Australian basketball star Josh Giddey has been traded from Oklahoma City to Chicago Bulls in a NBA swap deal, ending the youngster’s troubled spell with the Thunder.
The two teams announced they were swapping guards on Friday, with Alex Caruso heading from Chicago to Oklahoma City.
The 21-year-old Giddey, who will be a key player for Australia at the Olympics in Paris, will get a fresh start after a challenging season in which his numbers dropped and he lost his starting job in the playoffs.
He was frequently booed on the road after he was investigated following accusations by an anonymous social media user that he had an improper relationship with an underage girl.
The NBA and the Newport Beach, California, Police Department investigated Giddey during the season.
Newport Beach police completed their investigation in January and said detectives were “unable to corroborate any criminal activity.” The NBA also later dropped its investigation.
The Bulls are plumping for youth with 30-year-old Caruso entering the final year of his four-year contract and Giddey seen as a player for the future after being named to the NBA All-Defensive first team in 2022-23 and the second team in 2023-24.
Giddey, the sixth overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, started a career-high 80 games for the Thunder in 2023-24 and averaged 12.3 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists.
In 210 starts in his three NBA seasons, the Australian has career averages of 13.9 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti said on Friday that the team and Giddey had differing thoughts on his future role with the team.
“When we drafted Josh in 2021 he was an essential aspect of our vision for the next iteration of the Thunder. Since then, our team has evolved rapidly and dynamically in ways we could never have anticipated,” Presti said in a news release.
“Therefore, as we began our internal discussions this offseason, it was determined that bringing Josh off the bench next season was our best option to maximise his many talents and deploy our team more efficiently over 48 minutes.
“As we laid out to Josh how he could lean into his strengths and ultimately optimise our current roster and talent, it was hard to for him to envision, and conversations turned to him inquiring about potential opportunities elsewhere.
“As always was the case, Josh demonstrated the utmost professionalism throughout the discussions.
“Josh has All-Star potential, but accessing that in the current construct of the Thunder would not be optimal for the collective. Based on these discussions we decided to move forward and prioritise what was best for the organisation.”
Source Agencies
