Photo via essentiallysports.com

After being linked with the Los Angeles Lakers during this offseason, DeMar DeRozan eventually signed with the Chicago Bulls. According to the four-time NBA All-Star himself, there was one player on the Bulls roster who he wanted to team with for some time.

It was Nikola Vucevic who moved to Chicago this past season from the Orlando Magic. The Montenegrin center reached out to DeRozan once he became a free agent and brought up the idea of him joining the Bulls.

“It really came from Vucevic. For years even when he was in Orlando, we always was trying to figure like ‘we need to play together’,” DeRozan told former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, per R. P. Salao of ClutchPoints. “A lot of times it be like, y’know, B.S. But when the opportunity presented itself after he got traded to Chicago, we had a conversation during the season when we played them. He was like ‘Look, you’re a free agent let’s see what we can do.” And I’m like ‘Imma keep that on my radar’ and as things transpired, it just started making more and more sense.”