The Chicago Bulls were hoping for a hometown miracle at the NBA Draft Lottery that took place in the Windy City recently, but it didn’t happen. Coming into the night, the Bulls had just a 1.7% chance of landing the first overall pick. Expectations weren’t high, but it was a little bit painful when the Dallas Mavericks, who had a 1.8% chance, did end up landing the first pick. To make matters worse, the Mavericks won a coin toss with the Bulls to move up. If that coin flipped the other way, the Bulls could have had the first overall pick.
Landing Cooper Flagg would completely change the outlook for the Bulls, but alas, the team received the 12th overall pick. Chicago will still be able to land an incredibly talented player with that pick, but that player won’t be Flagg.
The Bulls have lost in the NBA play-in tournament three years in a row now, and the fan base is desperate for change. The team has been hesistant to make any big moves or tank for a better draft pick, so Chicago has been stuck in an unfortunate middleground. Adding more young talent will certainly help speed up the process, so this 12th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft is a big one.
There is a little a little under three week before the 2025 NBA Draft as it will take place on June 25th from the Barclays Center in New York. The Bulls have some time to scout their options, and here is an ideal outcome for Chicago with the 12th overall pick in the NBA Draft:
Ideal outcome for Bulls in NBA Draft
There are a couple of different things that go into the Bulls achieving the best-case scenario in the NBA Draft, and one of them doesn’t have anything to do with the actual draft. It has to do with an offseason trade that needs to go down.
First, when the NBA Draft rolls around, the Bulls need to take Maryland center Derik Queen if he is available at #12. When the NBA Draft process started, it didn’t seem likely that Queen would still be available at #12. However, Queen is starting to slide down the draft board a bit, and it’s looking like he could be available. ClutchPoints’ NBA insider Brett Siegel has Queen at #13 on his big board:
“Derik Queen has seen his draft stock slip slightly during the pre-draft process due to some concerns about his shot-making abilities,” Siegel wrote. “Although he is still one of the best frontcourt players available in this year’s draft, Queen’s form and scoring mentality will need to be worked on. There is a real possibility that Queen becomes this year’s Dalton Knecht in the sense that he falls out of the lottery and is on the board in the middle of the first round. Expect there to be teams showing interest in trading up for Queen should this happen, as his stature and rebounding abilities in the paint can help impact winning while he develops a more consistent offensive approach.”
While Queen’s stock is falling, he still has an incredibly high ceiling because of his size and athleticism. He needs to work on his shooting, but other than that, he is a very polished prospect and can still find other ways to score. It might be tricky to find a player with better potential at #12.
The other thing that goes into this scenario is the Bulls trading Nikola Vucevic. This is expected to happen, and it needs to happen. Vucevic is a much better shooter than Derik Queen, so that aspect of his game would be missed in this scenario, but Vucevic doesn’t fit into the young core and style that Chicago is going for. His time with the Bulls is likely over.
We are just a few weeks away from the 2025 NBA Draft, and it is another big one for the Bulls. It will be exciting to see who they select.
