Chicago Bulls Bet the Rebuild on Caleb Wilson's Summer

The Chicago Bulls spent last season tearing the building down to the studs, and the past week finally gave the rebuild a shape you can point at. The preseason schedule dropped on Tuesday, which normally rates as filler news, except that this particular five-game slate is the first live look at a roster that has almost nothing in common with the one that went 31-51. New head coach. New head of basketball operations. New starting center. A new All-Star wing. And a No. 4 pick who just spent two weeks in Las Vegas convincing people he was the best player in the building. Most Chicago Bulls news in late July is filler. This batch is not.

The week that was in Chicago Bulls news

The headline item is the calendar. Chicago announced a five-game preseason run: Phoenix at the United Center on Oct. 7, Memphis at home on Oct. 9, at Denver on Oct. 11, at Milwaukee on Oct. 14, and Minnesota back home on Oct. 16. The Memphis date is the one circled in every Bulls group chat, because it puts Caleb Wilson opposite Cameron Boozer again after their Summer League opener, and because Rob Dillingham and Leonard Miller get an early reunion with the Timberwolves in the finale.

The rest of the week was scraps, which is what late July is supposed to be. Wilson was named to the All-Summer League First Team on July 21. Philadelphia waived former Bulls first-rounder Dalen Terry to clear a spot for its own summer haul. No transactions, no leaks, no drama. Bryson Graham has a roster spot open and appears content to sit on it.

Caleb Wilson turned Las Vegas into a coronation

Wilson was the fourth pick out of North Carolina, and the pre-draft scouting report on him was defense first, jumper later. He spent Summer League ignoring the second half of that. Across four games he averaged roughly 24 points and seven rebounds with 2.5 blocks and better than a steal a night, shooting around 50 percent from the field. The number that actually matters: he took 31 threes and made 13 of them, at 42 percent, after hitting 7 of 27 as a UNC freshman. Those were not all spot-ups either. He was making pull-ups, step-backs and turnaround jumpers, the shots NBA scorers are asked to make and the ones the Bulls had no idea he could hit.

He opened with 35 points against Boozer's Grizzlies in a 97-96 loss, then asked to play the back-to-back while most top-five picks were already in street clothes, explaining that he wanted to win a game before he stopped. That is the kind of thing that sounds like nothing in July and gets quoted all season if it turns out to be real.

Two things to keep in perspective. Wilson led all of Summer League in turnovers at 5.3 per game, a byproduct of being the only creator on the floor for a team with no lead guard. And he shot 33 percent from the free throw line, including an 0-for-6 night. Neither is fatal at 19. Both are worth watching in October.

What the Chicago Bulls roster looks like now

Start at the top. Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley were removed from their roles on April 6. Billy Donovan stepped down on April 21 after six seasons. Bryson Graham was hired to run basketball operations on May 4 and hired Tiago Splitter as head coach on June 15, choosing him over Micah Nori, Ryan Schmidt and holdover assistant Wes Unseld Jr. Splitter, 41, had just gone 42-40 as Portland's interim coach and pushed the Blazers to the seven seed under genuinely chaotic circumstances. Graham said Splitter "stood apart for his basketball intellect, his ability to connect with and develop players, and the way his teams compete."

Then the roster. Nic Claxton arrived from Brooklyn in a three-team deal that also involved Minnesota, reported on the eve of the draft in late June and processed in early July. Chicago gave up Mo Gueye's non-guaranteed contract; Brooklyn took on Julius Randle and the No. 28 pick from Minnesota, and the Wolves collected No. 33. The Bulls absorbed Claxton's money without surrendering a single asset of consequence. He is owed $23.3 million this season and about $21 million in 2027-28, he shot 57.1 percent last year with 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds in 68 games, and Splitter coached him for four years in Brooklyn. That last part is not a coincidence.

The rest: Norman Powell signed on July 1 for two years and $45 million with a team option on the second season, coming off a first All-Star nod at 33 with Miami at 21.7 points a night. Zach Collins re-upped for two years and roughly $17 million. Leonard Miller's $2.41 million got guaranteed. Kam Jones was waived. Tobe Awaka took a two-way on July 3. Around that sit Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Patrick Williams, Isaac Okoro, Tre Jones, Rob Dillingham, Jalen Smith, Noa Essengue, and the two rookies.

The cap sheet and the last roster spot

Chicago walked into the summer with the most cap room in the league, somewhere in the neighborhood of $54 million before the Claxton absorption, and spent nearly all of it. Powell was the move that closed the window. What is left is one open roster spot and a modest amount of room, reported around $11 million by Bleacher Nation in late July, with the room exception of roughly $9.4 million also cited as the operative tool depending on how the books get counted.

The smarter play with that spot is not a free agent. It is a rental of balance-sheet space. Denver matched Oklahoma City's offer sheet for Spencer Jones and is currently the only team above the second apron, which makes the Nuggets a motivated seller of salary. Chicago has the room and the roster spot to take on a contract nobody else wants and charge draft capital for the favor. Holding the 15th spot until the February deadline is the version of this that maximizes leverage, and everything Graham has done so far suggests he understands that.

Roster battles worth watching

Dailyn Swain is the interesting one. The No. 15 pick out of Texas, acquired via Portland, went 3-for-26 from the field with an 0-for-7 mark from three across his first three Summer League games while being asked to run point, a position he has not really played. That is bad, and it is also almost meaningless in the sample. The real question is whether Splitter keeps developing him on the ball or slots him back on the wing, where he profiles as a defender first.

• Point guard: Giddey is the incumbent on his four-year, $100 million extension, with Tre Jones and Dillingham behind him and Swain a wild card.
• Wing minutes: Powell, Buzelis, Okoro and Patrick Williams are competing for a rotation that only fits three of them cleanly.
• Frontcourt: Claxton starts, Collins backs him up, and Wilson, Miller, Jalen Smith and Essengue divide whatever is left.
• Two-ways: Awaka and Jaylin Sellers hold the slots, with one active spot to distribute.

Essengue is the quiet story. He missed real time as a rookie and did not make a dent in Vegas, and he is now the fourth or fifth big in a room that got a lot more crowded in six weeks.

What's next on the Chicago Bulls calendar

Training camps around the league open in late September, with media day immediately before, and the 2026-27 regular season tips off in October. Between now and then the only Chicago Bulls news likely to move the needle is a salary-dump trade, an announcement of the full 82-game schedule, or the eventual disposition of that 15th roster spot. That is a quiet August by design. For a franchise that has spent four straight years missing the playoffs while insisting it was close, quiet is the point. The Bulls are betting the season on Caleb Wilson being what he looked like in Las Vegas, on Splitter turning the league's 28th-ranked defense into something functional, and on their cap flexibility buying picks rather than mediocre veterans. Ask again in October.