{"id":1928387,"date":"2026-05-10T23:12:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1928387"},"modified":"2026-05-10T23:12:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T20:12:41","slug":"bulls-get-lucky-and-what-if-they-land-cameron-boozer-at-no-4-its-crazy-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1928387","title":{"rendered":"Bulls get lucky, and what if they land Cameron Boozer at No. 4? \u2018It\u2019s crazy, man\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CHICAGO \u2014 The Bryson Graham era almost began with a thud.<\/p>\n

As in the sound of Graham\u2019s head hitting the table in a ballroom at Navy Pier when the Bulls jumped from No. 9 to No. 4 in Sunday\u2019s NBA Draft Lottery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost fainted,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like, \u2018This is crazy, this is crazy,\u2019 because it\u2019s such a great draft.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Four days after being introduced<\/a> as the new executive vice president of basketball operations in Chicago, the 39-year-old Graham laughed a lot during his 10-minute interview session with Chicago reporters. You would, too, if you were him. The Bulls cashed in on a 20.3-percent chance to get into the top four of a loaded draft.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s exciting, man,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it. I just got the job and I got the fourth pick. It\u2019s crazy, man!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Crazy, indeed. Bulls optimism is trading at a 10-year high.<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s first words to reporters were: \u201cWe got lucky.\u201d Not that he\u2019s complaining. Did he bring a four-leaf clover or a lucky charm?<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought prayers,\u201d said Graham, a man of faith. \u201cI brought prayers, man. Actually, it\u2019s Sunday, I didn\u2019t go to church today. I feel kind of bad. But yeah, man, look, (we had) the Lord\u2019s blessing and we jumped.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad someone is, in this organization. The Bulls made it through more than a decade of wandering in the NBA desert. Have they found their way back? Will a teenage basketball product lead them? And who will it be?<\/p>\n

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“I can’t stop smiling.” -Bryson Graham \ud83d\ude0a pic.twitter.com\/IMiKOH6oVM<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) May 10, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas era, such as it was, also began with the No. 4 pick in 2020. He took Florida State freshman Patrick Williams and, well, that\u2019s kind of how we got here, isn\u2019t it? Karni\u0161ovas\u2019 many errors in talent evaluation finally cost him his job after six seasons, but at least his fire sale that didn\u2019t net the team a first-round pick did succeed in allowing the Bulls to bottom out after the trade deadline. That allowed them move up a few spots in the lottery order, and it made a real difference.<\/p>\n

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This draft is widely believed to have a top four of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson, maybe not in that order.<\/p>\n

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So, essentially, the Bulls don\u2019t have to make a tough decision. All they have to do is take whichever player is left, right? Even Karni\u0161ovas couldn\u2019t screw that up. Graham said his front office is going to stick to the process of interviews, workouts and gathering intel, but he knows his job got a little easier too.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there are some names at the top of the draft that you do get excited about and you just want to have a chance,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m in the thought of it doesn\u2019t matter where we pick, we\u2019re gonna get the best player. But you know the odds are working in your favor today. It does help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I see it going: The Washington Wizards go with Dybantsa, the consensus top pick, the Utah Jazz lick their wound from missing out on the BYU star and take Kansas guard Peterson, the Memphis Grizzlies take UNC forward Wilson and the Bulls get lucky once again and land Boozer, the talented big man from Duke.<\/p>\n

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As a very loud man used to say, \u201cHoldat!\u201d That loud man, of course, was former Bulls big man Carlos Boozer, who very much wants his son to land with his old team.<\/p>\n

For months, it has felt like Wilson would fall to four, and if that happens, that\u2019s great too. But wouldn\u2019t that be a tough linguistic test for Chicago sports fans and media to have a Caleb Williams and a Caleb Wilson? I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re ready.<\/p>\n

If the younger Boozer \u201cfalls\u201d to four, it\u2019s because he\u2019s not an athletic marvel like the guys drafted ahead of him. The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s John Hollinger wrote that teams passing on the 18-year-old Boozer are overthinking it.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason you take him No. 1 anyway is that Boozer was basically \u2018college basketball Nikola Joki\u0107\u2019 last season,\u201d Hollinger wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s a huge, wide big man who nonetheless can handle on the perimeter and shoot 3s (39.1 percent from distance, 78.9 percent from the line). Duke ran inverted pick-and-rolls for him last season, where he was picking out 3-point shooters on the weak side and flicking one-handed crosscourt passes. As a rule, teenage centers do not do this, and when they do, they turn out to be pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n

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No matter who the Bulls draft, the difficult part is coaching and developing whomever they get. They don\u2019t have a head coach yet or a developmental staff. As we know, many of the NBA greats, past and present, weren\u2019t lottery picks. Nurture can often be more important than nature in this league. You\u2019re drafting teenagers and guessing on their future. That\u2019s the risk, and the good teams reap the rewards.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know,\u201d Graham said, \u201cthat\u2019s why it\u2019s a lottery, and growth is not linear. You never know where these guys are going to be in two, three, four seasons. We can have the confidence that we think we\u2019ve got the guy, but still, we never know, and we\u2019ve just got to do the right thing by them and develop them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no drafting for need. The Bulls only have a few players who could even be considered building blocks for a future playoff team. On one hand, there\u2019s a lot of work to do. On the other, the future is now a lot brighter than it was Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not sit here and say because we have the fourth pick and all of a sudden this franchise is back, you know what I mean?\u201d Graham said. \u201cBut this is just a good opportunity to add high-level talent to our group and build this, and like I keep saying, layer it appropriately. So it\u2019s exciting, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to argue with that. The Bulls might not be back just yet, but for the first time in a long time, saying that aloud won\u2019t be immediately followed by laughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 The Bryson Graham era almost began with a thud. As in the sound of Graham\u2019s head hitting the table in a ballroom at Navy Pier when the Bulls jumped from No. 9 to No. 4 in Sunday\u2019s NBA Draft Lottery. \u201cI almost fainted,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like, \u2018This is crazy, this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1928387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1928387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1928387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1928387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1928387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}