The Bulls Built for Close Games. Now They Have to Stay Healthy Enough to Play Them.

The paradox at the center of this offseason has always been the same one I flagged back in July when I wrote about the minus-5.14 point differential: Chicago wasn't just bad last season, they were structurally broken. The 31–52 record was almost charitable given how badly they got outscored across a full 82. And yet — and this is the number that keeps pulling me back — they went 13–10 in games decided by five points or fewer. Fifty-seven percent in close games against thirty-seven percent overall. That twenty-point gap is not noise. It's a blueprint. It says this group, when the margin is tight and execution matters most, can compete. The question the front office spent the summer trying to answer is whether you can build an entire season around a team that wins the fourth quarter but loses the first three.

The acquisitions all make sense through that lens. Norman Powell on a two-year, $45 million deal is exactly the kind of proven, two-way perimeter scorer who can make a close game feel manageable rather than chaotic. Nic Claxton, acquired in the three-team deal with the Nets and Timberwolves, gives them a mobile, switchable center to pair alongside Nikola Vucevic — who was quietly excellent when available, posting 15.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game last season, but managed only 53 games. Caleb Wilson at No. 4 is the long bet, the cornerstone piece who earned All-Summer League first-team honors and the "most electric rookie" label from ESPN before he's played a minute that counts. The architecture is coherent. The concern is whether the building stays standing long enough to be occupied.

Here is the fragility problem stated plainly: Wilson, Giddey, and Claxton — the three players most central to what this team is supposed to become — all cycled through day-to-day injury designations during summer league. So did Okoro, Jalen Smith, and a cluster of depth pieces. Summer league injuries are almost always precautionary, and none of these designations have lingered into the last three weeks. But the clustering matters as a signal. Josh Giddey played only 59 games last season despite logging over 31 minutes per night when healthy. Vucevic appeared in 53. Dosunmu in 49. Huerter in 46. This is a roster that, at full strength, has legitimate offensive firepower across multiple positions — but "full strength" has been a theoretical condition more often than a real one.

The reason the close-game number is both the franchise's greatest asset and its most dangerous illusion is this: winning tight games requires specific players in specific moments. It requires your best decision-maker running the offense in the fourth quarter, your best defender matched up on the right guy, your most reliable shooter getting clean looks. Depth doesn't win close games — depth wins the games before you get to the close ones. It keeps your starters' legs fresh, keeps foul trouble from dictating rotations, keeps a bad first half from becoming a blowout. Chicago went 7–23 over their final 30 games last season. The talent to compete in tight moments was still there. The depth to survive a full season wasn't. That's the gap the front office is trying to close, and it's also the gap that a wave of summer injuries keeps threatening to reopen.

My read is that this team is genuinely better than last year's version — Powell stabilizes a backcourt that was leaning too heavily on Coby White as a singular offensive engine, and Claxton's mobility addresses a defensive vulnerability that hurt them in the open floor. But the Eastern Conference is not standing still. Philadelphia added LeBron James, per recent conference projections, and the East figures to be as loaded as it's been in years. The Bulls' window for relevance depends not just on whether Wilson develops or whether Giddey stays healthy, but on whether the entire supporting cast can hold together long enough for the close-game competence to mean something in April. Talent assembled in July is a promise. Health sustained through February is the proof.