LOS ANGELES --- Just shy of two weeks ago, matters looked bleak for the Chicago Bulls.
A last-second home loss to the Sacramento Kings stalled some post-All-Star break momentum and dropped the Bulls to 12th in the play-in race. And with the Portland Trail Blazers fading from play-in contention as well, their hopes to secure their lottery-protected, first-round pick from Portland in the Lauri Markkanen trade looked tenuous.
Remember: The Bulls owe their first-round pick to the Orlando Magic unless it lands in the top-four picks, the last payment from the Nikola Vucevic trade.
Since then, the Bulls have won five of six games heading into Monday night’s matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers. And even with the Trail Blazers in 13th place and talk swirling of Damian Lillard getting shut down, there’s a logical pathway to the Bulls still landing a first-round pick in this June’s NBA draft.
It centers on Portland’s trade of Josh Hart to the Knicks. In that deal, the Trail Blazers also acquired a lottery-protected, first-round pick from the Knicks.
With the Knicks sitting fifth and owning a two-game lead over seventh-place Miami with seven games to play, there’s a solid chance the Knicks make the playoffs. If they do, their 2023 first-round pick conveys to the Trail Blazers.
Portland, which is always looking to upgrade the roster to appease Lillard, doesn’t have as much trade flexibility until its outstanding draft compensation commitment to the Bulls is finalized. Thus, it may behoove the Trail Blazers to either discuss changing the protections on the first-round pick it owes the Bulls or perhaps even send the Knicks’ pick to the Bulls for, essentially, their own pick back.
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That way, the Trail Blazers would have more trade flexibility moving forward. They’d be free to trade future picks and/or discuss pick swaps because their draft compensation to the Bulls would be honored.
Of course, there’s no guarantee this will happen. It takes two teams to work through and agree to such matters.
But speaking to reporters in Portland the day after the February 9 trade deadline, Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin acknowledged he has talked to the Bulls “pretty much every transaction window” to lay “a real light foundation” of the potential above scenario.
“Whether it’s changing the protections to a certain year and deliver it, or we incentivize them somehow just to get the full pick back,” Cronin told reporters in Portland. “It can be a player. It can be all kinds of variations.”
On the night of the trade deadline, executive vice president Artūras Karnišovas cited the sign-and-trades that he and his staff performed during the 2021 offseason to acquire Lonzo Ball and DeMar DeRozan as an example of creative ways to improve the roster. The implication was the Bulls can get creative again.
This potential pathway to a 2023 first-round pick could be one example.