Chicago Bulls should look to buy low on Lonzo Ball

The Chicago Bulls have an obvious flaw on their roster that will not be easy to address anytime soon. Their starting backcourt of Coby White and Zach LaVine is exciting, but they are both score-first players who are not particularly great at sharing the ball. This team needs to find a distributing point guard who can lead their offensive attack and set up their strong group of scorers for success.

It is not going to be easy to find the right guy, but there is an interesting trade opportunity out there right now that is worth taking a look at. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the New Orleans Pelicans are open to trading point guard Lonzo Ball. As long as the price is right, this stands out as a fantastic opportunity for Chicago to fill the biggest need on their roster.

Despite averaging a career-high 12 points per game so far this year, Ball has not had a great start to the season for the Pelicans. His 4.7 assists per game are a career-low and he is shooting a dreadful 29% from three-point range. Ball had been improving as an outside shooter over the last couple of seasons but this ugly shooting start is a major concern.

This rough start to the season coupled with Ball’s alarming performance in the NBA bubble last season likely has his value at an all-time low. The Pelicans obviously are not going to want to sell low on their young point guard, but at this point, they may not have a choice.

Despite his struggles, Ball stands out as a fantastic buy-low option for the Chicago Bulls. He has proven himself as a capable distributor in the NBA, making him an ideal fit alongside both White and LaVine on the offensive end. On top of that, he is a solid perimeter defender, which would help hide their struggles on that end of the court.

Ball is a restricted free agent after the 2020-2021 NBA season but the Bulls trading for him now would allow them the opportunity to match any offer that he receives on the open market. If he were to come in and prove himself as a worthy starting point guard for this team, investing in Ball over the offseason would make sense. If he were to continue to struggle in Chicago, the Bulls could just cut ties with the young point guard and go in another direction.

Really, this all comes down to what it would cost to acquire Ball. The most obvious place to start would be Bulls’ big man Lauri Markkanen. With his ability to shoot from the outside, Markkanen would seemingly be a great fit alongside Zion Williamson in the Pelicans’ frontcourt.

That being said, Markkanen is playing extremely well right now. A straight-up Ball-for-Markkanen is unlikely to be something that the Chicago Bulls would be interested in. Would the Pelicans be willing to dig into their war chest of draft capital to even up this swap? If that were the case, it is easy to see how this deal could make sense for both sides.