When the Chicago Bulls traded Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder straight up for Josh Giddey (it’s still inexcusable that the Bulls didn’t land any draft picks), it was essentially a one-year experiment with a high-upside point guard.

Giddey is only 22 years old and possesses unique traits for the position: he’s 6-foot-8, an excellent rebounder, has a high IQ and is a smart, savvy passer.

He arrived in Chicago with weaknesses, though, or the high-level roster-constructing Thunder organization wouldn’t have let him go. Giddey shot just 31.0 percent from deep during his three seasons in OKC and has always been a terrible individual defender.

When the Thunder made him the No. 6 pick in the 2021 draft, the organization was one season into a rebuild. By the time Oklahoma City was contending in the Western Conference last year, Giddey’s poor outside shooting and defense had forced him out of the rotation. He only played 75 minutes across six games in a conference semifinals loss to the Dallas Mavericks. A few months later he was in Chicago.

Giddey has seemingly turned a corner with the Bulls. Since Jan. 20, he’s averaging 18.1 points while shooting nearly 49.8 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from three on 4.6 attempts per game.

Unfortunately for Chicago, there’s cause for trepidation behind those career best numbers.

Josh Giddey needs to prove he’s a winning player on a contending team

Giddey’s minutes dropped significantly during last year’s playoffs when Thunder Head Coach Mark Daigneault couldn’t justify keeping him on the floor. Teams were running pick-and-rolls until they got one-on-one matchups with him and left him open beyond the arc to sag into the lane and double team players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams.

In 10 postseason games, two of which he came off the bench, Giddey averaged just 8.7 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists, well below his career averages. He went 4-of-7 and 4-of-6 from three in consecutive games in the Thunder’s first-round series against the New Orleans Pelicans but shot 4-of-21 in his other eight playoff contests.

Since Giddey took off with the Bulls in mid-January, Chicago is 8-13. That includes a 5-9 stretch since Chicago traded its offensive fulcrum in Zach LaVine.

The Australian National Team star was productive in Oklahoma City until the Thunder were ready to make a championship push. Then he wasn’t. He’s admittedly become an entirely new level of productive in Chicago, but he’s doing it with nothing on the line.

If the Bulls were in the thick of a title race, teams would be leaving Giddey open and attacking him on the other end just as they did with the Thunder.

Is he more prepared to make defenses pay from the outside? Has he learned to use his length more effectively to bother opposing ballhandlers? We don’t know, and unfortunately, we won’t know until he’s making upwards of $30 million per year when he receives a new deal this offseason.

If Giddey is going to be one of the Bulls’ core players when the franchise is ready to truly compete again, he’ll need to prove he’s a winning player—not just a good stats, bad team player.