Bulls Notes: Simons, Ivey, Huerter, Tanking

Anfernee Simons will miss the Bulls‘ matchup against the Knicks tonight with a left wrist sprain, according to Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic. Simons left Saturday’s loss to the Pistons after just 13 minutes due to the injury.

Lorenzi adds that, according to head coach Billy Donovan, Simons will undergo imaging on the wrist on Monday, and it’s entirely possible that the “sprained wrist” diagnosis will change following the results of those tests. Donovan said the Bulls don’t currently know the severity of the injury.

Prior to Saturday, Simons had played five games with the Bulls after being acquired in a deal that sent Nikola Vucevic to the Celtics. In those five games, Simons averaged 17.4 points and 3.6 assists, though he struggled to find his outside shot, hitting just 32.7% of his threes.

We have more from the Bulls:

• Chicago’s trade deadline was filled with moves designed to secure the best possible lottery odds this summer, but the acquisition of Jaden Ivey was one of the few forward-facing moves they made in terms of adding personnel. Ivey’s recent injury status makes that calculation more complicated, especially given his impending free agency, writes Chicago Tribune’s Julia Poe. However, despite Ivey’s comments about his body not feeling the same, Poe writes that there’s cautious optimism from the team’s coach about his ability to recover. “There’s a feeling that if he can get some more strength back then he can get back to where he was athletically,” Donovan said. “He knows that he’s not as explosive as he once was, but I don’t think that means that he can’t get back to that point. A big part of that is going to be him getting stronger.” According to Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times, Ivey’s former coach, J.B. Bickerstaff, agrees with Donovan, but adds that the most important part of the process is mental. “We expected a full recovery, but the timing you never know; it’s something you can never know,” Bickerstaff said. “And then the part for him is believing and trusting in it. That happens with the injury, too, especially when you’re explosive and your athleticism is so unique. You’ve got to find that trust back in it.”
• Kevin Huerter recently spoke about the trade that sent him from the Bulls to the Pistons, Cowley writes. One thing he touched on was the lack of clarity among the Chicago roster about whether the team would compete or move into a rebuilding phase. “We talked about it [as a team], and we just didn’t know,” Huerter said. “We were sitting at .500 most of the year. It could have gone either way. As players, you have to expect everything, but seven or eight trades, whatever it was, I don’t know if anyone expected that.” While the move came as a surprise, the 27-year-old shooting guard is grateful for the opportunity it has provided him. “The transition, it’s always tough in season, even coming here last year, it was tough to move everything, your whole life, in about a week,” he said. “But you’re going to a team like this, No. 1 in the East, and they just compete their ass off.”
• The Bulls are behind the eight-ball when it comes to trying their luck at a top pick in this draft, Poe writes. It’s a trend that Poe says is indicative of the reign of vice president Arturas Karnisovas, which has been punctuated by making moves on players after their value has started to decline. Despite that, Poe writes that the move to begun the next era of Bulls basketball is the right one, given the depth and promise of the 2026 draft class.