NBA Trades: Grading the out-of-nowhere Thunder and Bulls Giddey-Caruso swap 

Some NBA analysts and fans may have this grade even lower than this C grade for the Bulls front office (and others may be surprisingly higher on the trade), but this is the epitome of a below average, but not horrific trade for Chicago. It’s best to break this down by the pros and cons of the trade:

Pros: The Bulls have finally made a trade to acquire a player! They have been the laughingstock of the NBA, constantly sitting out of every offseason and trade deadline, despite being a play-in-caliber team year in and year out. This trade is at least a step in the right direction to an eventual reset or rebuild and with Lonzo Ball having missed two consecutive seasons with his knee injury, Giddey can be a good replacement for him.

Additionally, Giddey who is only 21 years old, is actually younger than a good chunk of prospects who have been mocked to be taken in the lottery in the 2024 NBA Draft. Players like Dalton Knecht (23.1), Devin Carter (22.2), Zach Edey (22.1), Tristan Da Silva (23.1), and Tyler Kolek (23.2) are all older than Giddey, despite the Aussie about to enter his 4th season in the NBA. He still has plenty of room to grow and could be a nice running mate for Coby White in the long term.

Cons: The downside of Giddey entering his 4th season in 2024-2025 is that the Bulls will likely need to give him a fairly large contract to keep him around long-term. He is also only a career 31.0% three-point shooter and doesn’t fit the modern NBA nearly as well as other younger players with fringe all-star upside. On top of not being able to shoot well from beyond the arc, he is not a high-level defender, making him one of the rare No-3-And-No-D players in the league.

The other complaint is that the Thunder escaped this transaction with all of their future draft picks, which is mind-boggling. Reports were that the Bulls passed on multiple offers at this most recent trade deadline, some of which included multiple future assets, and one of which would have led to a top-10 pick in this year’s draft.

While this is definitely a weak draft at the top, there is something to having a player under a rookie contract for four seasons that you handpick and develop. This Bulls front office is putting a lot of faith into Josh Giddey to pan out for their franchise moving forward.

It certainly seems that Sam Presti won this trade and that Caruso will help the Thunder be a legit title contender next season, but the NBA is an unpredictable entity and anything can happen!