Trade rumors surrounding Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vučević are “expected to pick up” ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season, Chris Mannix reported Tuesday for Sports Illustrated.
Mannix noted that the Bills “have (finally) seemed to settle on a direction” with young players like 21-year-old Matas Buzelis, 23-year-old Josh Giddey and 25-year-old Coby White in the projected starting lineup.
That leaves Vučević, who will turn 35 later this month, as a potential odd man out. He is also owed just under $21.5 million this season on an expiring deal Mannix described as “very tradeable.”
ESPN’s Jamal Collier wrote in February that the Bulls had spoken about Vučević with the Golden State Warriors but had “never received a concrete offer” before the deadline.
Both Collier and Chicago Sports Network’s K.C. Johnson reported the Bulls believed those talks had laid “groundwork” to potentially trade Vučević over the offseason.
That offseason trade never came, despite Vučević recently telling Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times he “thought maybe something could happen” before the 2025 NBA draft in June.
NBA insider Jake Fischer said in a July livestream for Bleacher Report that “there hasn’t been much of a market” for Vučević.
“I think we’re probably more likely to see a Nikola Vučević buyout midseason than we are to see a trade, depending on how the market unfolds, depending on how injuries develop,” Fischer said in July.
Vučević averaged 18.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists through 73 games (72 starts) last season, shooting 53.0 percent from the field and 40.2 percent from deep.
Whether the Bulls ultimately move Vučević this season could depend at least on part on other centers’ injury status as the season progresses. For now, he is slated to remain in Chicago’s starting lineup when the team tips off the 2025-26 campaign on Wednesday, Oct. 22 against the visiting Detroit Pistons.
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