{"id":671099,"date":"2026-03-21T18:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/671099\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:12:07","slug":"leonard-miller-is-bulls-best-trade-deadline-acquisition-the-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/671099\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonard Miller Is Bulls’ Best Trade Deadline Acquisition \u2013 The Lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Bulls\u2019 2026 trade deadline return headlined by Collin Sexton<\/a>, Rob Dillingham<\/a>, Jaden Ivey<\/a> and Anfernee Simons<\/a>. But the best acquisition was not one of these four players. Hidden in the weeds of second-round picks and Guershon Yabusele was Leonard Miller<\/a>. What seemed to be a throw-in in the Ayo Dosunmu<\/a> for Dillingham trade became a future building block for the Bulls.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Miller Time<\/p>\n

Sexton scored 20+ points in four straight games this month. Simons scored 20+ points in half of his games with Chicago before breaking his wrist. Nick Richards<\/a> has four double-doubles.<\/p>\n

How can Miller be the best acquisition? His contract.<\/p>\n

Miller is the only player who isn\u2019t in the final year of his contract, other than Dillingham, who has a club option that the Bulls are most certainly going to exercise. The other acquisitions might be better players currently, but they have no future with the team.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean Miller is the best just due to circumstance; he\u2019s playing great as a starter. Miller has five straight games scoring 10+ points. In fact, he has scored at least 10 points in seven of the nine games he has played over 20 minutes. Not bad for a player who only played 10 minutes in one game this season before joining the Bulls.<\/p>\n

Dillingham was the headline of the Dosunmu trade, but Miller has outplayed him. Over the last 15 games<\/a>, Miller has more total points while having a better field goal and three-point percentage. He has started five games and has a +\/- of 60, while Dillingham hasn\u2019t started a single game and has a +\/- of -62. Miller has by far been the best player of the trade and the best acquisition of the entire deadline.<\/p>\n

When I graded every move the Bulls made at the deadline<\/a>, I predicted that Miller would step into the Julian Philips role. He ended up taking Patrick Williams\u2019 minutes and demoting Williams to the Philips role. Head Coach Billy Donovan<\/a> has opted to start Miller in the last five games instead of Williams, showing that he has gained more trust in two months than Williams has earned in six years.<\/p>\n

This is even getting some national attention from the Bill Simmons Podcast. In a recent episode<\/a>, Simmons did an \u2018NBA Worst Contracts\u2019 draft, and he said, \u201cPatrick Williams, this is another example of, I don\u2019t want to pay that guy $18 million a year, when I can find someone for [$2 million].\u201d<\/p>\n

That is exactly what Miller has been and will be for the future. His cheap contract is bailing out the front office\u2019s horrible decision of giving Williams a $90 million contract. When Isaac Okoro<\/a> and Noa Essengue<\/a> are healthy next year, there is a real possibility of Williams being the third forward off the bench.<\/p>\n

Miller has been a revelation for Chicago. Once a throw-in, he became the best player in a trade, climbed the depth chart, and practically guaranteed himself a spot on the Bulls next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Bulls\u2019 2026 trade deadline return headlined by Collin Sexton, Rob Dillingham, Jaden Ivey and Anfernee Simons.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,3363,920,919,329,3824,14489,6,6140,977],"class_list":["post-671099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bulls","tag-basketball","tag-billy-donovan","tag-bulls","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-chicagobulls","tag-leonard-miller","tag-nba","tag-patrick-williams","tag-rob-dillingham"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116268522013479747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}