When Josh Giddey was benched during last year’s playoffs series against the Dallas Mavericks, it forced the Australian into an uncomfortable position.

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He had been starting his whole life and, for the most part, was a key piece of Oklahoma City’s rebuild until he wasn’t. Until his future at the Thunder suddenly became clouded.

At that point Giddey’s heart was still in Oklahoma City, even after the way that season ended, telling reporters at the time “this is home away from home”.

But the NBA is a cut-throat business.

Although in the case of Giddey’s trade to Chicago for guard Alex Caruso, this wasn’t so much a cut-throat call as a logical one that made sense for both teams.

For the Thunder, it gave them a genuine difference-maker on the bench and elite defender that fit into that complementary role better than Giddey, who in Chicago had the opportunity to play in a more ball-dominant role that suited his strengths.

But it took less than a month for Giddey to find himself on the bench again as his fresh start with the Bulls threatened to go off the rails, and in a contract year no less.

“I wouldn’t play myself if I was Billy,” Giddey said after that game against the Cavaliers. “No minutes tonight. I was bad on both sides of the ball.”

Giddey shot 2-for-9 from the field in the loss, managing just five points and one assist in a season-low 15 minutes.

The offensive production just wasn’t there, and it left Bulls coach Billy Donovan with little choice but to bench Giddey given his glaring limitations on the defensive end.

That was four months ago. Fast-forward to today and, more specifically, since the All-Star break, the Bulls have seen a very different version of Giddey.

The 22-year-old has turned back into the walking triple double he was early in his Oklahoma City career, highlighted by a standout game against the Lakers which saw Giddey put up 15 points, 17 assists, 10 rebounds and eight steals.

And that last number also speaks to the increased energy and effort Giddey is playing with on defence, no longer the liability he was in the latter stages of his Oklahoma City career and early days at the Bulls.

Giddey’s transformation has the Australian in line for a big payday, with ESPN’s Brian Windhorst predicting he could re-sign for as much as USD $30 million (A$47 million) per season.

He made those calculations based on the contract (five years, $A257 million) Raptors guard Immanuel Quickley is currently signed to, suggesting Giddey would be after something similar.

It would certainly be quite the result considering Giddey’s market value after the start of his Bulls tenure.

So, what’s changed?

Well, before getting into what has changed around him, first you have to give the Australian some credit because as much as he has benefited from playing on the ball more after the Zach LaVine trade, there has also been a concerted effort from Giddey’s end to transform his game.

That starts with the way he is making buckets.

Giddey has always been a unique player. At 6-foot-8, he’s one of the best pass-first guards in the NBA, using his height to see over the defence and fit the ball through tight windows for moving teammates with the anticipation of an NFL quarterback.

But for too long, he didn’t use the 6-foot-8 frame to his advantage in other ways. Giddey did it at the FIBA World Cup when he hunted size mismatches against a smaller Japan team.

For the most part though, Giddey often resorted to inefficient mid-range floaters instead of going all the way to the rim. Since the All-Star break, that has changed.

Giddey has gone from averaging 9.4 drives per game before the break to 14.9, while also scoring 9.4 points off drives compared to 3.6.

“He’s getting into the teeth of the defence,” Donovan said earlier in the season.

“He’s not shooting a lot of those runners, so to speak, from below the free throw line. He’s really going in a little bit deeper and he’s passing it and finding other guys.”

It has been an intentional move from Giddey, who used to settle for running one-handed floaters but instead has been finishing stronger and drawing more fouls as a result.

The numbers show it too, with Giddey going from 2.2 free throw attempts per game before the All-Star break to 5.7 after it.

Then there is the improvement as a 3-point shooter. Now, of all the changes in Giddey’s game this is obviously the least likely to be sticky.

He has been shooting 53.1 per cent from downtown on 4.1 attempts per game since the All-Star break, up from 34.5 per cent on nearly just as many attempts earlier in the season.

GIDDEY’S NUMBERS BEFORE THE ALL-STAR BREAK:

Points: 12.2

Assists: 6.4

Rebounds: 7.1

Steals:

Turnovers: 2.7

AST/TO: 2.5

3PT%: 34.5

3PA: 3.9

3PM: 1.3

TS%: 54.2

FTA: 2.2

FTM: 1.7

GIDDEY’S NUMBERS SINCE THE ALL-STAR BREAK

Points: 22.6

Assists: 9.1

Rebounds: 10.3

Steals: 1.6

Turnovers: 2.8

AST/TO: 3.3

3PT%: 53.1

3PA: 4.1

3PM: 2.2

TS%: 66.7

FTA: 5.7

FTM: 4.8

It is not realistic to expect those numbers to be sustainable. But more than anything, it has been promising to see the lack of hesitation from Giddey and the way he has actually forced the defence to start closing out on him more.

