Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls are living off the greatest inheritance in professional sport, and the interest payments from Michael Jordan’s six championships continue to fund a global brand that the current basketball product does not remotely deserve. Founded in 1966, the Bulls play at the United Center — the NBA’s largest arena at 20,917 seats — a building that once housed the most dominant athlete in team sports history and now hosts a franchise searching for an identity that does not begin and end with a silhouette logo.

Under Billy Donovan, the Bulls finished 39-43 in 2024-25, narrowly missing the Play-In Tournament and landing in the most dangerous neighbourhood in basketball: too good to tank properly, too mediocre to threaten anyone in the postseason. The franchise is reshaping its roster around younger talent, which is the polite way of saying they are finally admitting the post-Jordan era has produced precisely one conference finals appearance in twenty-seven years.

For Australian fans, however, the Bulls are absolutely essential viewing because of Josh Giddey, the Melbourne-born guard who has seized this franchise by the throat and made it his own. Traded from Oklahoma City in 2024, Giddey exploded with career highs of 18.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists, and 1.2 steals per game — a triple-double threat every night he steps on the court. His four-year, $100 million extension signed in September 2025 makes him the centrepiece of Chicago’s future, and if you are an Australian basketball fan who is not watching Giddey run the Bulls’ offence, you are missing the most exciting Australian NBA talent since Ben Simmons was still willing to shoot.

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The Bulls enter 2025-26 with Josh Giddey as the centrepiece of a rebuild that desperately needs a clear direction. Giddey’s all-around game — the passing vision, the rebounding, the increasingly confident scoring — gives Chicago a foundation worth building upon, and his development into one of the league’s premier young playmakers has provided something the United Center has lacked for too long: genuine hope. For Australian basketball fans, the Bulls are appointment viewing. Giddey carries the hopes of Aussie hoops every time he takes the court, and watching a Melbourne kid command a franchise with six championship banners is the kind of story that transcends time zones.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com