NBA Scout Breaks Down Caleb Wilson’s Potential: ‘He’s Going to Be Really, Really Good’

The Bulls have been stuck in NBA purgatory for years.

Over the last six seasons, Chicago has won somewhere between 31 and 46 games. They haven’t been good enough to win a playoff series, but they haven’t been bad enough to bottom out and sit atop the draft lottery. For the last three years, the Bulls have made it to the play-in tournament but didn’t earn the right for a best-of-seven first-round series. This offseason, the Bulls finally switched things up. In April, Chicago fired VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and replaced him with Bryson Graham; they also swapped Billy Donovan for Tiago Splitter on the bench.

It’s (finally) a new era in Chicago.

The Bulls had themselves a sneaky good offseason, adding Nic Claxton and Norman Powell alongside Caleb Wilson, the No. 4 pick in the highly touted 2026 NBA draft class who was one of the top standouts at Summer League.

“I think Caleb Wilson is going to be really good,” an anonymous NBA scout told Sports Illustrated. “He’s three years out, but I mean, on this team, I could see him getting 15 points per game. He's going to be really, really good, and that'll be a nice three-guard lineup, but they're going to have to go through their growing pains. He's just a young kid.”

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Feeding Wilson the ball this season will be point guard Josh Giddey, who is coming off a career year in which he averaged 17 points and 9.1 assists per game in his second season in Chicago.

“I love what Giddey did last year,” the scout said. “I have always liked his game, so it was nice to see him actually produce at that level. He has great size, great ability to get into the paint, controls the pace of the game, has good vision, passing abilities. He looked like he improved his three-pointer, which is what was holding him back the first couple of years.

“I love big guards, and to have him at that size, being able to do what he can do, man, if he had players around him, he'd put up even better numbers with assists. I think he's got a really good IQ and feel for the game. His defense is terrible, which hurts him. But offensively, I mean, yeah, he can run. He ran their team last year. He controlled the pace, tempo, and the actions. He controlled the game. I like his game a lot.”

The Bulls signed Norman Powell to a two-year, $44 million contract in free agency after he was named to his first career All-Star Game last season in Miami.

“Powell gives them another scorer and a defender,” the scout said. “You complement Giddey with him, it's pretty good. You have a guy that is a good athletic defender. I don't think he's as good as a few years ago, but he's still a capable, solid defender on the wing. And so he'll guard the best wing player, and then he can make shots.

“He's a legit 20-point scorer. Giddey creating and finding him in the corner on the wing, you'll get a lot of shots. He has athleticism that Giddey doesn't have, running the floor on the wing, maybe doing a little transition with pitching the ball ahead. He's a nice complement at the two guard for Giddey’s style of play.”

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Starting alongside Giddey, Powell, Wilson and Claxton will be forward Matas Buzelis, who had a breakout season last year, logging 16.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. He remains a key piece in the Bulls’ future, but at least one NBA scout isn’t as high on him as others.

“The old front office loved Buzelis. I’m just not a fan of him,” the scout said. “Not for what they see in him. I could see him being a fourth option, a good player on a good team. But the way they were talking about him last year, he's the guy and was going to be the guy. I just don't see it. I see just a role player that is quick off the ground, plays hard, almost like an Andrei Kirilenko-type slasher at times, but not somebody that you can say, ‘This is our guy going forward.’”

NEXT: Predicting the 2026–27 NBA Award Winners: MVP, Rookie of the Year and More

Bulls’ offseason recap

Who’s in: Nic Claxton, Buddy Hield, Norman Powell, Dailyn Swain (draft), Caleb Wilson (draft)
Who’s out: Rob Dillingham, Nick Richards, Collin Sexton, Anfernee Simons

The Bulls watched as Sexton and Simons walked out the door in free agency, with the former heading to the Lakers and the latter joining the star-studded 76ers. Additionally, the Bulls made a late-offseason tweak last week by sending Rob Dillingham to the Hornets in exchange for Buddy Hield.

SI’s prediction for the 2026–27 Bulls

Record: 35–47 | Predicting the 2026–27 NBA Standings: Which Teams Will Rise, Fall and Surprise?

There are good times to be had in Chicago soon enough. But the team is likely a year or two away from making serious noise in the suddenly crowded Eastern Conference. Bulls fans have plenty to be optimistic about though, as Wilson should be must-see TV on a nightly basis as a rookie.

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