That, in turn, has opened up the game not just for Giddey but his teammates too. The same is true for the consistency with which he is getting to the rim.

It is making opposition teams honour him as a scorer, and that only makes Giddey an even more dangerous passer, as teammate Zach Collins pointed out earlier in the season.

“He’s been on a hell of a run lately,” Collins said after a loss to the Clippers in February.

“So we’re all beneficiaries of that. He’s drawing a lot of attention the way he puts pressure on the rim, the way he’s shooting the ball right now.

“So we’ve just got to be ready to convert when he sees us in the pick-and-roll or the weak side. He’s a phenomenal passer and very high basketball IQ, so he’s easy to play (with).”

The passing and basketball IQ has always been there for Giddey, it has just been a matter of putting him in a position to succeed and in the final stages of his career at Oklahoma City, the talent around him forced the 22-year-old into a role that didn’t play into his strengths.

Giddey admitted as much in his first interview after being traded to the Bulls, revealing to reporters that he told Thunder GM Sam Presti that the idea of coming off the bench or running the second unit “wasn’t something that I was overly eager to do”.

“I was playing a lot more off-ball and kind of in a different role to what I’ve ever done in my career,” Giddey said.

“So there was no secret that it was going to take some flexibility on my part to fit in with the team that we had and the structure that we had and the type of players that we had.

“… It was going to be hard to tap into my full potential, in my opinion, with a team like that with so many talented guys who needed the ball in their hands.

“A change of scenery was probably going to unlock that for me.”

And yet, at least during his first month at Chicago, Giddey struggled to unlock that full potential that he showed in the early stages of his time at Oklahoma City.

Part of that comes back to the fact he is still young, which is easy to forget at times given Giddey has been in the league for four seasons now.

But it was also a product of trying to find his place not only in a new team but one that was spoiled for depth at the guard position, meaning Giddey still wasn’t playing with his hands on the ball as much as he may have hoped.

Still, the 22-year-old never complained. In fact, as evidenced by his reaction to that Cavaliers game earlier in the season, Giddey was the first to admit it was on him to make improvements.

But it is no coincidence that Giddey’s production has lifted following the trade deadline, when the Bulls dealt LaVine to the Kings while injuries to Ayo Dosunmu, Patrick Williams and Jalen Smith also meant more on-ball action for the Australian.

When looking at what it means for Giddey and his potential fit at Chicago in the long-term, the biggest question for the Bulls is how much of the offensive gameplan has to be specifically catered to Giddey as a ball-dominant guard.

Because the reality is that while the Bulls have a promising young core to build around in Giddey, White and Matas Buzelis, they are still searching for either a true franchise superstar or more young talent and assets.

In Giddey, the Bulls have someone who just knows how to get guys open looks and you can’t downplay the significance of that. It is something that can’t be taught.

It means Giddey will always have a role in the NBA, but the way he has transformed his offensive game this season to be more decisive with his drives and shots has given the Bulls a glimpse of the full potential he hadn’t quite unlocked in last season’s version of the Thunder.

The development of his 3-point shooting, meanwhile, should give Chicago at least some confidence in Giddey’s ability to be enough of an off-ball threat to co-exist alongside another burgeoning star, be it White or someone else.

And then there is the rebounding. It has always been a strength of Giddey’s game and this season has often been an early indicator of just how switched on he is.

When Giddey is crashing the glass and pushing the pace, whether that means driving to the rim himself or finding teammates in better positions, that early activity usually translates to the other areas of his game.

And his defence? Well, it’s never going to be a strength of Giddey’s game but you only have to look at last week’s win against the Lakers to see proof of how far he has come on that end of the floor.

In last season’s series against the Mavericks, Giddey was being played off the floor.

This time around, Giddey revealed that Donovan actually gave him the assignment of guarding none other than Lakers superstar Luka Doncic.

As Giddey told reporters in Chicago after the L.A. game, he was the guy Doncic “would bring up to try go at” during that playoff series against Dallas.

“So things have changed a little bit since then.”

Giddey said in an earlier on-court interview with NBC Sports Chicago’s K.C. Johnson that he had “never really” had a defensive assignment like it during his four seasons in the NBA.

But it was something he’d “always wanted” — “to guard the best players in the world”.

“He had 40 or something but that’s the best way to learn as a defender and obviously that’s something I want to get better at,” Giddey added.

In Oklahoma City, the opportunity to guard a player of Doncic’s calibre wasn’t there. The same went for the opportunity to operate as the primary ballhandler.

Opportunity. This move to Chicago was all about that word for Giddey and while it may mean watching his former teammates lift the Larry O’Brien trophy from his couch at the end of the season, it was well worth it for changing the trajectory of his career.

And if that isn’t enough, maybe a lucrative new contract will suffice.