NEWSLETTER
Hope is a dangerous – yet necessary – thing.
Over the last several seasons, the Chicago Bulls haven’t given fans a lot to be excited about. As much as the organization tried to sell a competitive 2019-20 campaign during the offseason, it’s truly has been anything but (13-21 on December 31st). Now in the third year of a rebuild, the only thing we can do is hold out hope for a better tomorrow. And while there is no quantitative way to tell how hopeful we can be, The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie gave it his best shot.
In his 2019 NBA Rookie Scale Prospect Power Rankings, Vecenie takes a look at the NBA teams with the best “prospects.” Unlike in baseball, deciding what exactly constitutes a prospect is a bit challenging here, so to get us all on the same page, Vecenie describes the set up for his rankings here.
In short, any player currently on a rookie-scale deal can be considered a “prospect,” which obviously excludes some good, young players. In terms of how he orders the teams, Vecenie makes sure to mention that his opinion plays a critical role, but for what it’s worth, he also mentions the research he did prior to reaching this conclusion. He spoke with league executives, G-League coaches, college coaches, analysts, and many folks who should have a pretty good insight on the top-young talent across the league.
Most importantly he emphasizes that the final rankings shouldn’t be viewed as which team has the brightest future (as many other factors play into that), but rather as “hope” rankings. Remember, it’s kind of all we got.
Vecenie has made his way through 22 of the 30 NBA teams thus far and just cracking the top-10 (at literally No. 10) is your Chicago Bulls! We’re top-10 in hope! Woo!
With three potential breakout stars on the roster in Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr, and Coby White, the Bulls might be set up decently well moving forward if they can just find a true star-talent (Oh, and a real head coach). Vecenie headlines the list with those three players before pointing out several other young contributors.
His complete list of young Bulls talent looks like this:
- Wendell Carter Jr.
- Lauri Markkanen
- Coby White
- Kris Dunn
- Daniel Gafford
- Chandler Hutchison
- Denzel Valentine
- Max Strus
- Adam Mokoka
- Simi Shittu
- Justin Simon
Vecenie goes into a lot of detail on each one of these players, pointing out their potential upside for Chicago moving forward. You should really check it out.
Ultimately, the top-3 players are why the Bulls find themselves with one of the most hopeful situations in the NBA moving forward. Somehow, someway, the Bulls have (most likely) managed to hit on their last three No. 7-overall draft picks. And while the hope was one of those players would become a bona fide All-Star (which, technically, is still possible), all three appear to be above-average, obvious NBA starters. The only problem with that, it’s up to this front office to try and build a team around them.
For a lot more on why the Bulls have one of the better young groups in the NBA, make sure to check out Vecenie’s piece. Good read.
