Chicago Bulls
Caleb Wilson Hit Seven Threes in One Summer League Game. He Hit Seven All of Last Season.
Chicago’s lottery luck finally broke the right way. The Bulls jumped from the ninth-best odds to the No. 4 pick — the biggest leap any team made — in a class league executives described as having historic star power at the top.
Then their rookie went to Las Vegas and outscored everyone.
Caleb Wilson, F — No. 4 overall, North Carolina
The player. Wilson opened Summer League with a 35-point outburst and hit seven three-pointers in that single game — matching the total he made across his entire college career at North Carolina.
That number is the whole story of his rookie season in miniature. Either the shooting is a genuine leap, in which case Chicago drafted a complete forward, or it was a Las Vegas mirage, in which case he’s the player the scouting reports described. Nobody will know until December.
The competitive streak. Wilson has been openly 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 doesn’t end at the college level. Teammate Dailyn Swain, watching, described it as simply stating facts.
The situation. Chicago is rebuilding around Wilson and Matas Buzelis, which means minutes and shots are available in a way they aren’t for rookies who landed on contenders. That’s the advantage.
The disadvantage is the schedule. Six of the Bulls’ 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.
Playing time projection. Starter, heavy minutes, and the offense will find out what he is quickly.
Dates circled: the Oct. 24 home opener against No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa and Washington; Darryn Peterson and Utah on Dec. 16; Boozer and Memphis on March 13; and Nov. 13 in Atlanta, the hometown game Wilson told reporters he was most looking forward to.
Dailyn Swain, G — No. 15, Texas
Chicago’s second first-rounder, acquired from Portland.
Swain arrives with far less pressure than Wilson and a clearer runway to minutes than a mid-first-rounder usually gets — because the Bulls don’t have playoff hopes to protect. Rebuilding rosters exist to answer exactly this question.
Playing time projection. Real rotation minutes, with the ceiling determined by how quickly he defends NBA guards.
Elsewhere in the class
Ebuka Okorie, G — Detroit Pistons (No. 17). The Central Division’s most interesting rookie situation. Detroit won 60 games and the East’s top seed, then traded up to take the ACC’s leading scorer — a rookie who may not play much. Watch whether he’s in the rotation by December; that tells you what the Pistons found at 17.
Brayden Burries, G — Milwaukee Bucks (No. 10). Another Central addition, arriving into a genuinely new era after Milwaukee traded Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami and went 32-50. Burries made an All-Summer League case with three standout performances, including 23 points, eight rebounds and six assists on 8-of-15 shooting. The Bucks also added Nate Ament, the No. 13 pick, from Miami.
AJ Dybantsa, F — Washington Wizards (No. 1). The face of the class, and Wilson’s opponent in the home opener. Dybantsa tied the record for a No. 1 pick with 27 points in his Summer League debut, creating most of them off the dribble, and projects as a 20-point scorer immediately. The open question is his jump shot.
The number that decides his season
Wilson’s three-point rate. Everything else about his game was known on draft night; the shooting is the variable that decides whether Chicago drafted a good forward or a very good one.
Beyond that: whether Buzelis takes another step, whether Tiago Splitter establishes an identity, and whether the Bulls land in the 4-through-10 lottery range that the league’s revised structure now rewards.
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