Chicago Bulls Upgrade Josh Giddey Before Meeting with Knicks ... But Should They?

Another day, another perplexing move by the Chicago Bulls.

Following the team's blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs, Josh Giddey experienced hamstring tightness. The team initially listed him as questionable before their matchup with the Indiana Pacers. Then, in the lead-up to their Wednesday night game, the Bulls decided to rule Giddey out. They also went on to change Giddey's injury designation to a hamstring "strain" on the official report.

Fast forward to this afternoon, and Giddey is again listed as experiencing "tightness" and has been upgraded to probable. In other words, he is now expected to suit up for Chicago's sixth-to-last game of the regular season at Madison Square Garden.

If the flip-flopping of "tightness" and "strain" wasn't confusing enough, the decision to upgrade Giddey after his previous injury trouble makes very little sense. The guard has dealt with a hamstring issue for months. He was forced to sit out 11 games to start 2026 before returning in a limited capacity for four games. What happened next? He re-aggravated the injury and sat out for an additional eight contests between January 28 and February 11.

The Chicago Bulls have officially been eliminated from postseason contention. Their season will be over in less than ten days. If Giddey is seen as one of their fundamental building blocks – which he is after signing the four-year, $100 million deal – why wouldn't you want to ensure he is 100 percent healthy? The last thing anyone wants is for this hamstring strain to get any worse and thus impact his normal offseason regimen.

With all this said, there is a small chance the Bulls are just playing the injury report game. In other words, perhaps they were using Giddey's previous hamstring trouble as a reason to get him some extra rest this week. Sitting him against the tanking Pacers, in particular, would make sense if they were finally thinking about their lottery odds. While Indiana ended up blowing Chicago out, in theory, Giddey would have made that a more winnable one for Chicago.

Nevertheless, this has not been their mentality in the past. The more likely situation is that Giddey did experience some legitimate discomfort, thus making the decision to play him after only one night off a true head-scratcher.

Chicago Bulls Injury Report

Josh Giddey – PROBABLE (hamstring)
Tre Jones – PROBABLE (ankle)
Mac McClung – PROBABLE (abdominal)
Lachlan Olbrich – PROBABLE (foot)
Guerschon Yabusele – PROBABLE (ankle)
Nick Richards – QUESTIONABLE (elbow)
Anfernee Simons – OUT (wrist)
Jalen Smith – OUT (calf)
Zach Collins – OUT (wrist)
Noa Essengue – OUT (shoulder)

New York Knicks Injury Report

Karl-Anthony Towns – QUESTIONABLE (elbow)

Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on X for the latest news