Josh Giddey isn’t shying away from the reality of last season.
He knows he didn’t live up to expectations in Oklahoma City. But after being traded to Chicago in exchange for Alex Caruso last week, Giddey feels positioned to return to his ideal style of play with a new team and a new role on the Bulls roster.
When the Thunder began their rapid ascension to become the best team in the West last season, Giddey was left behind. His role changed, moving off the ball and leaning into new aspects of his game — screening, playing out of the dunker spot, increasing his catch-and-shoot production — which often felt less comfortable than a traditional point guard role.
And that discomfort led to a stumbling season ending in a dramatic crash out of the Thunder starting lineup.
“Obviously I came off a tough year,” Giddey said. “My role shifted a little bit. I was playing a lot more off-ball, in a different role to what I’ve ever done in my career. There was no secret that it was going to take some kind of flexibility on my part to fit in with the team that we had and the structure that we had and the type of players that we have had.”
When offseason negotiations began, Thunder general manager Sam Presti presented Giddey with his new role: an off-the-bench facilitator who would lead the secondary rotations. For Giddey, that future wasn’t an option.
“I said to him, ‘Look, coming off the bench at this point in my career, it’s not something I’m trying to do,’” Giddey said.
After a series of conversations that Giddey described as “transparent and honest,” Presti began the process of finding a trade partner, ultimately landing on Chicago.
With the trade, the Bulls gave up their strongest defender — and most valuable trade asset — for a 21-year-old project. But the fit also makes sense to meet one of the key needs the Bulls have been missing for years. Giddey wants to get back to his roots as a playmaker, a role the Bulls have been desperately attempting to fill since Lonzo Ball was injured more than two years ago. And even after converting Coby White into a point guard proved to be a success last season, the Bulls still need more offensive creativity to be truly competitive in the Eastern Conference.
Although Giddey’s departure from Oklahoma City was fueled by a desire to start, he said the Bulls have not guaranteed him the starting point guard position. Instead, he voiced an excitement to compete with and complement fellow guards like Ayo Dosunmu, Dalen Terry and White while revitalizing his role as an assist-focused guard.
“My job is just to make the game easy for everybody else,” Giddey said. “That’s kind of what I want to do is come in and make sure guys get easy looks, guys feel confident on the floor. As a point guard, when you can get other people around going and making them involved in the game, getting them feeling good early — it opens a game up for everybody.”
The lowest point of Giddey’s third and final year with the Thunder came in the Western Conference semifinals against the Dallas Mavericks, where he was ultimately benched after flailing in the secondary guard position and shooting under 20% from behind the arc. After disappointment weighed on him in the early weeks after Oklahoma City’s elimination from the playoffs, Giddey said a “switch flipped” in his mind.
While Giddey knows his shot will need to recover to make an impact next year, the guard said defensive improvement is his main focus for growth in the offseason. And his ultimate goal is to improve his value the next time he is provided with a playoff opportunity.
“I’ve dreamt of that moment for so long,” Giddey said. “For it to end the way it did kind of left a sour taste in my mouth for a long time. And it’s tough to go into the summer with that as your last stint in the NBA after that season. It just showed me that there’s so many things I have to work on to be able to be valuable in those moments. These are the lessons that I’d rather learn now, as a young kid in my career, as opposed to later on in my career.”
Giddey’s on-court performance was complicated by investigations by the NBA and Newport Beach Police into alleged misconduct with a minor. Both investigations were closed without punishment or consequence and Giddey declined to comment on the situation during his introductory news conference Tuesday.
Timeline of the NBA and police investigations into Josh Giddey
But in regard to his decline in performance, Giddey said “a lot of it was basketball related” and did not attribute his decline in shooting to any outside factors.
“There’s a lot of things that go into an NBA season,” Giddey said. “There’s a lot of distractions, whether it’s outside noise, whether it’s internal change. And I think for me, a lot of it came internally. A lot of it came more with how good our team got and how much we evolved as a group and my role kind of — I don’t want to say it diminished — but it kind of was different to the first two years. So it was a big adjustment for me learning to play off the ball.”
Giddey arrived in Chicago on Sunday and began meetings with coach Billy Donovan and the Bulls front office. During those initial conversations, Giddey said there was little talk about the style or role he was expected to fit, but he plans on diving deeper into those talks throughout the summer.
The early stage of that process, however, will have to take place from a continent away. Giddey flew back to Australia shortly after his news conference on Tuesday to begin training with the Australian national team for the Olympics, which will take place in Paris next month.
Australia enters the tournament ranked fifth in FIBA competition. The Boomers will compete in Group A, which also includes No. 7 Canada. This is Giddey’s first Olympic competition after previously being named an emergency replacement player for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The Olympic calendar won’t offer much downtime for Giddey to adjust to a new city, new team and new style of play. But regardless of role, the guard said he’s eager to find his comfort zone again on the court.
“In terms of what direction the franchise is going, I haven’t asked any questions,” Giddey said. “I’ve just kind of bought into whatever happens here happens and I’ll try to play my part in helping our team be as good as we can be right from the jump.”
