A Perfect Nikola Vucevic Trade For the Chicago Bulls. You're Welcome.
The former All-Star center gotsta go. So let's ring up the Boston Celtics.
GUYS, TEARING DOWN an NBA team can be fun!
After all, you have the carte blanche to execute impulsive player swaps, the kind of thoughtless, blindingly fast transactions you’d make on Robinhood or E-Trade.
You can drop lowball contract offers—and not care if the player takes a pass, because it's a tank year, so who cares. Plus you know that some savvy veteran will sign for the minimum.
You’ll have the joy of learning everything there is to know about the G-League.
And if you’re the Boston Celtics, you get the chance to ship out a guy who just got shipped in.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Your Revamped 2025-26 Boston Celtics
TOMORROW’S CELTICS will look a whooooole lot different than yesterday’s Celtics:
After rupturing his Achilles in the 2024-25 playoffs, Jayson Tatum will be, at best, on the court after the All-Star break, or, at worst, shelved until the 2026-27 campaign.
Jaylen Brown will hopefully be good to go for training camp after arthroscopic knee surgery.
As part of a three-team deal, Kristaps Porzingis was traded to the Atlanta Hawks; in return, the Celtics received Georges Niang, a 2031 second-round pick, and cash considerations.
Most importantly for the purposes of this article, Jrue Holiday was shipped to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Anfernee Simons.
And it appears the Celtics might have a case of buyer’s remorse.
Blowin’ In the Windhorst
“I have talked to other teams who have said [the Celtics are] are actively trying to trade Anfernee Simons. Whether they can…is another [thing].”
So said one of the most inside of NBA insiders, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst—and this comes after weeks of not-as-concretely-sourced Simons-flipping speculation from a variety of other outlets.
Being that one of the major thrusts of Boston’s teardown is to shed salary—and being that Simons’ brand of offense-first-defense-maybe ball doesn’t necessarily fit into Boston's present and future style—it would make sense to get him off the books today so they won’t have to decide tomorrow whether or not to hand him a four-year near-max deal after his current contract runs out at the end of the season.
That being the case, it would make sense to bring in a veteran locker room presence on an expiring deal who’d both fill a need and help make the C’s watchable on a nightly basis.
Which means it’s time to pick up the phone and call the Windy City.
Not My Kinda Town
YOU CAN SAY the Chicago Bulls are a team in transition.
You can say the Chicago Bulls are in the midst of a youth movement.
Or you can say what Bill Simmons said:
“I don’t love a single guy on their roster. Maybe [Matas] Buzelis. At gunpoint, I like Buzelis. Is he going to make an All-NBA team? I don’t know. They have $85 million in expiring [contracts] this season, so you think like, ‘Oh, look out for the Bulls, summer 2026. Coby White’s about to be a free agent. That scares me. What is his next contract? I just don’t know what this team is. Either the Bulls pay a lot to keep someone perhaps not worth it, or they lose maybe their best player for nothing in free agency.”
Simmons capped off his not-unfair rant by positing that in comparison to every other team in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls next five years look “the bleakest.”
The Bulls’ braintrust—while obviously not elite—isn’t completely devoid of basketball brainpower, and they’re well aware that Nikola Vucevic isn’t (and shouldn’t be) part of future plans.
Vooch—who, in 2024-25, delivered one of the best statistical seasons of his career—has been on the block for months, and it just so happens in terms of salary, the former All-Star’s contract would look pretty nifty as part of a Simons swap. (Note: Other players and potentially draft capital would be necessary for this trade get an okay from the salary cap gods.)
In Vucevic, the Celtics get a proven, productive player on an expiring deal who checks all the boxes—veteran presence, legit starter, no need to re-sign for huge money—while the Bulls land a gunner who squeezes neatly into their current and (theoretically) future run-and-gun style.
Best of all, as Simons’ is also on an expiring, the Bulls are under no obligation to break the bank for him in the summer of ’26. But he is only 26-years-old, and if he shows out in the upcoming season, welp, Chicago has an athletic young bucket-getter under team control during the team’s eternal rebuild, which doesn't suck.
This deal would make everybody happy, so let the Great Boston Reboot continue. Because tearing down an NBA team can be fun!