Source: Chicago Bulls Currently "Evaluating All Their Options"
While the NBA trade deadline is still over eight weeks away, teams around the league are already beginning to formulate their plans for what could wind up turning into a very fast-paced race and one of these teams is the Chicago Bulls.
Currently finding themselves with an 11-17 record, the Bulls have really struggled to find consistency from their current roster.
Chicago has not won more than two consecutive games this season, Lonzo Ball’s health continues to be a dark cloud that hangs over this franchise and the big elephant in the room is whether or not the front-office should look to start over and gather as many future assets as they can, while they can.
All-Star center Nikola Vucevic is in the final year of his contract and will become an unrestricted free agent in the summer, All-Star forward DeMar DeRozan has just one more year left on his contract after this season and while he just signed a new five-year, $215 million deal, All-Star guard Zach LaVine has not looked like his normal, explosive self.
Bulls general manager Marc Eversley and executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas have some big decisions to make in the coming weeks and it appears that Chicago has already begun their evaluations.
Many around the league have their eyes on the Chicago Bulls right now as a team that could potentially look to “sell” ahead of the trade deadline and league sources told Fastbreak on FanNation that the Bulls are currently “evaluating all of their options.”
“This is the most competitive we have seen in the East in a long time and Chicago just doesn’t have enough to compete with some of these new teams rising up in the conference, not to mention those at the top right now,” one source told Fastbreak. “I’ll say this, those so called ‘rumors’ out there talking about the Bulls potentially tearing everything apart. There is movement to these talks and the Bulls are actively evaluating themselves and all of their options both to add and move talent ahead of the deadline.”
Should the Bulls decide to take a step back as a franchise, almost every team in the league will be interested in at least something Chicago puts on the trade block.
DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic would highlight their list of potential guys to hit the trade block, as would guards Coby White and Alex Caruso, two key backcourt pieces that could instantly help a playoff contending team.
Just 28 games into the season, the Bulls could very much turn things around ahead of the trade deadline, putting much of these talks in the rear-view mirror, but the next few weeks will be extremely important for the future of this franchise.
Should Chicago be unable to get themselves back into the middle-of-the-pack in the Eastern Conference by mid-January, the general consensus around the league is that the Bulls will begin a massive roster reconstruction that could very well result in names like DeRozan, Vucevic and LaVine being moved ahead of the trade deadline.
As of right now though, it is important to note that the Bulls have shown zero interest in trading any of their stars and sources have reaffirmed this stance from Chicago to Fastbreak.
What the Chicago Bulls decide to do will have drastic effects on how this season’s trade deadline will go for all other 29 organizations in the NBA.
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