By the Numbers: Six Figures That Define the Bulls Right Now

Payroll under the cap. Chicago sits at $164.3 million, comfortably below the $200.4 million luxury tax line. That gap is not vanity - it's the room Bryson Graham needs if a trade comes together once games start counting, and a sign the front office isn't boxed in by what it inherited.

Last year's 31-51. A 31-51 finish got Billy Donovan replaced by Tiago Splitter and cleared out Karnisovas and Eversley too. That record is also why seven trades went out at last year's deadline - the front office decided the previous group had already shown what it could do, and it wasn't enough.

A bottom-third defense. Last season's -5.3 net rating came from a 112.1 offense and a 117.4 defense, each ranked in the bottom third of the league. Splitter inherits both problems at once, and nothing in camp has settled which one gets fixed first.

Giddey's nine assists. Josh Giddey averaged 9.1 assists a night last season, the clearest evidence he already runs this offense. At 23, he's also the open question Graham hasn't answered: build around him long-term, or treat him as the asset that gets moved before this rebuild ends.

A lineup that's gone. The best five-man group Chicago ran last season - Vucevic, Huerter, Okoro, Giddey and Buzelis - posted a plus-4.2 net rating over 13 games. It doesn't exist anymore. Vucevic and Huerter were both traded away, so that number is a ceiling nobody currently in Chicago's rotation has matched.

Claxton's date with Toronto. Nic Claxton's hamstring has an estimated return of October 21 - the same day the Bulls open the regular season at Toronto. That's not a coincidence worth celebrating; it's a deadline the training staff has to hit exactly, with no margin before it matters.