The Chicago Bulls are not a team that is at the top of everyone’s minds right now amid the Luka Doncic craze but they’re quietly building something there.
Coby White and Josh Giddey are becoming cornerstone standard players, with the latter, in particular, breaking records with his all-round game.
The Chicago Bulls are still only ninth in the Eastern Conference but have certainly seen enough this season that they will feel hopeful about the next with some right additions and a breakthrough or two.
The additions they will hope for will ideally fall right in line with the one they made not too long ago. They’ve been told they got the player they have ‘coveted for years’.
Chicago Bulls’ player ‘coveted for years’
The Bulls, as constructed, have Coby White’s explosiveness, Nikola Vucevic’s reliability, and Josh Giddey’s all-around game that is putting up historic stats.
However, it’s easy to take a look around the NBA and point one one thing that every team needs and can use more of, which is shooting.
What also happens in scenarios like these is any player who can shoot at a good rate is pigeon-holed into a catch-and-shoot role when they could be so much more.
That’s exactly what the Bulls are realizing now after the trade they made on February 3, 2025, sending away Zach LaVine for Kevin Huerter.
Huerter was a victim of a “catch-and-shoot mentality” with the Kings and the Bulls have now been told by Kendall Gill that Huerter is so much more, and showing it now.
He said: “That’s the shooter the Bulls have coveted for years, that they got in this trade. Kevin Huerter has really fit in nicely with this team. With Sacramento, he was relegated to standing in the corner waiting for the basketball.
“But in this new system, the way that Billy wants him to play, he’s getting the ball on the move. You can see, he’s sneaky athletic, he can get to the rim, he can finish, he can dunk on you.
“He brings all those intangibles, he can bring something on both side of the ball.”
Kevin Huerter finds ideal environment in Chicago
Huerter is enjoying his basketball right now and the eye test is right in line with what the numbers say.
Since getting traded by the Kings, Huerter is averaging season-highs in every metric, showing how much he was struggling in Sacramento, and feels freed in Chicago.
| Team | Games | Mins | Pts | Reb | Ast | Stl | FG% | 3PT% |
| Bulls | 24 | 30.5 | 13.2 | 3.3 | 3.1 | 1.2 | 43.8% | 37% |
| Kings | 43 | 20.9 | 7.9 | 2.8 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 41.3% | 30.2% |
Kevin Huerter 2024/25 stats broken down by team
At 26, Huerter is also of the age where his timeline matches with White and Giddey, who are 25 and 22 respectively.
With increased responsibility, and maybe a couple of additions, another leap is quite possible too, because Huerter has shown with Kings that there’s another level to his game back in 2022/23.
If the Bulls can unlock that level, they will have a legitimate trio that can serve as a banana peel, if not outright contenders for the rest of the NBA.
