Chicago Bulls
Six Chicago Bulls to Watch in 2026-27
The Bulls open Oct. 21 in Toronto with a new head coach, a new front office, a rookie the franchise is betting on and a roster that has never played a game together. Almost everything about this season is a question. These are the six players who answer most of them.
Caleb Wilson, F
The reason to buy a ticket.
Chicago took Wilson at No. 4 overall after the lottery moved them up from ninth — the biggest jump any team made — in a draft class regarded as one of the strongest in years. He then went to Summer League and looked like one of the most NBA-ready prospects on the floor, which is the best possible early return on a pick like that.
He has also been loud about his intentions. Wilson has talked openly about chasing Rookie of the Year and made a point of going directly at Cameron Boozer in their first Summer League meeting, renewing a Duke-North Carolina rivalry that apparently didn’t end at the college level.
The schedule gives him a stage almost immediately. The Oct. 24 home opener puts him against No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa and Washington. Darryn Peterson and Utah come to the United Center on Dec. 16. Boozer and Memphis arrive March 13. And on Nov. 13, Wilson plays an NBA game in front of his hometown Atlanta crowd — the date he told reporters he was most looking forward to.
Matas Buzelis, F
The player this roster is actually built around, whatever the draft headlines say.
Buzelis enters his third season having made real progress in nearly every phase last year. His jump shooting improved even while he was generating most of his own looks, which is the hard version of that improvement. The front office has been open about viewing him as the building block.
The 2026-27 question is whether he can be a second option rather than a first. On a rebuilding roster, the temptation is to hand a young forward enormous usage and call the resulting numbers development. The more useful outcome is Buzelis being efficient inside a functioning offense next to Wilson.
Norman Powell, G
The veteran signing that says what the Bulls are actually trying to do.
Powell, a reigning All-Star, signed a two-year deal — a move that makes no sense for a team planning to bottom out and perfect sense for one that isn’t. Under the league’s revised lottery structure, the bottom three teams have worse odds than they used to, which makes outright tanking a losing strategy and the 4-through-10 range the efficient place to land.
Powell is how Chicago gets there. He’s also the most likely player on the roster to be discussed at the February trade deadline if the season goes sideways.
Josh Giddey, G
The holdover with the least settled future.
Giddey is expected to open in the backcourt next to Powell, and his fit is the roster’s most interesting basketball question. A big playmaking guard alongside two young forwards can be the connective tissue that makes everything work — or the player whose shooting limitations let defenses ignore him in exactly the situations Wilson and Buzelis need spacing.
New coach, new personnel, new role. Watch the first month.
Nic Claxton, C
The defensive anchor, and the position the Bulls have quietly needed for years.
Claxton is expected to round out a starting lineup that has to gel quickly if Chicago is going to avoid sinking to the bottom of the East in the early going. With a rookie and a third-year forward in the frontcourt, having a legitimate rim protector behind them is what keeps early-season defensive possessions from becoming disasters.
Dailyn Swain, G
The No. 15 pick, and the one whose season nobody will be paying attention to.
That’s usually where the useful surprises come from. Swain arrives with less pressure than Wilson and a clearer path to minutes than a mid-first-rounder normally gets on a team with playoff hopes — because the Bulls don’t have those. Rebuilding rosters exist to find out whether the 15th pick can play.
The context that shapes all of it
The front office is entirely new. Billy Donovan stepped down April 21. Bryson Graham now runs basketball operations, with Stephen Mervis as senior vice president and Acie Law IV as vice president of player personnel. Tiago Splitter was hired as head coach in June. This is the second leadership reset in six years, and the first one ended with a roster held together too long and sold at its lowest value.
The schedule is unkind early. Six of the first eight games are on the road, and the opening twelve include the champion Knicks, the LeBron James and Jaylen Brown-led 76ers and the Celtics — each twice — plus San Antonio and Minnesota. A rough October means less than it normally would.
The league isn’t expecting much. Chicago drew three nationally televised games all season: Dec. 1 vs. New York, Jan. 4 at Indiana, Jan. 20 at Brooklyn.
Also on the calendar: Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, both of whom spent their entire careers in Chicago before the deadline sell-off, return to the United Center this season.
Chicago Sports Wire covers Bulls news, schedules and game coverage all season. See the Bulls schedule for tip-off times and broadcast info.