Josh Giddey seeks to reach his full potential with the Chicago Bulls

Following last week’s surprising trade that sent Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Josh Giddey is ready for new opportunity with the Chicago Bulls.

“He got me to a great spot,” Giddey said of the trade request that came out of his exit interviews with the Thunder VP Sam Presti. “I’m very, very excited to be here.”

Giddey added some context to Presti’s press release, stating that the two parties had honest conversations about how Giddey could be a fixture of the OKC rotation, and wasn’t excited about the prospect of coming off the bench. 

“So he spoke to me about looking at potentially different roles, coming off the bench running the second unit and things like that,” Giddey explained. “And I just said to him, like at this point in my career, I’m 21 years old, it wasn’t something that you know, I was overly eager to do. And he completely understood. And just throughout the whole process, we were open and honest with each other. And I said to him, ‘look, you know, coming off the bench at this point in my career, it’s not something I’m trying to do and take a reserve role.’”

It’s hard to blame him. Putting up big numbers in season two only to fall into a smaller role with a developing team around him, it was hard to envision a scenario where he could become the best version of himself. 

“It just was gonna be hard to tap into my full potential, in my opinion, in a team like that where there was just so many talented guys who needed the ball in their hands, who are great with the ball in their hands. And a change of scenery was probably going to maybe unlock more of that for me,” he said. 

Still, the roster is in flux. All reports indicate the Bulls continue to search far and wide for Zach LaVine suitors. DeMar DeRozan’s future with the team may be in question as the Bulls are adding youth to the roster.

It’s hard to say now what Giddey’s role will be, though the trade certainly indicates he will have the ball in his hands quite a bit. Even if nothing has been promised to him yet. 

“The player I am, my job is just to make the game easy for everybody else,” Giddey said. “That’s kind of what I wanted to do. Come in and make sure you know guys get easy looks, guys feel confident on the floor. As a point guard, when you can get other people around you going and making them involved in the game, getting them feeling good early, it opens the game up for everybody. So that’s kind of how I see myself, just making basketball and the game simple for everybody else and making it easy for my teammates around me.”

That type of role became less and less available to him as the season progressed. Most notably, Giddey was benched in the second round of the Playoffs, but he struggled in adjusting to a new role alongside multiple ball handlers all season. His minutes decreased by six per game. With it, his usage dipped a point and a half. 

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“There’s a lot of distractions, whether it’s outside noise, whether it’s internal change, and I think for me, a lot of it came more with how good our team got and how much we evolved as a group,” Giddey elaborated. “And my role, I don’t want to say diminished, but it kind of was different to the first few years I had so it was a big adjustment for me, learning to play off the ball, obviously got guarded a lot differently just with the lineup that we had. And obviously you know, with guys like Chet coming in, it forced their centers to make adjustments. So a lot of it was basketball related. For me at least that’s the way I felt. But as I said, it was more credit to our team than anything, we just got good quickly. And you know, those kinds of things happen. My role changed a little bit and it was just a year of adjusting and learning different things.”

Playing alongside elite ball handlers like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams and a stretch five in Chet Holmgren who pulled opposing centers away from the rim, teams adjusted by playing off of Giddey or putting their bigs on him to clog up the offense. Whether he dominates the ball in Chicago or not, those things may not change. He needs to develop his shooting and his defense to prevent being played off the floor at the highest level.

“It left a sour taste in my mouth for a long time,” Giddey said of the way his season ended. “And it just shows me that there’s so many things I have to work on, to be able to be vulnerable in those moments. And as I said earlier, these are the lessons that I’d rather learn now as a young kid in my career, as opposed to when I’m later in my career. That’s the first time I’ve experienced playoff action and I didn’t know what to expect. It was probably a blessing in disguise to me. It really told me what I need to work on, how I need to get better and obviously shooting is a big one.”

Giddey also emphasized the importance of leveling up on the defensive end, showing the self-awareness he needs to have in order to improve.

“But also the defensive end is something that I think just coming into this offseason, the switch just flipped in my mind,” he said. “And I just realized that to be at the highest level you’ve got to really compete at that and you’ve got to be able to sit there and guard guys and that’s the side of the ball that I really want to take pride in. I think the offense will come naturally, but it’s that side of the ball that I really want to take steps forward in, to make sure when Playoff time comes around, that I’m ready to go on both sides of the ball and not just one.”

If Giddey, 21, can continue to improve in those areas, his future will brighten. And it seems he is focused on using the new opportunity here to inform his upcoming contract. 

“Coming off my season in Oklahoma, that was kind of the thought process, it was all extension, extension,” Giddey said. “And then when a trade happens that kind of flips my mindset to a different thing. So in regards to extension, I haven’t thought about it a lot over the last you know, week for however long it’s been. But I’m sure that those conversations will happen with my agent, the front office here and those sorts of things.”

Giddey has a ton of leverage over the Bulls when it comes to his next deal. They can’t afford to let him go after trading Caruso to get him. If the Bulls could get him on a good deal now, that would be the best case scenario, but Giddey may prefer to play out the year instead. If the Bulls don’t sign him now, they run the risk of him playing well and commanding a much bigger payday. 

Further moves are required to fully understand how the roster evolves after the first player transaction in three seasons. But for now, the Giddey era is underway, and he seems eager to be a fixture of the Bulls offense moving forward.