The Chicago Bulls enter the heart of NBA trade season in a peculiar place.
On one hand, they are far less of a selling candidate than they were a month ago. On the other, they still don’t appear anywhere close to championship contention and should be careful about placing too much stock into a recent 10-5 stretch.
There are trade arguments pulling this club in every direction, and it’s possible they could sell off talent in one transaction and add it in another. That makes it tricky to pin down their ideal trade targets, but the following three should all be on the radar.
Draft Picks
With Zach LaVine nearing a return from his foot injury, that can hopefully awaken his dormant trade market.
His injury history may be extensive, and his contract is colossal, but he’s still a 28-year-old two-time All-Star with one of the deepest offensive bags in basketball. He packs a powerful three-level scoring punch, plus he can create shots for himself and his teammates.
Win-now teams with offensive question marks all surely have LaVine’s name somewhere on their whiteboards. If he starts shredding nets again soon, someone will deem him worth the risk.
And the second that happens, Chicago should have some draft considerations headed its way. It may not be multiple first-rounders or any protected firsts, but the Bulls must brighten their future if they ship a talent of LaVine’s ilk out of town.
Gary Trent Jr., Toronto Raptors
The Bulls have shown enough fight for the last month that they don’t need to be solely focused on finding draft picks. If they pick up a player, though, it should be someone they think has a chance to grow with them.
Gary Trent Jr. could do just that.
The 24-year-old would give a jolt to this perimeter attack (career 38.3 percent from distance), not to mention replace some of the offensive lost in a potential LaVine trade. Trent’s scoring output has sagged a bit this season, but he pumped in better than 15 points per night each of the past three seasons.
His contract is expiring, so Chicago would need to decide pretty quickly whether he’s a keeper or not. If he helped steer this club into the postseason, though, that debate could be an easy one.
Quentin Grimes, New York Knicks
The Knicks cleared up some of their perimeter congestion by trading away both Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, but Quentin Grimes might still wind up with the short end of the stick.
New York’s reshuffled roster didn’t help Grimes get his old starting spot back. In fact, he still saw fewer than 20 minutes during OG Anunoby’s first outing with the team.
If the Knicks have another splash trade in them, Grimes feels like one of the more logical candidates to be involved. If the Bulls can elbow their way into that swap, they should try to be his landing spot. He’s a hard-nosed defender with a low-maintenance offensive game built around efficient shooting and sound decision-making.
He could handle a significant role in the rotation right now and still be capable of more down the line. In other words, he could be a supporting piece with this core and perhaps help grow the next nucleus with Coby White, Patrick Williams and Ayo Dosunmu.