Bulls VP Bryson Graham takes the blame for selling draft picks after fans called him out

The Chicago Bulls walked out of the NBA Draft with two guys they actually wanted. Caleb Wilson out of North Carolina at No. 7. Dailyn Swain from Texas at No. 15. Decent night on paper.

But the part that pissed off a lot of fans? What they did with their second-round picks. Or more accurately, what they didn’t do.

The Bulls traded the No. 38 pick — Braden Smith, who happens to be the NCAA’s all-time assists leader from Purdue — to the Indiana Pacers for Kam Jones. Jones played 37 games as a rookie last season. Averaged 4.4 points. Got waived by Indiana and picked up by the Milwaukee Bucks. So that pick basically turned into nothing for Chicago.

Then at No. 56, the Bulls just handed the pick to the Lakers for cash. Didn’t even use it.

That’s two second-round picks. Gone. No players added. And the team’s VP of Basketball Operations, Bryson Graham, is not hiding from the backlash.

“If you feel good about the guys that you’re going to be looking at postdraft for two-ways and you don’t feel good about rostering guys that are in the earlier part of the second round, then you need to find a way to move off, maybe move a pick,” Graham told ESPN’s Jamal Collier. “Maybe add value in other ways. Yeah, that’s completely on me.”

That last part — “completely on me” — is getting noticed. Most front office types deflect or talk in circles. Graham just ate it.

But according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, this isn’t really a one-time thing. It’s how the Bulls operate. One league source told Windhorst on “The Hoop Collective” podcast: “I just think that there’s a certain way that they operate, and I don’t see the fundamental core of that changing.”

So yeah. Graham took the heat this time. But the structure that led to those decisions is still standing.

Smith, by the way, is about to be a huge problem for somebody. Purdue’s all-time assists king runs an offense like a veteran point guard. The Pacers might actually use him. Meanwhile the Bulls are sitting on cash and a roster spot they didn’t fill.

Graham had defended his second-round approach before the draft. Now he’s cleaning up the mess. The question is whether the Bulls will ever actually care about the second round — or if they’ll keep treating it like a currency they don’t believe in.