{"id":934561,"date":"2026-10-16T00:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934561\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T00:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:30:20","slug":"canadian-leonard-miller-has-turned-into-a-key-rotational-piece-for-chicago-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934561\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Leonard Miller has turned into a key rotational piece for Chicago Bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Leonard Miller<\/a> had no idea what to expect when he was traded to the Chicago Bulls<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n

So far, the change of scenery is working out quite well for the 6-foot-10 forward.<\/p>\n

It looks as if Miller is going to be a major part of Chicago\u2019s rotation in Tiago Splitter\u2019s first season as coach. He had 18 points and seven rebounds in 18 1\/2 minutes in Wednesday night\u2019s 125-104 exhibition victory at Milwaukee. He is averaging a team-high 17.5 points on 65.1% shooting in the preseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s doing a tremendous job,\u201d Splitter said. \u201cPlaying at the five or the four, he can do both positions. Of course, his versatility there is awesome. He can attack slower bigs and, you talk about random basketball, I think he\u2019s great at that. He\u2019s really hard to predict what he\u2019s going to do, and he\u2019s effective on those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s versatility provides some insurance for Splitter while Nic Claxton<\/a> and Zach Collins<\/a> \u2014 two more big men for Chicago \u2014 work their way back from injuries.<\/p>\n

Miller praised the environment with the Bulls going into his first full season with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the people above everything else, so I\u2019m embracing my teammates, the coaching staff,\u201d he said Thursday. \u201cEverything here has been fun, has been competitive. In the culture that we\u2019re trying to move forward with, I feel like everybody has a right mindset with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old Miller was selected by San Antonio in the second round of the 2023 draft. But he was promptly traded to Minnesota for more draft capital.<\/p>\n

He appeared in just 49 games over two-plus seasons with Minnesota before he was shipped off to Chicago in the Ayo Dosunmu<\/a> deal. The Timberwolves visit the Bulls for their preseason finale on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Miller said the lack of playing time didn\u2019t leave him with any negative feelings for Timberwolves coach Chris Finch or the team\u2019s front office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love those guys,\u201d he said. \u201cThose guys, they were there when I first got in the league, so I have a lot of love for them. They always still check up on me, see how I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller flourished with a Chicago team that was closing out a disappointing 31-51 season. He averaged 11.7 points and 5.8 rebounds in 27 games, including 12 starts.<\/p>\n

That opening stint with the Bulls set the stage for this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose body of games that I got to play, those meaningful minutes and play through mistakes, that definitely helped me right now,\u201d Miller said, \u201cbecause prior to that, I was on a Minnesota team where I didn\u2019t get to play through mistakes, didn\u2019t get to play in meaningful minutes. So getting that experience, it\u2019s going to help any player in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arturas Karnisovas was running Chicago\u2019s front office and Billy Donovan was the coach when Miller came over. But Karnisovas was fired in April and Donovan resigned after the season.<\/p>\n

Bryson Graham took over the front office in May, and Splitter was hired as coach in June. Graham and Splitter had a decision to make on Miller, and the team announced on July 1 that it had exercised its option on his contract.<\/p>\n

Miller, who is eligible for free agency at the end of this season, said he didn\u2019t worry at all about his future with the Bulls under Graham and Splitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, whether I knew them or not, I feel like the time since I\u2019ve been here, after I got traded here, has been amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I did what I got to do as a pro, putting in the work, and then on the court doing what I\u2019ve been practicing and what I\u2019ve been asked of, and I feel like me as a person getting along with everybody here in the organization, there\u2019s no need to stress.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full NBA coverage here <\/p>\n

Jay Cohen, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Leonard Miller had no idea what to expect when he was traded to the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-934561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}