There wasn’t much mystery surrounding the Bulls’ first draft pick Tuesday night. There was almost no way for them to mess it up, even if they’re (presumably) no longer in the messing-things-up business.
With the fourth pick in a “big four” NBA Draft, the Bulls just had to wait and see which three players went before them and then turn in the remaining name to the commissioner. That’s not to say Caleb Wilson will become the best player that was available at that spot, but it’s pretty clear that right now, he was the best player available.
Nothing is more stressful than making a decision, so this was a nice way for Bryson Graham to ease into his new role as executive vice president of basketball operations.
As expected, predicted and mock drafted, the last guy remaining at No. 4 was Wilson, the erstwhile North Carolina freshman forward, and that’s who the Bulls selected Tuesday night. Everyone knew it was happening. Everyone except Wilson, apparently.
“I tried not to read into the media,” he told reporters Tuesday night. “I didn’t wanna get attached to the Bulls and it didn’t happen.”
Then it happened. And Wilson showed that he was immediately attached, repeating the team’s long-held marketing slogan “See Red” on national TV.
Chicago Bulls go with ‘safest pick’ in UNC’s Caleb Wilson
Zach Harper and CJ Moore
We’re about to enter a very confusing era in Chicago sports with Caleb Wilson (Bulls) and Caleb Williams (Bears), but for the first time in a very long time, there is authentic enthusiasm about a Bulls draft pick, not to mention a Bears quarterback.
On paper and in the sizzle reel, the 6-foot-10, 215-pound Wilson looks like a godsend for the Bulls, an electric, long-limbed forward with charisma to spare.
“I want to be the greatest of all time,” he said after the pick. “Y’all got one of the goats in y’all history, so it’s time for another one.”
He’s talking about another North Carolina-to-Bulls star, and it’s not Coby White.
“He’s going to be a great player,” Graham said after the draft. “We’re going to do everything we can to get him there. We know that his development is going to obviously take time. But that mentality is what we want in this building. And we’re really, really excited about it.”
The last time the Bulls picked at No. 4 was in 2020 when they took another ACC freshman big man in Patrick Williams, who remains on the roster as a different kind of goat.
The difference between those two is that in college Wilson actually produced. This pick wasn’t just projection. He averaged 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds before his season ended with a hand injury. He scored in double figures in all 24 college games he played, and he collected 11 double-doubles.
As his fellow Bulls draft pick Dailyn Swain said Tuesday night, Wilson’s highlights package runs a little long and is very repetitive.
“I just seen a five-minute video of all his dunks this season,” he told reporters. “It was the longest thing I’ve watched.”
2025 Caleb Wilson pic.twitter.com/6TWC5VGpIV
— Pitless (@pitlessball) March 6, 2026
If only Stacey King were around to call these Williams dunks in a Bulls uniform.
The new Bulls front office in 2020 screwed up with their misevaluation of Florida State sixth man Williams, who is best described as kind of there, and they doubled down by extending him. That partly explains why there’s another new Bulls front office led by Graham, who matches Wilson in enthusiasm.
After years of lottery misfortune, the Bulls got some much-needed luck last month when they jumped up from No. 9 to No. 4 in a loaded draft. After it happened, Graham didn’t try to play it cool.
“I can’t believe it,” he told reporters at the lottery. “I just got the job and I got the fourth pick. It’s crazy, man!”
Yes, we knew that if AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer went in the top three, Wilson would be there at four. But the real mystery was who the Bulls would take at No. 15, the pick they got from Portland to finalize an old Lauri Markkanen trade. Again, Graham and his staff would have to see who was there, but in a deep draft, there were going to be plenty of worthy candidates.
In the press release announcing Graham’s hire, it mentioned players he had scouted, drafted and signed in New Orleans, such as Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, Naji Marshall and Jose Alvarado. Of that group, only Daniels was a lottery pick. The rest ranged from the middle of the first round to completely undrafted.
You don’t hire someone because he lucked into a good draft position. You hire someone who can evaluate talent beyond the obvious. So while Wilson will take the spotlight role as the No. 4 pick, we might just learn what kind of talent evaluator Graham really is by the play of Swain, a 6-foot-7 wing from Texas selected with the No. 15 pick.
Like Wilson, Swain, who turns 21 in July, has a real track record in college with 99 games and 72 starts. He played two years at Xavier and then followed his college coach Sean Miller to Texas. Last season, Swain, who measured at 6-6 1/2 at the combine with a 6-10 wingspan, averaged 17.3 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Longhorns as a successful paint producer. According to The Athletic’s draft guide, he averaged 6.6 shots at the rim this season, per Synergy, and most of those looks were self-created.
There was a lot of enticing talent available at this spot, much like there was in 2018 when former Bulls general manager Gar Forman made a promise to take Chandler Hutchison at No. 22. Hutchison was awful, and Forman passed on a slew of good players, including local guy Jalen Brunson, who ended up going 11 picks later to Dallas.
Unlike Forman in 2018, Graham has a lot of rope to make mistakes, but it would be beneficial if he didn’t use much of it. Yes, the Bulls are rebuilding, but no one’s saying this should be a long, drawn-out construction.
Graham came in with a blank slate of a team after last season’s sell-off, as he inherited a point guard in Josh Giddey (6-7), a promising wing in Matas Buzelis (6-8) and not much else of consequence. Graham added center Nic Claxton (6-11) in a three-way trade Monday, and drafted Wilson and Swain the next day, showing that he really does care about his SLAP acronym (size, length, athleticism and physicality) while building a roster. Heck, he just hired Tiago Splitter (6-11) as coach, too.
It’s not a mystery what Graham is doing here.
“We’re getting there and definitely not where we want to be,” Graham said late Tuesday night. “But we’re establishing an identity. I think that’s really important for this organization, especially where we’re at right now. Both Caleb and Dailyn, they fit the bill.”
For too long, the Bulls have been a team without a plan. Tall, athletic and physical with a little personality isn’t a bad start.
