Tag: Chicago Bulls

It isn’t often that a team gets excited about a No. 4 overall draft pick playing the role of seventh man to perfection entering his sixth NBA season, especially when he’s in the second year of a five-year, $90 million contract extension. Yet, even in this role, it’s important to remember that forward Patrick Williams […]

Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu is suddenly a headache. And not only for the opposition, but also for his own organization. What to do, what to do? Dosunmu is fully recovered from the season-ending surgery on his left shoulder he had in March, and that has been evident in the Bulls’ first three preseason games. He […]

Matas Buzelis vs. Giannis Antetokounmpo is not a marquee matchup — not with the Bulls second-year forward still in a formative stage of developing his intriguing skills and certainly not in a preseason game. But someday? Perhaps. With the Bulls spinning their wheels in recent seasons, they’re likely going to need one of their first-round […]

It wasn’t an indictment of jersey No. 25 at all. If anything, Bulls swingman Dalen Terry wore that number proudly to honor Chicago high school legend Benji Wilson. The indictment was on the player Terry thought he was as No. 25. More specifically, on the player a lot of people around him wanted him to […]

It was a nice vacation spot in a remote part of Fiji. And that’s also why Lonzo Ball was the last to know. On the day of June 28, news broke that Ball was headed to Cleveland for Isaac Okoro, ending his stay with the Bulls. Problem is Fiji is 17 hours ahead, so Ball […]

LAS VEGAS — In his sixth season as the Bulls’ coach, will Billy Donovan steer them to at least 33 victories? That’s the question for the franchise, whose universal projected season-win total is 32.5. “The only way to play this prop is over,” Doug Kezirian said. “Chicago closed the regular season at 15-5, which was […]

The Bulls provided the runway for forward Patrick Williams years ago. All he had to do was take off. Heading into his sixth season with the Bulls, the No. 4 overall pick of 2020 is still mostly grounded. After the Bulls finished off their second game of the preseason Thursday, beating the visiting Cavaliers 119-112, […]

In the preseason opener, Tre Jones came off the bench for the Bulls and helped spearhead the win after a slow start by the first unit. On Thursday, he was in the starting lineup in the rematch against the Cavaliers, again doing whatever was asked of him. There’s a reason the Bulls quickly jumped on […]

There’s a fine line between when Billy Donovan wants “Billy Ball” going throttle to the floor, and when he wants his offense pumping the brakes. Much to the Bulls coach’s dismay, that was blurred into recklessness on Tuesday night. Enough so that he used preseason sample size No. 1 to get his message across yet […]

CLEVELAND — The NBA is never short on storylines. Bulls guard Isaac Okoro was the subject of one of the latest. Traded in late June from the only NBA franchise he knew, guess where Okoro found himself for the Bulls’ preseason opener Tuesday? Back in Cleveland, of course, the place he called home for five […]

CLEVELAND – It’s not the ideal situation for the Bulls, especially with how much the front office feels is at stake for the development of this year’s roster, but it’s the situation they’ve been dealt. Starting guard Coby White continues hitting a ramp-up threshold in his rehab from a calf strain, and until he can […]

Bulls guard Coby White loves asking questions about other cultures, so when he first met new Aussie teammate Josh Giddey before the start of training camp last fall, he was curious. Giddey, who had arrived in a swap for Alex Caruso that summer, gave White a warning: If he ever gets to Australia, whatever he […]

It isn’t like Billy Donovan is asking his players to start going all 1980s Duke basketball and take up the practice of slapping their hands on hardwood as a symbol of intensity on the defensive end. The Bulls coach isn’t even asking them to forgo some of their offensive gains made last season and sacrifice […]

His English is good. It will get much better. Noa Essengue’s game? That’s really where all eyes will be, starting Tuesday night in Cleveland when the Bulls tip off the five-game preseason schedule. Can the 18-year-old handle the physicality with such a slim frame, is the game too fast for him, can he guard, will […]

Cubs manager Craig Counsell has taken his share of abuse from fans online this season. And by “fans,” we don’t mean the ones in Milwaukee. But then the Cubs went and won a playoff series. Did you catch wind of that? It’s true. In this week’s “Polling Place,” your home for Sun-Times sports polls on […]

It was the perfect ride-into-the-sunset moment. All Bulls center Nikola Vucevic did in five games in the EuroBasket tournament this summer was lead Montenegro in scoring (20.8 points), rebounding (11.6) and minutes played (33.9) and shoot a ridiculous 56.3% from three-point range. Afterward, he announced that, at 34, he had played in his last international […]

Coby White knows that this current Bulls front office didn’t draft him. That was the old Gar/Pax regime that made him the No. 7 overall pick out of North Carolina back in 2019. What executive vice president of basketball Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley have done with White, however, is not only inherited […]

It was a negotiation. It was always a negotiation. So all the outside noise from out-of-touch websites and “insiders” about Josh Giddey and the Bulls organization being locked into some sort of cold war was just that — out of touch. The Sun-Times reported in late July that both sides felt confident a deal would […]

Some news is bigger than a hot Pilates class. Some. That’s the situation Isaac Okoro found himself in late June, finishing up a hot Pilates class but noticing a call from his agency, Excel Basketball. Decisions had to be made, and hot Pilates would have to wait. “I came out the class and I had […]

The opening acts were … meh. Familiar faces with the mic, saying a lot of familiar things. Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas was still singing the same song and dance about the 15-5 finish to last year’s regular season, coach Billy Donovan talking about toughness needed, Coby White was confident his […]