Breaking down Jalen Smith's three-year deal with the Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls are finally getting younger and more athletic.

The Bulls have agreed to a three-year, $27 million deal with big man Jalen Smith as their first outside addition in free agency.

Smith, 23, spent the last three seasons as the backup big behind Myles Turner with the Indiana Pacers. Prior to that, he was with the Phoenix Suns for a season and a half as the 10th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

Here’s Smith’s three-year contract breakdown:

Year 1 (age 24): $8.3M — 5.9 percent of the salary cap

Year 2 (age 25): $9M — 5.9 percent of the salary cap

Year 3 (age 26): $9.6M — 5.8 percent of the salary cap

This is a really nice signing for Arturas Karnisovas and company. Following Andre Drummond’s departure for Philadelphia (and before if we’re being honest), the Bulls were shallow on front-court depth. Smith comes in as more of a tweener big, who can add elite rebounding on both ends — his 11.8 offensive rebounding and 24.7 defensive rebounding rates each rank in the 92nd percentile.

Smith is a solid rim protector with a 3 percent block rate. He shows some signs of defensive scheme versatility as someone who can sit back and deter shots at the rim, but also switch onto the perimeter, move his feet and recover with his 7’2.25″ wingspan.

Offensively, Smith became a much more efficient player in his career year last season. His 67 effective field goal percentage was a career-high. He improved to nearly 69 percent on two-point shots and boosted his three-point percentage from just 33.5 percent for his career to 42.4 percent, taking five attempts per 36 minutes. That’s not high-volume sniper level, but he can stretch the floor out and provide spacing for driving lanes spotting up or operate in pick-and-pops.

Smith’s three-point percentage has fluctuated over his career — 23.5 percent in year one, 32.8 percent in year two, 28.3 percent in year three, 42.4 percent in year four. He looks like a shooter, but has some work to do improve his consistency.

Smith also has great touch around the basket and can punish mismatches when guards switch onto him. That will help alleviate some pressure on guys like Josh Giddey and Coby White, who will be able to find him under the basket if they get stonewalled on the perimeter.

It will be interesting to see how he plays outside the Indiana Pacers high-octane offense, which was the second most efficient of all time in 2023-24. Smith fell out of the playoff rotation, averaging just six minutes per game in seven of the Pacers 17 games. But the Bulls are paying Smith just six percent of the salary cap, so it’s a fine gamble on an upside play who fits their new timeline.

Overall, Smith is a good offensive player who has improved as a defender. His +2.6 Offensive Estimated Plus-Minus (EPM) was in the 93rd percentile, while he was slightly below average on defense (-0.8 D-EPM). In 14 starts last season, Smith was productive (11.1 points, 6.7 rebounds), but the team was -3.4 in those minutes. He’ll need to continue to improve on the defensive to carve out a bigger role as the Bulls eventually transition off of Nikola Vucevic at the starting spot down the line.

As the Bulls invest more money into their young core, this almost certainly spells the end of the DeMar DeRozan era in Chicago. Following the Smith signing, the Bulls are roughly $13 million below the luxury tax line. Assuming this signing came from the Mid-Level Exception (MLE), it will hard cap the Bulls at the first apron. We already know the Bulls aren’t going into the luxury tax.

This does add a layer of difficulty if the Bulls want to sign-and-trade DeRozan. The former All-Star’s market appears to be drying up with the Los Angeles Clippers clogging their books with the Derrick Jones Jr. signing. In order for DeRozan to go there, he’ll likely need to pull off a sign-and-trade, which means the Bulls need to take back salary. Unless they clear space in other ways (Vucevic, Zach LaVine, Jevon Carter, Lonzo Ball), they can’t take back more than $13.3 million.

It will be fascinating to see how the Bulls front office continues to navigate their retooling of the roster. But for now, it appears Karnisovas is following through on his promise for change.

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