from the lone season in which Chicago made the postseason in 2022, the Bulls have been trotting out this same company line that they don’t want to completely tank, which has its pros and cons. But they also don’t put themselves in the best position to even draft enough quality talent by not getting draft capital in return for any of these players.
It just raises the question — yet again — what are the Bulls doing? Okoro fits the mold of what team executive Arturas Karnisovas has said is the goal of getting a young player with experience to pair with Coby White, Giddey and Matas Buzelis, but that’s a lot of guys on the floor who can’t shoot. And more than that, how is that the best combination of players Chicago can muster when they’ve done all these trades?
There are still more trades the Bulls can do. Maybe White is moved and Nikola Vucevic has been on the trading block for two seasons now. But based on how Chicago’s operated in each of their last four trades, it doesn’t inspire confidence that they’ll get fair value for either of those guys.
