From the moment he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in June, Alex Caruso was always eager to make a return to Chicago. He just wasn’t expecting it to come this soon.
Caruso will reintroduce himself to Bulls fans in the team’s home opener Saturday night as the latest piece of a powerhouse Thunder squad prepared to dominate in the Western Conference this season.
It’s only the second game of Caruso’s tenure with the Thunder. And at shootaround at the United Center on Saturday morning, Caruso was still getting used to navigating the visiting-team facilities — and sporting his signature headband in blue rather than red.
“When the schedule comes out, you look for certain games and days,” Caruso said. “I was going to look forward to Chicago, just coming back and seeing teammates, coaches, people working at the United Center. But it being this quick and not having a lot of games with the new team — it still feels pretty fresh. It’s weird walking through the visiting tunnel onto the court, wearing blue.”
Caruso emphasized that there will be nothing but love in his return to Chicago. His former teammates are invited to his wedding and traded friendly trash talk all week. And Caruso expects to be biting back a smile when he matches up with players such as Coby White and Zach LaVine.
“Zach already told me don’t reach in on him tonight,” Caruso joked. “So if I get a steal on him, just know he’s told me not to.”
But Caruso is looking forward to playing against one former teammate in particular — guard Lonzo Ball, who is expected to play under a 14- to 16-minute restriction Saturday after sitting out Friday’s win in Milwaukee as part of a planned maintenance for his long-term knee-recovery plan.
Ball and Caruso have been teammates for five years, first with the Los Angeles Lakers and then the Bulls. After all that time spent together, Caruso said he wasn’t surprised at the immediate comfort Ball has shown on the court in his early minutes with the Bulls throughout preseason and Wednesday’s season opener.
“I can’t describe how happy I am for him just to be able to come back and do what he loves,” Caruso said. “Lonzo, to his core, is just a basketball player, a hooper. That’s what he loves to do. It’s what he’s born to do. And so for him to be able to navigate those long years off and then come back and play in the NBA and be an impactful player still — it’s amazing.”
After three seasons in Chicago, Caruso said he knew a change was coming this summer. His agent tipped him off that a trade was likely coming on draft night. But the decision came five days early — and it still managed to catch Caruso off guard.
Caruso was getting ready to head to the golf course when Arturas Karnišovas called. It was a warm conversation — Karnišovas thanked him for his professionalism and commitment to the Bulls, then explained the situation. Calls from coach Billy Donovan and general manager Marc Eversley followed.
“That’s part of the business,” Caruso said. “When we don’t win, stuff has to change.”
Barely three weeks later, the Bulls parted ways with DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade deal with the Sacramento Kings, effectively ending the short-lived era of a project centered around the midrange specialist.
Caruso said he still speaks regularly with DeRozan as they embark on their separate journeys with new teams this season. And while neither player feels he could have done more to elevate the Bulls, Caruso acknowledged the bittersweet process of leaving that project behind.
“Obviously you wish you’d have more success,” Caruso said. “That’s why we play the game with competitors. Anybody who’s watched us over the last three years knows what I give to the game, knows what DeMar gives. We’re here to play the game to win. Obviously we didn’t reach the level of success late in the season, in the postseason we wanted to, but I wouldn’t classify it as regret. I think we gave everything we had.”
Although it wasn’t his choice, Caruso has been instantly elevated by the trade. He went from being the defensive anchor for a team that couldn’t advance past the play-in tournament to a supplementary addition on one of the best defensive teams in the West — and the NBA at large.
But Caruso credited his time in Chicago with elevating his stature as both a defender and scorer. Although he played in only eight postseason games in that tenure, Caruso received his first All-Defensive first-team selection after his second season with the Bulls and followed that with a second-team honor, becoming a widely recognized fixture across the league in the process.
“Once I earned Billy’s trust, he pretty much gave me free reign to be myself and to play,” Caruso said. “Obviously that came with some mistakes along the way, but for the most part, it allowed me to grow.
“That’s kind of the opportunity every player in the league wants — to be trusted, to be backed and then to be able to go out there and play the way you can play. For me, that was big, just being able to go out there and impact the game the way that I know how.”
