en-us SportSpyder - The Latest Chicago Bulls News https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/news The physical big played his first NBA game since last December, coming off the bench in the first quarter against Toronto. According to coach Tiago Splitter, he will be on a minutes restriction for the time being. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:29:12 GMT Joe Cowley https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394299 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394299 false false Raptors took advantage of bad teams a year ago, but anti-tank measures have evened playing field. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:15:05 GMT Ryan Wolstat https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394195 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394195 false false It’s a chat window! Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:48:13 GMT your friendly BullsBlogger https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394076 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58394076 false false A new season of the Chicago Bulls is officially upon us. And for the first time in a long time, that sentence doesn't feel like a threat! Everything changed fo Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:18:21 GMT Elias Schuster https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393854 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393854 false false For the first quarter of Wednesday’s season opener, Chicago Bulls announcer Adam Amin will fly solo on the CHSN airwaves to honor Stacey King. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:06:38 GMT Julia Poe https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393736 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393736 false false Robbie Hummel, who’s part of the Bulls’ rotation of analysts this season, will join Amin to open the broadcast and rejoin him in the second quarter. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:52:50 GMT Jeff Agrest https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393584 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393584 false false With our Chicago Bulls mere hours away from tipping off their 2026-27 season with a likely road loss to the Kawhi Leonard/Scottie Barnes Toronto Raptors, my thoughts have turned to some other memorable Bulls season openers from this century. The 1990s dynasty-era Bulls obviously had far, far more consequential games than any Chicago squad has ever enjoyed since. So why not celebrate some of the franchise’s less heralded openers? One Halloween night opener decades ago proved particularly spooky… for the other team. In 2006, coming off a second straight first-round playoff exit, John Paxson’s rising Chicago Bulls had made some critical moves to improve. The club stole four-time Defensive Player of the Year center Ben Wallace from the Detroit Pistons in free agency on a massive $60 million contract, signed P.J. Brown, and selected (ugh) power forward Tyrus Thomas in the lottery and swingman Thabo Sefolosha in the middle of the first round. With those new pieces surrounding an intriguing young core of point guard Kirk Hinrich, shooting guard Ben Gordon, and swingman Luol Deng, the Scott Skiles-coached squad was a team the league at large actually cared about showcasing. Detroit Pistons forward Ben Wallace. The Very-Ready-For Primetime Bulls So they got a primetime slot, kicking off TNT’s opening night slate against the team that booted them from the postseason the previous spring in six games: coach/president Pat Riley’s mighty Miami Heat, fresh off the lone championship run their Dwyane Wade/Shaquille O’Neal core would achieve. Miami mostly retained its same title roster year-over-year, but key cogs like O’Neal, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, Jason Williams, and Antoine Walker were all rapidly aging. Wade sat out 31 contests for Miami with injuries that season (which he would also do in 2007-08), while O’Neal missed 42 bouts. Highlights from this game are hard to come by online, but we found a very Wade-centric mash-up commemorating the bout. No one quite anticipated that the Heat would crumble so rapidly while bringing back the same core. Chicago absolutely pasted Miami on the night the team received its championship rings in front of the then-American Airlines Arena faithful. Despite a 25-point night from Chicago’s own Dwyane Wade on 10-of-15 field goal shooting and 3-of-6 free throw shooting, the Bulls decimated the champs by a whopping 42 points, 108-66! It was a slaughter. A magical, beautiful slaughter. Captain Kirk, selected two picks after Wade in that iconic 2003 NBA Draft, scored a game-high 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the floor (3-of-5 from distance) and 3-of-4 shooting from the foul line, while chipping in four boards, three assists, and two steals. He would earn his lone All-Defensive Team nod this year as a switchy combo guard capable of putting the clamps on any cover. Forecasting the postseason, bench forward Andres Nocioni and Wallace lit up the bigger-but-aging Heat on the boards. They each pulled down 11 rebounds, while scoring a combined 14 points on 6-of-13 field goal shooting and 1-of-1 free throw shooting. Reserve point guard Chris Duhon — who had been yet another diamond-in-the-rough rookie find for Paxson during a legendary 2004 NBA Draft run — scored a bench-most 20 points on 7-of-8 field goal shooting (3-of-3 from distance), including 11 in the first half alone. A 37-14 second quarter Bulls advantage, spurred by a prolific Hinrich (who notched 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting and +16 plus-minus in the game) and Duhon, plus a scrambling Skiles defense, helped Chicago pull away to a stunning 59-31 advantage at half. The champs were literally booed by their home crowd on ring night! “The defense was carrying us, defense kept us in the game,” Wallace said postgame, per . “A lot of emotion and energy is taken up in the ring ceremony and we wanted to come out and catch them off guard.” Riley, who had declined to promise a repeat title like he infamously had after his Los Angeles Lakers claimed their 1987 championship in the wake of Miami’s 2006 run, pulled no punches. “Welcome back to reality,” Riley informed the gathered media scrum. “There isn’t really much to say …. there has been a gauge put on how much work we have to do.” It would prove an ominous harbinger of things to come. The following spring, Miami became the first reigning champ to get swept out of the first round of the playoffs during its title defense season by our 48-win Bulls. While the Heat’s spotty defense in 2006 made Andres Nocioni look like prime Tracy McGrady, the subsequent 2007 series was more of a coming-out party for Luol Deng. The eventual two-time All-Star had prioritized defense over offense the previous season. Things changed when he had the rock in his hands in ’07. Deng averaged a Bulls-most 26.3 points on 57.9 percent field goal shooting and 85 percent free throw shooting, 9.0 rebounds, 3.0 dimes, 1.8 steals, and 0.8 blocks. Gordon enjoyed a superlative series, too, at least on offense: the 2005 Sixt... Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:49:05 GMT Alex Kirschenbaum https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393537 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393537 false false #calebwilliams was named the NFC offensive player of the week. The #chicagobears also got some positive injury news with #jonahjackson set to start tomorrow ... Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:40:43 GMT The REKAP® https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393427 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393427 false false Over the past few years, opening night for the Chicago Bulls felt like eating two-day leftovers. It wasn't bad enough to throw out entirely, but were you really Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:28:17 GMT Elias Schuster https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393284 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393284 false false THE CHICAGO BULLS REGULAR SEASON IS OFFICIALLY HERE!Join **Haize LIVE on Chicago Bulls Central** for the full pregame show before the **Chicago Bulls take on... Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:19:49 GMT Chicago Bulls Central https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393182 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58393182 false false In a few short hours, our Chicago Bulls will officially tip off their third roster rebuild, under their third front office regime, , in his absolute prime at age 28. Chicago has made the playoffs exactly once since that moment. Butler, meanwhile, has made two Finals as his team’s best player. The Bulls are also on their fourth head coach in Tiago Splitter. And their new top front office mind, having already auctioned off his second-round picks this past summer, is explicitly embracing the concept of a “rebuild” season — with a likely lottery-bound run. So why do I have this weird spring in my step while I gear up for Wednesday’s ? GAME ONE. 📺 📻 — Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) Because Splitter and new executive vice president of basketball operations appear to have picked a real direction and style around their two core future All-Star players (hopefully), rookie forward Caleb Wilson and third-year forward Matas Buzelis. This year’s games feel like they’re actually going to mean something. Between Wilson, Buzelis, and young pieces Josh Giddey, Dailyn Swain, Leonard Miller, and Noa Essengue — none of whom are yet 25 — the Bulls have a clear, exciting, development-focused season ahead. Chicago Bulls rookie Caleb Wilson. How to Grade the Bulls’ Season on a Curve 2026-27 should serve as a great table-setting year for the Bulls’ new front office and coaching staff to thoroughly evaluate what the team has. There is a pretty clear positional and skill set overlap between Wilson, Buzelis, Miller, and Essengue — and maybe lost cause Patrick Williams —but that doesn’t really matter. These are swings. Not everyone will hit. And not everyone will be on this team, growing together, even three years from now. We need to temper expectations in the win-loss column. Can the Bulls overtake ()? Absolutely, especially if the club’s pair of $20 million-plus vets Norman Powell and Nicolas Claxton can suit up for at least 65 games and end the season still on the team. Powell and Claxton should at least be fun, competent players for whom fans can easily root. Still, Graham did kind of punt the team’s cap space this year in the service of bringing aboard fill-in options to raise Chicago’s floor. He did not take the kind of blockbuster swing other clubs did to bring aboard restricted free agents (specifically Jalen Duren, Walker Kessler, Peyton Watson, and Bennedict Mathurin) with high long-term ceilings whose aging timelines would have been better aligned with the Bulls’ youth movement. Fans should grade this team on a curve. The Bulls’ projected top eight — starters Giddey, Powell, Buzelis, Wilson, and Claxton; plus top bench cogs Tre Jones, Jalen Smith, and Miller — should be fun to watch and at least be good enough to beat the league’s absolute dregs and help the team avoid the dreaded new relegation zone of a bottom-four record. Speaking of the Bulls’ bench, it will behoove Splitter to give Swain and Essengue real run when possible. The impulse might be to trot out solid veteran shooting guards Isaac Okoro and/or Buddy Hield as the Bulls’ ninth and tenth men. They are better players, right now, than Swain and Essengue — but far less critical to the team’s future. At least Okoro is, like his fellow 2020 lottery pick Patrick Williams, only 26. But Swain and Essengue have these appetizing ceilings, and are on cheap, team-controlled deals. The Bulls need to, if anything, overplay that dynamic duo and give them long enough leashes so that they can play through inevitable mistakes as they learn the NBA. Thanks to health issues for Claxton and unnecessary $17 million re-signing Zach Collins, it seems likely that at least Essengue will be pressed into regular rotation service at some point — perhaps sooner than later. Given that Chicago is headed nowhere fast, the Bulls need to make sure these fringier young guns do get some significant run. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:55:16 GMT Alex Kirschenbaum https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392875 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392875 false false 🔴 CHICAGO BULLS VS. TORONTO RAPTORS LIVE WATCH PARTY! THE NBA REGULAR SEASON IS HERE!Chicago Bulls basketball is BACK! Join Chi Bulls Podcast for the Bulls'... Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:44:55 GMT Chi Bulls Podcast https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392740 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392740 false false 🔴 CHICAGO BULLS VS. TORONTO RAPTORS LIVE WATCH PARTY! THE NBA REGULAR SEASON IS HERE!Chicago Bulls basketball is BACK! Join Chi Bulls Podcast for the Bulls'... Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:44:49 GMT Chi Bulls Podcast https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392738 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392738 false false The Chicago Bulls, first and foremost, are going to be looking for some major strides out of Caleb Wilson this season. As viable as Matas Buzelis has proved him Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:42:52 GMT G.C. Bellchamber https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392714 https://sportspyder.com/nba/chicago-bulls/articles/58392714 false false