100 million gamble! How should the bull bet on the future?

According to ESPN reporter Shams, the Chicago Bulls finally reached a four-year, worth 100 million contract with restricted free agent Josh Gidey last week, and the deadlock between the two sides ended.

Referring to the 20 million annual salary they initially provided, comparing the difference between the 30 million annual salary that Giddy allegedly wanted, it is actually a step back for each side.

No team has enough cap space to sign a similar contract with Giddy, and the Bulls have a dominant position in the negotiations. Gidey could have followed Nets guard Cam Thomas, who accepted a one-year 6 million qualification contract to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026, thus striving for a greater value contract in the future.

For Giddy, perhaps the Bulls have done their best, and they traded Caruso to the Thunder last offseason to get Giddy.

And his start in Chicago was not stable, but before the February trading deadline, the Bulls traded LaVine to the Kings, his performance began to improve by leaps and bounds. After LaVine left, Gidey averaged 19.6 points, 9.2 rebounds, 8 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game, shooting percentage of 49.3% and three-point shooting percentage of 43.8%.

25 million annual salary for such performance sounds like a good deal on the surface. After all, under the new contract, he expects to occupy only 15% of the Bulls' cap space each year. But making such a high commitment to a player like Gidey is precisely the reason why the Bulls have been in mediocrity for the past decade.

Although the performance of the 22-year-old young defender has been ups and downs, it is too early to draw conclusions about him. As the first round six pick in 2021, he only had 10 playoff experience in the first four seasons in the NBA. From this perspective, his early performance is indeed not very optimistic.

In the last season of the Thunder, Gidey performed well in the first round of the Thunder's sweep of the Pelicans. However, in the Western Conference semi-finals, the Mavericks quickly found Giddy's disadvantage on both offense and defense. He was unable to keep up with Kyrie Irving and Doncic's offensive footsteps on the defensive end, especially when he was placed on the outside, the Mavericks directly chose to ignore him.

In order to deal with this problem, head coach Dagenut chose to press him on the bench in the last two games of the series, and the Thunder lost his opponent in six games.

From this perspective, perhaps many teams have seen this round of the series, so they are unwilling to invest too much in Gidey. But the Bulls chose to trade Caruso and trade the league's best panacea player for Gidey, and even did not get any draft picks during this trading process. While Giddy was in a Bull jersey ups and downs, Caruso quickly showed value in the Thunder's championship journey.

Many people expressed their discomfort in understanding this transaction. Even after coming to the Bulls, he averaged 14.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game, and his overall performance rebounded, it still seems that it is difficult to make up for Caruso's losses.

The problem before the Bulls is obvious, whether Giddy's hot shooting status in the last two months of last season can continue. Previously, in the three seasons with the Thunder, the cumulative shooting percentage of 610 three-pointers was only 31.0%. In the season before Laven left, Gidey made 157 three-pointers, with a shooting percentage of 33.1%. Although

has become small, it still shows some qualitative potential. But what needs to be determined is whether this deal unlocks certain traits of Gidey, or is he just a flash in the pan?

Gidy is 203 tall and weighs 97kg. She is a tall organizational core and has been an excellent passer in the same position in the past few years. But his defense performed mediocrely. In this year's playoffs, the Bulls lost to the Heat, and Gidy's poor three-point performance and defense directly made him the target of public criticism on both offense and defense.

So, after this choice, how will the Bull move forward next?

Even with Josh Gidey signing, the Bulls still have great financial flexibility. The contracts of Vucevic, Collins, Hult, Kobe White, Dosom, Jevin Carter and others are about to expire. Regardless of the final salary cap for the 2026-27 season and how they arrange Gidedy's new contract, the Bulls may have at least up to 80 million in cap space next offseason.

However, the Bulls are not the only team with cap space. According to ESPN's forecast, many other teams are currently expected to have cap space, such as the Los Angeles Lakers and other large-scale teams. In addition, as Doncic, Fox, Bridges, PJ Washington and others renewed their contracts with their respective teams during the offseason, the free agent market is also shrinking rapidly.

If Keegan Murray, Dyson Daniels, Jaylen Durham, Tari Ethan and other several eye-catching restricted free agents cannot renew their contracts before October 20, they will likely enter the free market as well. The Bulls are also likely to offer high offers to some of them, but they are likely to reserve some of their cap space to renew White, and perhaps Dosem.

This brings up a bigger question: How should the bulls choose?

From now on, how should they return to the playoff team? Is it that they hope to train Boozelis, Essenger and others into stars? Or is it like the Thunder who traded Alexander in 2019, pushing a big deal?

Although the Bulls have cap space next offseason, to reach their 80 million goal, they also need to let all players who are about to become free agents leave the team freely. If they choose to renew their contracts with some of these players, this will naturally directly limit the Bulls' future opportunities to seek trade upgrades.

In short, it's hard for the Bulls to guarantee a significant improvement in core players next summer.

Perhaps they did not regard Gidedi as the long-term cornerstone of the team. The original intention of signing this contract was to use him as the team's main salary in the subsequent major deal. But for now, the Bulls still seem to be in a disorientation due to the lack of star players and young potential in the team's roster.

However, at least for the moment, the Bulls have at least retained the opportunity to win the playoff tickets.