Chicago Bulls Rumors: Nikola Mirotic will play in NBA this season
By Josh Hill
The Chicago Bulls are dug deep into the trenches of the Carmelo Anthony battle as they want to sign the All-Star forward by next week or be told they can move on to the next best thing.
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One of the players the Bulls have been after to get on their roster isn’t a free agent but rather a player they drafted and then allowed to be stashed over in Spain. Nikola Mirotic was acquired on draft night a few years ago and the Bull have been patiently waiting for him to be ready to come over and join their lineup.
That time is now.
As reported earlier on Friday by Hoops Hype, the Chicago Bulls will be finalizing the buyout of Mirotic’s Real Madrid contract and as a result he will indeed be coming to the NBA this season and play for the Bulls once the season starts.
There was a lot of hope that Mirotic would be brought over in 2013 but that didn’t happen and the Bulls then circled 2015 as a realistic date to expect the big man to come to the NBA. It was during this season that Bulls brass decided to make a push to get Mirotic before 2015-16 and they’ve seemingly pulled it off.
What Mirotic coming to the Bulls means is that they’ll be taking on another contract but one that beats most free agent signings they could have hoped for. This might slightly affect the Carmelo Anthony situation but if anything it makes the Bulls roster even more attractive than it was before which may end up working in Chicago’s favor in both the win column this year and with convincing Melo to sign.