Last week when I started my previews for the 2026 NBA Draft, which begins Tuesday night in Brooklyn, I mentioned that the Los Angeles Clippers were maybe the biggest winners of May's draft lottery because they went from potentially zero first-round picks to No. 5 overall. My Chicago Bulls were another winner, as they finished with the ninth-worst record in the NBA but jumped up to the fourth overall pick in the draft, and that's what I will look at today.
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It has been hard to be a Bulls fan really ever since Derrick Rose tore his ACL in April of 2012. They have been stuck in mediocrity ever since -- not good, but not bad enough to land a high draft pick and get a franchise player that way. Chicago's 11 straight seasons without a playoff series win is the NBA's fourth-longest active drought.
Perhaps things are changing in the Windy City, though. Ownership tended to be averse to major change but finally cleaned house in the front office with the team hiring former Hawks senior vice president Bryson Graham as the new executive vice president of basketball operations. Dating to his time with New Orleans, Graham has become known as a terrific judge of talent.
For example, he drafted the likes of Trey Murphy III (17th overall), Herbert Jones (35th), Dyson Daniels (eighth) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (17th) â those last two went on to win Most Improved Player awards in back-to-back years. Graham finally decided on his coach last week when he hired former Portland interim head coach Tiago Splitter.
Splitter led the Blazers to the playoffs last season after the ousting of Chauncey Billups, yet the team didn't really push hard to hire Splitter full-time. Because the Blazers did sneak into the playoffs, they had to hand over their first-round pick this year (No. 15) to the Bulls due to condiditons from a trade years ago. Chicago's rebuild has seemingly gotten a really nice kickstart with whomever it chooses at No. 4 overall. It's the team's first top-five pick since taking bust Patrick Williams at No. 4 in 2020.
It is common knowledge that the top four prospects for this year's very deep draft are BYU's AJ Dybantsa, Kansas' Darryn Peterson, Duke's Cameron Boozer and North Carolina's Caleb Wilson â all of whom were one-and-done at the college level. They are rated 1-4 atop the CBS Sports draft rankings.
Chicago thus would seemingly have the easiest choice of any team in Round 1 on Tuesday: Take whichever of that group falls, and Wilson is the -475 favorite at DraftKings to be the pick. The 6-foot-10, 220-pounder missed nine games his freshman year due to a pair of hand injuries but set the UNC freshman scoring record at 19.8 points per game and joined Tyler Hansbrough (2005-06) as the only Heels freshmen to lead the club in scoring, rebounding and steals per game.
With his combination of athleticism and motor and defensive intensity, I have seen Wilson compared to Jaren Jackson Jr. and even Kevin Garnett. Amazingly, blue-blood Carolina hasn't produced a top-five pick since 2005 when Marvin Williams and Raymond Felton both went in that range.
I haven't seen many mock drafts where Wilson goes higher than third to Memphis and he's +600 to be the choice there. To slip past Chicago and be chosen No. 5 by the Clippers, Wilson is +3000. I don't see a scenario where he gets past No. 4.
The Bulls have taken forwards in the first rounds of the past two drafts Matas Buzelis at No. 11 overall in 2024 and Noa Essengue at No. 12 last year, so perhaps forward isn't the No. 1 need. However, Buzelis is more of a small forward and the jury is out on Essengue after he played just two games as a rookie before undergoing season-ending surgery.
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Chicago could badly use a shooting guard so I don't think the front office would be too upset if Peterson was still there at No. 4, but he's +2000 to be the pick at that spot. Duke's Boozer is the +500 second favorite; his father Carlos played for the Bulls from 2010-14. I see no scenario in which Dybantsa (+8000) is available.
