If you’ve been watching the Bulls for a while, you know that time is an endless circle when it comes to this post-Michael Jordan team.

Seven seasons ago, Chicago was at a crossroads with a mediocre roster at center. Major changes needed to be made, and the Bulls kicked them off by trading the heart and soul of their team, Taj Gibson, to a Billy Donovan-led Thunder playoff team. In return, Chicago received Cameron Payne, a former lottery pick they called the point guard of the future.

Payne didn’t live up to those expectations. That trade instead turned out to be the bleakest rotating cast at that position in franchise history.

It’s still early, but there are a lot of parallels between the Payne and Josh Giddey trades. Both were flawed lottery guards that Presti, one of the smartest executives in the league, was willing to let go, and both struggled in their Chicago debuts.

Giddey isn’t quite the next Payne, but he’s getting there.

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Inside Josh Giddey’s stats with Bulls

The theory behind how Giddey could have success in Chicago was this: If he could develop into a capable wide-open shooter and play with the ball in his hands more than he did in Oklahoma City, he could become one of the better players. guards in the league.

These conditions have been met, but Giddey is still experiencing many of the same issues he had with the Thunder.

Giddey has made the Bulls run more in transition, make more cuts and play a more aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball. In fact, he’s shooting a very respectable 37.3 percent from 3. None of this has mattered much for a Bulls offense ranked 24th in the league.

Giddey started every game last season, but close observers saw that the team played better when he was off the floor. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault lost confidence in him midway through the season, playing him off the bench in the second half and pulling him from the final lineup.

Donovan did the same math, and it only took him nine games to do it. Giddey was noticeably absent from Chicago’s closing lineup in the last four competitive games, and he didn’t start the second half in a loss to the Cavaliers due to a combination of foul trouble and disastrous defense.

This Giddey defense 😬 pic.twitter.com/kKoTYiXP5Y

— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) November 16, 2024

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Giddey was his own worst critic in that loss, telling CHSN’s KC Johnson, “I wouldn’t have played myself if I was Billy either. I was bad on both ends.”

From a distance, Giddey’s self-evaluation seems overly harsh. He averages 12.3 points, 6.4 assists and 6.2 rebounds per game in his starting role. But these raw numbers mask what has been a difficult year for him.

Let’s start with Giddey’s offense. Even though he makes his wide-open 3s, teams still ignore him when he doesn’t have the ball. He only takes 3.6 per game, and they’ll live with him and make one or two of those every night. The rest of the time, they’ve parked an extra defender in the paint or draped it over the Bulls’ better scorers, sabotaging their team’s offense.

Giddey’s drives at the rim were also an issue. In previous years he never got to the line and would rather take a floater than try to make contact. He does deserve credit for changing that approach — his 3.1 free throws per game are nearly double what he shot last year — but he still can’t create enough separation on those shots.

Giddey is one of the most blocked guards in the league, connecting on only 48.0 percent of his shots from three feet away. That ranks 263rd out of 282 qualified players, which is even more concerning considering his 6-8 position size would be one of his best attributes. His effective field goal percentage of 47.4 percent ranks in the 27th percentile among NBA players, according to Cleaning the Glass.

Defensively, Giddey is a solid rebounder, but he has become a target as he struggles to stay on assignment. He’s not a rim protector either. Despite his size, he isn’t athletic enough to get into position early enough to play the ball. His effort is also astonishing: he has retired a number of times this season after making a mental error, leading to easy points loss for opponents.

Giddey’s intangibles paint the most disturbing picture of all. His plus-minus ranks 465th out of 471 NBA players this season. The Bulls have opened up a lead of 111 points in his 383 minutes, which is an unfathomably bad figure.

Players on bad teams usually have bad plus-minus, but the Bulls are only really a bad team when Giddey is on the floor. In his minutes, the Bulls have a net rating of -12.1, which is 33 percent worse than the Pistons’ 14 wins last season. With him on the bench, the Bulls’ net rating improves to -0.6, which translates to a team just under .500.

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Bulls history may repeat itself after Josh Giddey trade

Cameron Payne was considered the tank commander during his time in Chicago. The Bulls are playing about 50 percent worse with Giddey than they were during Payne’s minutes in his first full year after his trade.

Payne turned into a punchline while in Chicago, quickly becoming one of the team’s most unpopular players and facing uncomfortably cruel reactions from the fanbase. Some of that wasn’t his fault. He didn’t choose to be traded for a beloved franchise icon, and he was a late bloomer who took some time to become a serviceable backup point guard. He couldn’t do that in Chicago because of the baggage surrounding that terrible trade.

Giddey faces an even bigger uphill battle than even Payne. Not only does he have to justify being moved in an even more lopsided trade for another fan favorite, but his off-field issues have led to him being booed by opponents whenever he touches the ball. That will eventually happen at the United Center if he continues to struggle.

Giddey has been open about the mental hurdle of his last season. He’s facing the same issues this year and admits his defensive performance against the Cavs “hurts your confidence a little bit.”

None of this is meant to undermine Giddey. He was bad early in Chicago, but still has plenty of time to turn his season around. Fans never really gave Payne the opportunity to succeed, and hopefully that won’t happen with Giddey. He becomes a free agent this summer and the Bulls will have to decide what to do with him.

At worst, Giddey can be a useful backup point guard in this league. But like Payne, he has high expectations for a bad front office, and he’s headed down the same path of disappointment.