Josh Giddey is excited for a change of scenery as he has joined the Bulls: 'My job is to make the game easy for everybody else'

(670 The Score) Bulls point guard Josh Giddey got straight to the point when asked how he can make an impact on his new team.

“My job is just to make the game easy for everybody else,” Giddey said.

The Bulls held an introductory media session for Giddey on a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon, five days after Chicago acquired him in exchange for sending veteran guard Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City. That one-for-one swap created angst in a large segment of Bulls fans and puzzled many across the NBA because it didn’t feature any draft capital heading back to Chicago, but that was neither here nor there in the 21-year-old Giddey’s mind.

For his part, he was happy for a change of scenery after what he called a “tough” final season in Oklahoma City, one in which his role waned. Giddey averaged 12.3 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 25.1 minutes across 80 games, all starts, for the Thunder last season. While Giddey was productive and started, those numbers represented a decrease in his production from his first two NBA seasons. The primary reason for that was because Thunder star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander blossomed into a top-tier MVP candidate, while wing Jalen Williams and center Chet Holmgren also filled key roles on the offensive end.

In the playoffs, Giddey’s playing time also waned due to his shooting weakness, as the Mavericks sagged off of him and clogged the paint in their Western Conference semifinal series against the 57-win Thunder, who moved Giddey to the bench for the final two games of that series, which Dallas won 4-2. Giddey averaged just 12.7 minutes per game in the series.

That led to honest, straight-to-the-point meetings and conversations between Giddey, Thunder lead executive Sam Presti and other team officials after the end of this past season. Giddey expressed his desire to start, and the Thunder had planned to move him into a lead playmaking role off the bench.

“I came off a tough year," Giddey said. "My role shifted a little bit. I was playing a lot more off the ball in kind of a different role to what I’ve ever done in my career. There were no secrets that it was going to take some flexibility on my part to fit in with the team that we had and the structure that we had and the type of players that we had. And he spoke to me about looking at potentially different roles, coming off the bench, running the second unit and things like that. And I just said to him, at this point in my career, I’m 21 years old, it wasn’t something I was overly eager to do. (Presti) completely understood. Throughout the whole process, we were open and honest with each other. And I said him, ‘Look, coming off the bench at this point in my career is not something I’m trying to do and take a reserve role.’ He got it. We worked together through the whole process. He got me to a great spot. I’m very, very excited to be here in Chicago.”

The Bulls haven’t yet given Giddey direct assurances that he’ll be their starting point guard next season, but that’s the full expectation given their team needs and that they bypassed on other enticing offers for Caruso to acquire him. At 6-foot-8, Giddey brings the Bulls good positional size and has a pass-first mindset, which was a big draw for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley.

For all of Coby White’s improvement over the past couple seasons and while DeMar DeRozan is a willing passer, the Bulls haven’t had a pass-first lead playmaker in their regular rotation since Lonzo Ball went down with his devastating knee injury in January 2022. In the 2022-’23 season, Giddey averaged 16.6 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists in 31.1 minutes across 76 games. That’s the type of production the Bulls believe they can get out of him, with plenty of room to grow.

“I want to come in and make sure guys are getting easy looks, guys feel comfortable on the floor,” Giddey said. “As a point guard, when you can get other people around you going and making them involved in the game, getting them feeling good early, it opens the game up for everybody. So that’s kind of how I see myself – just making basketball and the game simple for everybody else and making it easy for my teammates around me.”

Whom Giddey will be passing the ball to next season remains somewhat of a mystery. Shooting guard Zach LaVine remains on the trade market, while star forward DeMar DeRozan is set to enter unrestricted free agency Sunday if the sides don’t reach a contract extension before then. As of Tuesday, there had been little momentum toward a new deal for DeRozan, according to reports.

In his conversations with the Bulls, Giddey didn’t inquire about whether significant roster change is coming in the next couple weeks. He’s more focused on his own game, and that includes the need to improve as a shooter and also on the defensive end, he acknowledged.

The No. 6 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Giddey has shot 31.0% from 3-point range across three seasons. He shot 33.7% on 3.0 3-point attempts per game this past season.

In his introductory media session Tuesday, Giddey also expressed a keen understanding that his strengths as a player no longer were an ideal match for what the Thunder needed. He chose to take the glass-half-full viewpoint.

“Our team got so good, and there were multiple players who could handle the ball and do different things,” Giddey said of the Thunder last season. “I had to adjust. I had to learn different things. I think I did. While you’re in the midst of it, it’s hard to see the light. But looking back at it now, it probably taught me a lot of lessons that I needed for a young player in their career and how to adapt to different environments.”

In Chicago, Giddey believes he has far more room to grow than he would’ve had in Oklahoma City.

“It was going to be hard to tap into my full potential in my opinion on a team like where there were so many talented guys who needed the ball in their hands, who were great with the ball in their hands,” Giddey said. “A change of scenery was probably going to unlock more of that for me. But as I said, being able to make the game easy for everybody, being able to get guys involved, distribute the ball and get other players confident around me is kind of what I pride myself on doing. It’s hard to do that in a role where the ball is not in your hands a lot.

“I want to be the pass-first point guard that I am and help teammates generate easy looks.”

Cody Westerlund is an editor for 670TheScore.com and covers the Bulls. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund .