Caleb Wilson stakes claim in Bulls rebuild, pledges to ‘get this city back where it was’

CHICAGO — Friday was meant to be Caleb Wilson’s routine introduction as a Chicago Bulls player. Say the lines, hoist the threads. Subtle, the way these things often go. If only such a word meant something in his lexicon.

Instead, it felt like the emphatic staking of his claim in this Bulls rebuild. A continuation of the ambitious breadcrumbs he’s dropped thus far — declarative, firm like an Adrian Peterson handshake. Wilson seized ownership of everything Bryson Graham is bestowing upon him as his first high-profile draft selection in Chicago.

Wilson, 20 next month, is entrusted with giving a face to a culture still under construction. Managing expectations as a rookie amid a rebuild, while still weaponizing the ambition of a player who said Friday he expects to be the NBA Rookie of the Year, days after he told Chicago that it’s time for a new GOAT.

He was just granted access, and it already feels like Wilson is gatekeeping the gumption in the building.

Caleb Wilson blends power, explosiveness and coordination in a way other players can’t

Sam Vecenie

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“Being a good team has a big part to do with me,” Wilson said Friday at Chicago’s introductory news conference for him and No. 15 pick Dailyn Swain. “Like, if I want to make something happen, it’s me. It’s not the front office or anything like that.

“It’s me on the court making this stuff happen. So my whole thing is just find a group of guys that believe in me and are gonna let me play, and I feel like that’s all I really need.”

That’s why Wilson crossed his fingers to land with a consistently crestfallen franchise. Why he wished himself into the novelty and mystique of the month-old Graham era.

Wilson believes basketball is better when Chicago is prominent. He wants to revive that feeling himself.

“I know I’ll step in and be a leader by leading by example, and making sure that I get this city back where it was,” Wilson said. “I’m really excited for the opportunity. I feel like we have a great group of guys around us to make it happen. It’s time to go.”

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The pieces remain incomplete. Free agency looms. Cap space remains. The roster is unfulfilled, meaning the band of teammates Wilson hopes to lead isn’t all in the building. His coach is uncommitted to a style without knowing what he’s working with.

However, Wilson seemingly doesn’t need these things laid out plainly. Even with his limitations as a shooter, he does not seem married to any particular style of play, unlike blue-chip prospects before him. He wants to fit the mold asked of him. It so happens that his versatility should encourage creativity in both a new executive and a new coach.

“I feel like I’m just a basketball player,” Wilson said. “I’m gonna do what it takes to win, so getting the rebound, pushing it, creating and initiating transition, making sure I’m a good screener, coming off ball screens, just doing what it takes to be a good basketball player. I try not to box myself into a role, and that’s kind of how Tiago (Splitter) envisioned it as well.”

During the pre-draft process, Wilson noted that he’s shifted the culture at every stop. But NBA locker rooms exist and operate on a different plane than anything he’s known.

They vary, from the verve of teenagers to the knee pain of graying veterans. The objectives and priorities aren’t always aligned. Play styles and contracts, among other things, can bleed into conflict. In rooms of professionals, of grown men with agency, personalities prove volatile. Mixing them is delicate.

Team building at this level feels impossible, before this CBA made it damn near crippling, because any added ingredient — resources, role players, egos, external forces — can change the taste of the melting pot.

Graham’s choice at No. 4 in Tuesday’s draft felt obvious by deductive reasoning, but was still deliberated and soon believed in. Yes, he chose Wilson’s leaping abilities. His first step. His length and potential. His violence at the rim and his bull-like charge toward it. He also chose Wilson’s audacity and conviction. His hankering for superstardom. His understanding of growth and his embrace of the growing pains and everything that lies ahead.

Graham chose Wilson at the inception of his vision. Wilson, as casually as he dispenses the word “great” and all of its variants, does not view that opportunity lightly.

“It means a lot. You only get one opportunity to make a first impression,” Wilson said. “You only get one opportunity to do what I’m doing, have an NBA career. I take every moment that I have seriously. I wanna take every practice seriously, knowing that it’s only a limited amount of time.

“I know I’m gonna be a leader who leads by example, making sure I try to come first in all the conditioning and testing drills, and do everything I can to be a leader that people respect.”

The implication of Wilson’s widely anticipated availability at the Bulls’ selection is that no matter the shuffle of the picks preceding him, Wilson was always staring upward at AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer. That, in a draft of four-star bets, Wilson was always fourth.

Wilson does not run on resentment, but he’ll take any chance he gets to make a statement.

“I mean, I played all of them, though,” Wilson said. “You know what happened when I played them, so it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care about the media. I’m a competitor.  And I get to play in the summer league, too, so whatever needs to be done to prove that I’m on the same level, or that I’m better, we’ll do it.”

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Somewhere in the lofty parameters he’s setting, there are still reminders that Wilson is a teenager. There’s the sheepish smile with no facial hair to frame it. There are his influences, Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo, each 31, whom he “grew up watching.” He recounts his basketball journey and traces the origin of his work ethic to when he took the sport seriously at 14, which was in 2021, a fact with the power to summon wrinkles.

The expected dose of naïveté is absent, though. He’s measured and thoughtful. He’s thought through the pathways toward his goals. He understands the process necessary for a rookie about to undergo the throes of a rebuild: the monotony, the midseason walls.

“I know it’s a different game, and I know development isn’t linear, but I got everything I need to be great, honestly,” Wilson said. “I’m extremely athletic. I have a game that translates to the NBA well. Everything that I need to work on is stuff that I can actually work on.

“It’s not something that God has to give me, ’cause he’s given me everything I need.”

He wants everything, but he does not expect everything to come to him. He’s already made the distinction.

That much feels clear in his first impression.

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Overall 4 Forward 2

Caleb Wilson North Carolina

Explosive athlete whose ceiling is as high as the top three, but has more flaws.

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Caleb Wilson stakes claim in Bulls rebuild, pledges to ‘get this city back where it was’

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