Can an NBA team win a trade 20 times over? We're asking for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Alex Caruso acquisition was considered a home run in real time, and has never once been considered anything else since. Following the latest Josh Giddey rumor, though, the Thunder are winning the transaction at the expense of the Chicago Bulls all over again.
It sounds like the Bulls are about to overpay Josh Giddey
Reporting for The Stein Line, Jake Fischer writes that Giddey wants a five-year deal that is "routinely projected to land at no less than $120 million." This comes out to an average annual value of $24 million per season—or a little over 15 percent of the 2025-26 salary cap.
That isn't an egregious number when framed this way. Giddey averaged 14.6 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.5 assists during his first year with the Bulls, while swishing a career-high 37.8 percent of his triples. Shelling out this kind of money for a high-impact starting point guard, with plenty of size, technically tilts toward a bargain.
Except, this assumes Giddey is a net-positive player. That remains to be seen. The flaws that prompted the Thunder to trade him in the first place remain.
He may be an improved shooter, but defenses still don't care about guarding him. They'd rather clog up the lane and make life harder on everyone else. His finishing around the rim also continues to be suspect at best, and he has to almost exclusively be hidden on slower forwards at the defensive end.
Handing out nine-figure contracts to intensely flawed players may have been okay once upon a time. It isn't anymore—not in the era of salary-cap aprons, and their team-building restrictions. This investment is especially ludicrous from the Bulls, who remain worlds away from playing for anything special, and who have another, better guard in Coby White tracking towards a major payday in 2026.
Caruso is better—and much cheaper
This forthcoming Giddey windfall looks even more out of place considering Caruso’s own extension. His four-year, $81.1 million deal kicks in next season. It will never be worth more than 11.8 percent of the entire salary cap.
Yes, Caruso is nearly a decade older than Giddey. He’s also better. His dominant (and versatile) defense gets a ton of attention, and rightfully so. But he’s already proving to be a much better fit—and less of a liability— on offense.
Unlike Giddey, Caruso does not need the ball in his hands to be more effective, which allows Oklahoma City to explore all different sorts of setups. And he’s making waaay more threes per game in the playoffs (1.8) than Giddey did last year (1.2), while nailing them at an exponentially higher clip (43.5 percent vs 35.3 percent).
Tack on Caruso’s superior scoring in transition, and it becomes clear, again, that the Thunder committed highway robbery in this trade.
But wait, the Caruso trade gets even better...just not for the Bulls
Believe it or not, this deal may age even better than expected from here. And it’s not just because Oklahoma City feels like the inevitable champion.
As Fischer wrote, Giddey’s next contract is expected to total “no less than” $120 million. It could be more. Much more.
We know what you’re thinking: “No way the Bulls are that self-destructive!” Fair point. The Brooklyn Nets are the only NBA team with real cap space, so the competition for Giddey’s services won’t be robust.
Then again, this was true last summer when it came to Patrick Williams’ restricted free agency. You know what the Bulls did then? Gave him a five-year, $90 million contract that has since turned into one of the league’s worst deals.
So go ahead and laugh at Chicago’s expense, Thunder fans. Just don’t tire yourself out. You’ll need to save some energy to continue laughing later.