The Bulls' fourth-overall pick said at Summer League he'd skip rest and get to work. Within days, he and Matas Buzelis were at Wendell Phillips Academy on the South Side, already building the chemistry that Chicago's rebuild is counting on.

After scoring 35 points in his NBA Summer League debut and 20 more in his final game, Caleb Wilson sat down at a podium in Las Vegas and said something most fourth-overall picks don't bother to say on camera. He scoffed at the idea of a vacation. "October will be here real soon," Wilson told reporters. "Time moves fast."

Within days, he was back in Chicago.

Wilson and Matas Buzelis appeared July 22 at a South Side pro-am scrimmage held at Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Bronzeville — 244 E. Pershing Rd. — an event documented by Ball is Life Chicago on Instagram. Wilson's caption on his own share of the clips said everything he needed to say: "Had to tap in." Social media posts from the run also showed former Bulls Bobby Portis and Talen Horton-Tucker in attendance, though that hasn't been confirmed by published reporting.

What the clips do confirm: Wilson working off-the-dribble jumpers and two-hand jams, and Buzelis — coming off a career-high 16.3 PPG, 5.8 RPG, and 1.5 BPG in his second season, all 77 starts — threading an alley-oop that landed Wilson flush at the rim. The Bulls' two most important building blocks, in the same gym, in July, running pick-and-rolls before training camp has a date.

Wendell Phillips matters here. The school's $17 million athletic annex — new gymnasium, upgraded training facilities, Hall of Fame wing — opened in September 2022, the product of years of advocacy in a historically underfunded Bronzeville institution. That Wilson and Buzelis chose it for a summer run rather than a private facility sends a signal, even if neither said so explicitly.

The Bulls are not a playoff team this year. EVP Bryson Graham has acknowledged as much. But a franchise whose two most important young pieces are voluntarily in the same room in July, at a South Side gym, is at least starting the right file.