‘Being inefficient … doesn’t help’: Giddey confronts slow start

• Josh Giddey says he is still learning how to make Chicago's new roster effective
• The 1-3 Bulls lost 135-92 in Toronto and 134-99 in Boston
• Rookie Caleb Wilson averages 21 points as Giddey sits on 7.0 points a game

Chicago’s US$100M (about A$142M) point guard Josh Giddey didn’t shy away from how poorly the 1-3 Bulls have started the 2026-27 NBA season, conceding: “I’m still trying to figure out how I can be effective, how I can make other guys effective.”

The 24-year-old Australian Boomers star added on Tuesday (Chicago time): “I’m not sure analytically where we are, but I think we’re good.”

They are not.

The Bulls are last in the league in eFG% at 46.1%, 25th in opponents' eFG% at 56.0%, 29th in turnovers at 19.3 per game, 28th in assists per game at 22.5, and 30th in net rating at -17.5.

The Lakers lead the league in eFG% at 63.8% and have a +12.8 net rating (3rd).

Two of the Bulls' losses have been blowouts: 135-92 to the Toronto Raptors on opening night; and 134-99 to the Boston Celtics last time out.

Giddey has 31 career triple-doubles, a big part of the case for the four-year, US$100M contract he re-signed for before last season. This season he’s averaging 7.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists. He's shooting just 33% from the field and 15.3% from behind the arc.

“For me, I’ve been a good offensive rebounder, but it’s never been a thing that I’ve always crashed every time,” he said.

“A lot of the time I find myself kind of in the upper third of the floor, so it never really felt natural for me to crash from there.

“Obviously, it’s a new emphasis that we’re trying to put in now, where we’re trying to send guys to the boards, and I feel like a lot of teams around the league are doing the same thing.

“I’ve probably got to do a better job. I think I’m effective when I go. I just probably don’t go as much as I should, and it’s something I’ve got to get better at. I think we’ve all got to do a better job rebounding both sides of the ball.

“Those things help when you offensive rebound, kick out to threes, getting extra possessions. It generates good looks, but it’s also about the more possessions you can have than the opposition, the better state you’ll be in to win the game.

“(Finding better shots) is probably something I’ve got to work out. Being inefficient like I have been the first four games doesn’t help.

“I’ve made a conscious effort to get off the ball, to get guys looks. I’ve never really been one to press. When I haven’t been scoring, I’ve never wanted to go out there and just try to make something happen for myself.

“Letting the game come to you, not going out there predetermining what you want to do, is the best way to go about it.

“It’ll come. Shots will start falling. But I’m never one to go out there – I’m not thinking tomorrow night I’ve got to go out there and have 25 to get back on track.

“It’ll come naturally as I kind of put myself in the team, and we’ll start to figure it out together. That stuff will come naturally.

“But I’m not sitting here saying it’s going well. I’ve got to figure it out, and I’ve got to do a better job of helping other guys on our team figure it out too. That’s the role as a point guard.

“When we get there, we generate good shots, and we’re probably shooting the ball as bad as anybody in the league right now.

“We’re generating really good looks.

“So obviously the averages will start to balance out eventually. We’re not going to shoot this poorly for the entire season. But when we hit the paint, we get good looks, and that’s what we’ve got to keep doing.

“We’ve kind of been preaching that all preseason and training camp, and I think we’re doing a good job getting there. We’ve probably got to do a better job of stopping teams getting there.

“But yeah, when we get in the paint, we kick it out, we dump it off, we get good looks. We’re just not making them at as high a clip as we’d probably like right now.”

The brightest spot has been rookie Caleb Wilson. The 20-year-old, taken with the 4th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, is averaging 21 points and 7.3 rebounds, but his buckets are coming on 18.5 shots per game.

“I think we’re getting good looks,” Giddey continued.

“There’s definitely possessions where we take bad ones, where we come down, it’s no-pass offence, we’re kind of shooting contested shots, and they’re probably the ones we need to cut down on.

“There’s a time and place, I think. We need to generate good looks for each other. We don’t really have one-on-one guys on this team. We’ve got to do it collectively, and I think when we hit the paint, that generates a lot of our good offence.

“When we get in there, we get good looks. It’s just a matter of not getting bored of it, not letting the misses kind of deter you from the good offence that I think we’ve been running in stretches. But yeah, obviously making shots is a massive part of the game here.”

Head coach Tiago Splitter took over from Billy Donovan in the off-season; the Bulls retooled the roster, and Giddey admitted it would take time to build chemistry and adjust to a new system.

“I think we’re all still figuring it out,” he said.

“I think I’m definitely still figuring it out. These things take time. It’s been four games. We’re not at game 70. We’re four games into the season.

“We’re all going to keep getting better as we learn and grow into this new system. Everything here is new. Everything here is new. We’re all learning and adapting.

“Speaking for me, I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m still trying to figure out how I can be effective, how I can make other guys effective on the court.

"These things take time, and it’s been four games.

“I’m not going to say we’re starting to figure it out like we’ve got all the answers, but I think we’re getting better every day. We’re looking at positives from games.

“Obviously, when you lose by 30, there’s probably more negatives than positives to take out of it, but, you know, they’re the type of experiences you need to go through as a team and individually to get better as players.

“I’d say it’s less system-wise and more personnel. I think it’s getting adjusted to different players that we’re all playing with. A lot of these guys here, we’re all new together, so that’s going to take some time.

“For me, I think my job is to try to make everybody around me better, and I don’t think I’m doing nearly as good enough a job as I should be at that.

“And then I’ve got to understand when to be aggressive. I think there’s probably times where I’m too passive and turning down looks just to kind of overpass the ball.

“I think we’ll figure it out as a team. I think everyone’s got to do better jobs of offensively getting into things quicker. I think our pace is good, but sometimes it’s one dribble, we’re kicking it up and we’re just bombing shots up for the sake of it.

“We’ve got to figure it out collectively. I’ve got to do a better job kind of organising our group offensively, and I think we’ll be all right.

“As I said, we’re four games in, so there’s a lot to look at, and we’ll get better as we keep playing.”

The Bulls take on the defending NBA champion New York Knicks on Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 11am (AEDT).