Bulls sign forward Terry Taylor |
Despite not having a ton of money to do much with this offseason, the Chicago Bulls deserve some credit for what they have done to their roster. They managed to retain
Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, and Nikola Vucevic on three-year deals. They brought in Torrey Craig and Jevon Carter on free-agent contracts while only losing Derrick Jones Jr and Javonte Green.
The loss of Marko Simonovic hurts, but he was on a G-League contract, so his loss doesn't fit into this equation. While this seems like a similar roster to what they had a season ago, the Bulls are trying to run it back one more time, even with Lonzo Ball still out. Given that both Vucevic and Andre Drummond have resigned, along with the addition of Craig, the Bulls will have much better frontcourt depth than in seasons past, which has hurt them before. Apparently, Arturas Karnisovas wasn't happy with the frontcourt depth on this team and made a minor signing to bring back Terry Taylor in hopes of adding more depth to this roster. The 23-year-old Taylor will enter his third season in the NBA and could be the final piece to the Bulls 2023-24 roster. Taylor was acquired midseason last year after the Indiana Pacers chose to release him and was immediately stashed in the G-League. Once there, Taylor began to show terrific potential as he was one of the more consistent players down the stretch for Windy City and became a walking double-double. Once the G-League season ended, Taylor earned a call-up to the NBA, where he played several games down the stretch, giving them minimal minutes but also showing up in the minutes he did play. Despite his limited NBA production thus far, the Bulls were interested in keeping Taylor around since the season ended, and they made their interest clear by bringing him back. There is a chance that the Bulls may be bringing him in as a training camp signing, but I highly doubt he receives anything less than a guaranteed NBA deal. This may catch many people off guard, especially when you consider that he played in just five games with the Bulls last season and only has 64 games of experience under his belt. Limited or not, Taylor's game has a ton of potential. With guys like Justin Lewis, Adama Sanogo, and Onuralp Bitim occupying the current two-way deals, the Bulls must see something in Taylor that other teams don't. What that is remains to be seen, but he does have potential, and with more minutes this season, that potential could come full circle. Taylor is one of the more physical players on this Bulls roster, which they need and could be one of the biggest reasons why they felt they needed to bring him back. He also shot an eye-popping 61% from the field while with the Pacers, so you know he is efficient in scoring the basketball. For what it’s worth, Taylor has consistently dominated at the G-League level. He’s averaged 23.0 points and 11.3 rebounds over his 12 regular season games. He also showed more promise when expanding his range, shooting 38.0 percent on 4.2 attempts per game. No one expects him to do that at the NBA, but if he can even give the Bulls a small fraction of that production, then you are looking at a great pickup that will cost them nothing. At this point, I don't expect Taylor to be much more than a bench guy who comes in to eat minutes during blowouts. However, a great preseason could change his rank on this roster, and that is what he is hoping to give you. This is a move that is your classic low-risk, high-reward pickup that will not put the Bulls over the top, but it is a move that will give them more depth as they try and piece together what their future may look like.
