Arturas Karnisovas resided in the ambiguous.
The Bulls’ former executive vice president seldom provided specifics, whether it was his plan for building a roster or the type of players he was looking for.
It was often unclear and seemingly ever-changing.
One day on the job, and newly hired Bryson Graham already showed his hand . . . and then some.
“When you compete on the defensive end of the floor, your team typically plays harder, and you are starting to see that in the playoffs,” Graham said when detailing the player profile he likes to pursue. “The teams that are having success are very good on that side of the ball. We want obviously two-way players. I refer to it as guys who have SLAP: Size, length, athleticism and physicality is going to be felt on the defensive side of the ball. We would love to have size, length, athleticism and physicality all across the board. The more versatile you can be, the better you are. Whoever is guarding at the point of attack can also guard on the wings and switch onto a big. Then you have something serious; you’re really dangerous now.”
Graham even took it a step further and detailed some of the teams that have that makeup.
“Look at OKC, Boston,” he said. “Who is Boston’s point guard? I see JT [Jayson Tatum] bring it up. I see JB [Jaylen Brown] bring it up, Derrick White. They have so much versatility, so much size, and that’s where this league is going and what the really good teams are doing. That’s going to be our approach. We want to be tough and long and athletic.”
The Bulls’ roster kind of checks one of those boxes. Thanks to 6-7 point guard Josh Giddey and if 6-8 Matas Buzelis can switch to the three, there are two players with solid positional size. The tough and physical part of the equation is a work in progress.
That work begins Sunday afternoon as Graham gets clarity on the 2026 draft with the lottery taking place at 2 p.m. on ABC 7.
Then the real work begins.
“We’ve got some pretty good young players, but we know this draft is going to be the first real layer to this foundation going forward,” Graham said. “I’m not taking anything away or trying to strike fear in the guys on the roster. That’s just the nature of this business. I’m not going to sit here and say that no one on this roster is untouchable. That doesn’t mean that we’re trading guys. We’re going to come in. We’re going to look at this holistically. And then we’re going to proceed.”
That process obviously will be dictated by where the Bulls land.
Thanks to the Trail Blazers, the Bulls are locked into the No. 15 pick, but sitting at No. 9 with their own selection, they have a 4.5% chance to hit No. 1 and a 20.3% chance to land in the top four. The most likely result is staying at No. 9 — a 50.8% chance — then there’s the chance of slipping to No. 10 (25.9%) or No. 11 (3%), but the Bulls hope that won’t be the case.
So what could all that look like based on what Graham was describing?
If the Bulls land in the top four:
There would be no reason to get cute in this scenario. AJ Dybantsa has the momentum building to go with the first pick, followed by Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson.
Wilson would best fit what Graham was describing at 6-10 with enough athleticism to switch to certain guards and still be a problem on defense.
If the Bulls stay at No. 9 or worse:
The one player that likely would be there for the Bulls at No. 9 and seems to check a lot of the “SLAP” boxes is Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg, who is 6-9, has a 7-4 wingspan, can switch to guards and lock them down on the perimeter and plays with physicality. It didn’t hurt that he also shot 53% from three-point range in his last 11 games on the way to a national championship.
If Graham wants to go with a backcourt player, then he could look to Arizona combo guard Brayden Burries or point guard Kingston Flemings.
Flemings is the better athlete of the two, but Burries is a willing defender who could be on a quicker path to become a two-way player.