One of the many unfortunate things about Stacey King's untimely passing is that he won't get to see how Bryson Graham is at drafting. While we can't judge Graham on that yet, it will be difficult for him to do worse than Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley.
Since Karnisovas and Eversley's first draft in 2020, the Bulls' draft selections have a combined 32.4 win shares according to Basketball Reference, the third-lowest such total in the NBA. Additionally, while they're one of 25 teams to have a positive collective Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) for that class, their total of 0.6 is tied for the lowest of any tea with a positive total.
The numbers get even worse in league-wide context
Nineteen teams did not trade the rights to the player who has the most win shares and/or VORP of all the players they drafted during that time. The Bulls are next-to-last among those teams in those categories, ahead of only the Bucks in both. The Bucks have respective totals of 4.2 and minus 5.3.
Ayo Dosunmu is the Bulls' wins shares and VORP leader among drafted players since 2020, boasting respective figures of 17.5 and 2.0. The Bulls are one of only six teams not to have that particular player in either category still on their roster. Out of those teams, the Bulls are tied with the Suns with the fewest number of picks during that time at seven, and both of those teams are tied for the fourth-fewest picks overall.
You can be forgiven if you couldn't follow all of that, but the bottom line is the Bulls have failed drastically not only at keeping or accumulating draft assets but also at getting much out of the few assets they had. The result is they now are far behind most of the NBA in developing young talent, which is a death sentence in a league that's seeing young stars emerge all the time.
But the good news is the Bulls have new leadership in place, and it coincides with incredible lottery luck, moving up to No. 4 in a stacked draft. And that was after they earned the No. 15 pick by virtue of the Trail Blazers making the playoffs. Graham couldn't have asked for a better slate to start with.
Bulls fans want to do their best to forget about the Karnisovas/Eversley era. If Graham drafts well enough, that will be a lot easier. And as of right now, it's hard to sink much lower in this regard than they already have.
| More Bulls News and Rumors |
Add us as a preferred source on Google