The Chicago Bulls have some serious changes to make this summer. They’ve been a middle-of-the-pack team for the past few seasons, and for the third year in a row, they stood pat at the trade deadline. But if they want to make any sort of significant improvement, they need to take a long look in the mirror this offseason.
In addition to free agency and the trade market, the Bulls need to nail the NBA Draft. A recent NBA mock draft from Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo and ESPN had the Bulls taking Reed Sheppard out of Kentucky, and Sam Vecenie of The Athletic made the same choice.
Vecenie’s latest mock draft had Sheppard going to the Bulls as well.
“With Sheppard, it’s easy to understand why,” Vecenie wrote. “As a 6-3 player without much length or the kind of athletic traits that raise a guard to this level, Sheppard doesn’t look like the typical lottery pick. But I think he has a real case for being one of the five best players in the country as a freshman, and I’d certainly consider him an All-American in some capacity. He’s averaging 12.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists while shooting 52.6 percent from the field, 51.4 percent from 3 and 80.8 percent from the line. He racks up 2.6 steals per game on top of averaging nearly one block per game. His closeouts on shooters are textbook and disruptive.”
The 6-foot-3 guard has shot 50.9% from three-point range on 4.1 attempts per game this season.
