The Chicago Bulls injected some life into a sleepy draft night on Thursday by making a late-night trade to acquire Tennessee product Julian Phillips with the No. 35 pick in the NBA Draft, according to a report by Shams Charania.
The Bulls sent a pair of future second-round picks to the Wizards to acquire the pick, according to the report. The Wizards had previously traded with the Boston Celtics for the No. 35 pick.
A lengthy forward at 6-foot-8, Phillips impressed at the draft combine with his 7-foot wingspan and 43-inch vertical, the highest of all attendees. The forward carved out his draft stock on the strength of his defense — an extremely similar resume to 2022 first-round draft pick Dalen Terry, who averaged only 5.6 minutes last season.
Phillips repeats a familiar set of pros and cons for the Bulls: a strong defender who uses his physicality efficiently but struggles to shoot the ball. He shot 41.1% from the field and only 23.9% from behind the 3-point arc during his single year at Tennessee. The Bulls previously cited 3-point shooting as a key need to fill this summer after they logged the fewest attempts (28.9) and makes (10.4) from behind the arc in the league last season.
Before the Bulls made the trade to snag Phillips, they were poised for their first year without a pick since 2005. The Bulls didn’t own a single draft pick after conveying a first-rounder and second-rounder in years-old trades with Orlando and Washington and forfeiting an additional second-rounder as a penalty for tampering in their acquisition of Lonzo Ball.
Still, a somewhat anticlimactic NBA draft night left the Bulls facing the same question at the end of Thursday — OK, what now?
Without a major move, the Bulls are still stuck. They didn’t make a major move last summer. Or this spring at the trade deadline. They haven’t made a trade in nearly two years, acquiring every new player on their roster since through free agency or the draft. And if they hold to their refrain of continuity from exit interviews, the Bulls are set to sideline themselves for another summer.
Inactivity has become the status quo for a franchise that hasn’t qualified for consecutive playoffs in eight years, but it won’t be enough to stay afloat. The Bulls will be forced to pay the luxury tax if they maintain the same core roster as last season, although that tactic could be somewhat disrupted after forward Derrick Jones Jr. reportedly declined his player option to return to Chicago next summer.
If the front office is going to take the financial leap into the luxury tax, it will need to come with a higher reward than repeating last season’s 40-42 record — a problem that Phillips won’t immediately solve.
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