Bulls Winners and Losers from 2024 NBA Free Agency
The Chicago Bulls used 2024 NBA free agency to start their long awaited transformation.
They didn't quite go head-first into a rebuild, but they did start to shift focus forward after years of stubbornly chasing maximum competitiveness despite continually bumping into a low ceiling. The change in mindset is objectively a good thing, even if the Bulls maybe haven't fully adopted it yet.
While initiating these changes, Chicago made a pair of players big winners in free agency. It also left one veteran holdover as an obvious loser.
Winner: Jalen Smith
Jalen Smith felt positioned for a decent payday in free agency, but you never quite know how the market will react to a non-star center. Especially not a market as limited as this year's was.
The big fella did just fine for himself, though.
The Bulls brought him to town on a three-year, $27 million deal. They also provided the implied opportunity to make even more down the line. A Nikola Vučević trade feels like one of the logical next steps of the franchise's shift toward the future, and depending on how that deal looks, there seems to be at least a decent chance the starting center spot could wind up being Smith's to lose.
Smith revitalized his career over the past two-plus seasons with the Indiana Pacers, but this is a chance for him to take things even farther. He has never been a full-time starter, but his career per-36-minutes averages of 18.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 1.7 three-pointers and 1.5 blocks, per Basketball-Reference.com, make it exciting to imagine what he'd do with that kind of opportunity.
Loser: Jevon Carter
This time last year, Jevon Carter was inking a three-year, $19.5 million deal with the Bulls and looming as their possible starting point guard. What a difference one year can make.
Last season, all 72 of his appearances came with the reserve unit, and his 13.9 minutes per game were the third-fewest of his career.
Carter spoke of a desire to get more "clarity" of his role this offseason, but if the Bulls gave him that, it probably wasn't the kind he had in mind. As if Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu weren't already doing enough damage to Carter's floor time, Chicago brought in Josh Giddey at the lead guard spot. Plus, there's even talk of perhaps getting Lonzo Ball back.
In other words, it's very possible that if Carter isn't traded, he winds up playing even less next season than he did in the last one.
Winner: Patrick Williams
Every summer, there seems to be at least one free agent who makes fans stop and wonder, Wait, he got how much?!
Patrick Williams was that free agent this summer.
Now, if you're still clinging to the idea that he's some Kawhi Leonard clone, maybe a five-year, $90 million deal doesn't seem so outlandish. But where is the evidence of Williams being on that kind of developmental path? And where are the numbers suggesting he's worth this kind of investment?
He has shown very little growth in his game over his first four NBA seasons, and while he's still just 22 years old, he's also had a big enough opportunity to wonder whether this is just who he is. If he's topping out as a solid, nowhere near spectacular three-and-D forward, then he should be thanking his agent and this front office for getting him this kind of coin.