The Bulls are at a buffet where nothing looks good

On re-signing Nikola Vucevic, and the unappetizing alternatives.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Old Woman Frying Eggs; Diego Velazquez; 1618

Did the Chicago Bulls have any choice but to pay Nikola Vucevic a bunch of money to stick around?

The quick answer is yes — of course the Bulls had other choices. They simply could have decided that the Vucevic era failed — perhaps due largely to forces outside of Vucevic or the Bulls’ control (I am very sympathetic to the outsized impact the Lonzo Ball injury has had on this team) — and they needed to move on. But where would that have gotten the Bulls given what’s going on elsewhere on their roster?

The other two centers on Chicago’s 2022-23 roster were Andre Drummond and Tony Bradley. The Bulls waived Bradley in February to sign Patrick Beverley. Drummond is on a cheap contract for next year only. He had predictably crazy per-minute numbers in limited burn (13 minutes per game) and still gets in foul trouble too easily. Needless to say, unless you’re tanking or have an absolute superstar at power forward you, an NBA team, can’t go into a season starting Andre Drummond at center in the 2020s. It’s not tenable.

So who is out there in the ether to replace Vooch? Jakob Poeltl will likely cost about as much as Vucevic, but all indications are that the Raptors — who spent a first round pick in trading for Poeltl — will re-sign him. You don’t have the cap space to recruit him anyway. Nor can you free up the space for Brook Lopez, who is 35 years old. After those two and Vooch, the center class of free agents quickly reaches the Plumlee, Bamba, Paul Reed level.

This is all to say that the Bulls don’t have an heir apparent on the roster, and there are very few options for starting centers on the free agent market. The trade market could have some names, but the Bulls don’t have many tradable contracts.

Now it’d be completely reasonable to argue that this whole Bulls era has failed, and throwing more money at Vucevic is a bad plan. You should cut your losses and look to pivot away from the veteran roster you have now. That means letting Vucevic walk, and it probably means trading DeMar DeRozan at minimum and possibly also Zach LaVine. DeRozan has one year at $29 million remaining. LaVine is due $178 million over four years. That latter contract is looking a little Bradley Beal to me in this new constrictionist salary cap era. So while you’re likely to get some level of draft capital or young talent by trading DeRozan and LaVine, it’s likely not going to be anything like what the Jazz got in their teardown trades a year ago.

What I don’t see is the path in the middle — the option where you keep DeRozan and LaVine and try again to make a convincing playoff appearance without re-signing Vucevic or without having a very good plan to replace him via a trade that doesn’t cost you Alex Caruso or Patrick Williams. Or perhaps Caruso is the bait, and you find a suitable point guard on the market. But you don’t have the cap space for Fred VanVleet, so you’re probably chasing Tre Jones or Gabe Vincent or hitting the trade market for Delon Wright, Monte Morris or even Malcolm Brogdon. Is that changing your path in time to capitalize on DeRozan’s last year under contract? Is that satisfying LaVine, who has appeared in one playoff series since arriving in Chicago in 2017?

Every team has choices in every decision. The NBA trade and free agency market is like a buffet. Sometimes you’re giddy at all the possibilities. Sometimes every choice is unappetizing.

In that light, and given what we’ve laid out about the state of the Bulls, it’s unsurprising to me that Chicago inked Vucevic on a three-year, $60 million extension on Wednesday. To me this signals that the Bulls are not just yet ready to move on from this era, a decision that has some merits based on the lack of prospects on the roster and the contract situations of the veterans. It’s a choice, and maybe not a good one. But there weren’t any obviously better paths on the table.

Sometimes, you’re choosing between multiple unappetizing options just to get by.