The Chicago Bulls enter draft night with two first-round picks and a mandate: accelerate the rebuild that began when the front office traded away its veteran core at the February deadline. Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley projects Chicago to select North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson at No. 4 and Washington center Hannes Steinbach at No. 15, a pick acquired from Portland. If the board breaks the way Buckley envisions, the Bulls leave the first round with a fully assembled frontcourt for the next era of the franchise.

Wilson is the most gifted athlete in this draft class — a 6-foot-9 forward with extraordinary leaping ability, a relentless motor, and a finishing game that operates at the rim with maddening efficiency. His energy fits perfectly with Chicago’s new SLAP philosophy, which emphasizes size, length, athleticism, and physicality. He pairs with Matas Buzelis to give the Bulls two young, explosive forwards capable of turning an offense into a fast-break machine when they’re both attacking in transition.

Wilson’s development questions center on his perimeter jumper, which has never been reliable at any level, and his off-ball defensive decision-making, which was inconsistent at North Carolina. In a system with Josh Giddey handling primary creation and Buzelis stretching the floor from the four, Wilson wouldn’t need to shoot threes to be impactful immediately. But his ceiling — and Chicago’s ceiling around him — rises substantially if he develops even league-average three-point shooting.

The opportunity cost at No. 4 is Milwaukee’s pick: Tennessee forward Nate Ament at No. 10. Ament is a 6-foot-10 shot-creator whose price fell during a difficult freshman season that included an ankle injury and inconsistent efficiency — but a six-game stretch where he averaged 23.8 points reminded scouts why he was a top-five recruit. The Bulls went for the safer, higher-floor prospect over Ament’s boom-or-bust upside, which is the right call for a team that needs foundational certainty more than ceiling chasing.

At No. 15, Steinbach gives the Bulls exactly what Wilson doesn’t: interior craft, post-up finishing, and dominant offensive rebounding. The 6-foot-11 Washington freshman bulked up to 248 pounds before the Draft Combine, which moved him firmly into center-sized territory, and his flashes of three-point shooting could turn him into a two-way weapon if they sustain. The player selected immediately after at No. 16 — Dailyn Swain by Memphis — is a wing, not a big, which means Chicago isn’t leaving frontcourt value on the board by taking Steinbach.

CBS Sports’ Adam Finkelstein also projects Wilson to Chicago at No. 4 and Steinbach at the Bulls’ second pick. Tankathon projects Wilson at No. 4 but has Cameron Carr — a Baylor shooting guard — at the 15th pick rather than Steinbach. Yahoo Sports’ Kevin O’Connor also projects Wilson to Chicago with Cameron Carr in the secondary slot. Both Carr and Steinbach are legitimate fits alongside the Bulls’ roster; the divergence simply reflects different evaluations of which type of player Chicago most needs alongside Buzelis and Wilson.

CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish ranks Boozer ahead of Wilson and has them swapping spots in his mock, placing Boozer fourth and Wilson third — a minority view that speaks to how closely the two players are valued at the top of the class.

What Other Outlets Are Projecting

Outlet	Projected Player
Bleacher Report	Caleb Wilson, PF, North Carolina (#4); Hannes Steinbach, C, Washington (#15)
CBS Sports	Caleb Wilson, PF, North Carolina (#4); Hannes Steinbach, PF, Washington (#16)
Tankathon	Caleb Wilson, SF/PF, North Carolina (#4)
Yahoo Sports	Caleb Wilson, SF, North Carolina (#4); Cameron Carr, SG, Baylor (#15)

Wilson at No. 4 is the right pick because a player with this athletic profile and this positional size almost never falls to the top of a rebuild. His fit alongside Giddey’s creation, Buzelis’s shooting, and Noa Essengue’s youth makes the Bulls one of the league’s most athletically imposing young rosters. Adding Steinbach at No. 15 to anchor the frontcourt is low-cost, high-reward roster construction. This draft path accelerates the timeline from tanking to competing without requiring a franchise-altering trade or a max free-agent commitment — and that’s precisely why it works.