The emu is a fascinating bird.

It’s big and strong and fast, even in the water. It’s the only bird with calf muscles. The Australian army once fought —and lost— a war against a battalion of emus.

But for most people, the emu is defined by the thing it can’t do, not the things it can. It’s a flightless bird. If you don’t know anything else about emus, I’d bet you know that. It’s the emu’s defining feature: the rare bird that can’t fly.

Josh Giddey, too, has been defined by the things he can’t do: shoot or play defense. (Let’s leave aside his legal troubles.) Sounds pretty bad, no? But just like the emu, the things Giddey can’t do have overshadowed everything he can.

I understand why Chicago fans might not be excited about next season. Their team won’t be good, exactly, and Chicago’s biggest addition is a player known for his flaws. But at the very least, Giddey ensures that the Bulls will be something they haven’t been for years: fun.

Let’s get the ugly out of the way. Giddey’s defense is rough. He’s slow laterally and short-armed, but the worst part is how incredibly non-vertical he is (sound familiar?). Foes go up for layups and dunks without even noticing him:

Giddey’s defensive stance is far too upright. He’s constantly off-balance, which leaves him vulnerable to power moves. Watch Dennis Smith Jr. send Giddey through a wall like a victimized Kool-Aid man:

But for all that, Giddey isn’t a ten-car pileup on that end. He generally competes. Defensive EPM placed him in the 34th percentile last season — bad, but not horrible. Synergy, which breaks down the points he allows against specific play types, actually rates him as an average-ish defender in isolation, guarding roll men, and in the post. Being 6’8” with strength provides a reasonable floor if he puts forth the effort, and Giddey generally does try hard. And while Giddey won’t be leading the league in blocks or steals, he has become quite good at the swipe-down when drivers start to gather for a shot:

Speaking of shots, Giddey will need to sharpen his three-pointer to become a productive playoff player, but there’s hope here. Giddey has improved his accuracy in each of his three seasons, and while his 4.4 attempts per 36 minutes are low, he’s certainly not a wallflower.

Most of that volume is involuntary, however. Giddey faces shorter closeouts than pretty much anyone in the league. You have to shoot this if you’re an NBA player:

Per NBA.com’s tracking data, 217 of Giddey’s 243 regular-season attempts from deep were considered “wide-open,” meaning the nearest defender was at least six feet away. Defenses worked to get him open shots behind the three-point line.

His 33.7% shooting from deep last season wasn’t, like, Thompson-twin bad, but given the context, it needs to be better — and it might be next season. If you enjoy recency bias, per Cerebro Sports, Giddey went 9-for-19 from deep from the shorter Olympic three-point line over four games, so Bulls fans looking for optimism can start there.

The defense and shooting deficiencies forced Giddey to the bench during the Thunder’s playoff run, but he was never a great fit next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and the Bulls likely won’t be making a deep playoff run soon). On a Chicago Bulls team where he’s likely to command the ball much more, his gifts should shine.

First, Giddey is a truly voracious glass-cleaner, routinely putting up rebound totals reminiscent of a center. While he’s not a leaper, he aggressively puts a body on folks. A Giddey rebound jumpstarts the offense, letting him leap into the open court without needing to wait for an outlet pass.

Pushing the pace helps Giddey pressure the rim. Giddey can bull (Bull?) his way to the hoop with surprising ease. More than two-thirds of his shot attempts occur at the rim or in floater range. Although his lack of athleticism can sometimes hamper his finishing, he has a beautiful floater game.

Giddey is a top-three passer in the league. He uses angles nobody else in the league can see, much less access. Look at this outrageous bowling-ball pass that nutmegs Jamal Murray:

The ball zips around when Giddey is on the court. Teammates cut 10% harder because they know that if they get an inch of space, Giddey will find them:

I hope that Billy Donovan stole some pages from Mark Daigneault’s SLOB playbook, because OKC consistently ran the league’s most beautiful set pieces. Giddey’s vision, touch, and patience were key:

Chicago hasn’t had a passer like the Australian since… Rajon Rondo? It’s been a minute.

Of course, all those crazy passes come with a cost. Giddey routinely has one of the league’s worst turnover rates. The Bulls are usually a low-turnover team, so Donovan may need to get used to seeing some head-scratching plays.

But as a neutral observer, I’m fine injecting a little chaos into one of the league’s most boring squads. Quietly, the Bulls are shaping up to be a top League Pass team.

Giddey’s frenetic tempo and wild passes will please a crowd used to the grind-it-out midrange games of DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. Rookie Matas Buzelis spent Summer League dunking all over everyone. Patrick Williams tries (and often fails) to dunk all over everyone. Zach LaVine presumably will be back and healthy. We might even see Lonzo Ball’s long-awaited return!

The Chicago Bulls won’t be good this year, but if they give the keys to their offense to Josh Giddey, they will be fun. And Giddey hasn’t even turned double-dos yet! He has time to improve his shooting (plausible) and defense (eh, unlikely). And if Giddey stinks this year? At least the Bulls might finally get a decent lottery selection (they owe their top-10 protected pick to the Spurs).

Boiling every NBA transaction down to improving scant championship equity is lame and, in my opinion, misses the point of sports. NBA basketball is entertainment, and few players are more entertaining than Josh Giddey. After all, it’s not every day you see an emu in the wild.