The Chicago Bulls are mulling a Nikola Vucevic extension

The way the Chicago Bulls season ended this past year has left a bitter taste in many fans’ mouths.

Fans felt as though there had to be blame placed on someone, and there were certainly many candidates to shoulder it. The reality was, this Bulls team had been struck with injuries to key players, and were unable to generate enough to get past the Milwaukee Bucks.

Down the stretch of the regular season, though, there was one particular scapegoat: center Nikola Vucevic.

Now, fast forward a few months, and Vucevic is going to enter camp on the last year of his deal. However, there are initial reports that the Bulls and Vucevic will have discussions on a possible extension.

When the Chicago Bulls enter training camp, a Nikola Vucevic extension is likely to be a topic of high priority.

Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that once training camp starts, Vucevic and the Bulls will have “initial discussions” in regards to a deal to keep him in Chicago for the foreseeable future.

Last year, it is not a misnomer to label Vucevic’s season as a disappointment. That’s an accurate depiction of his season. Vucevic regressed in a big way on both ends of the floor. In simplistic terms, his defensive rating went up (which is not a good thing), and his offensive rating went down, per Basketball Reference.

Offensively, Vucevic struggled to hit the three ball, where he shot nearly 39 percent the year prior. In 2021-2022, Vucevic shot just 31.4 percent. His prior two seasons saw him shoot not only 39 percent, but over 40 percent two years ago.

Part of the problem could be due to Billy Donovan designing the offense for Vucevic to be outside the paint at times, and a guy like Zach LaVine not being as aggressive. Many times, we would see some of the players standing around for the Bulls, with Vucevic simply waiting to catch and shoot. That was the offense, at times, unfortunately.

So, there is a lot of blame to go around. Vucevic was not as good as he should have been. But, maybe after their first year together, Donovan’s crew can come together and create a lot more continuity, re-working the offense around everyone’s strengths. Having LaVine healthy should help, too.

If the Bulls do extend Vucevic, the only way it would make sense financially is for his average salary to be around $20 to $24 million at its highest. That might even be too high, but with the way salaries have gotten, the Bulls may actually be getting a value there.

Regardless, one thing is pretty clear: this is the team Chicago will be rolling with for at least the next year, if not two to three. So, we better get used to seeing Vucevic in the black and red.