Ayo Dosunmu boarded the bus for shootaround in Toronto on Feb. 5 and, less than an hour later, learned the Chicago Bulls had traded him to the Timberwolves. The 26-year-old guard said he could feel something was wrong before the call came, and that the move ended his run in Chicago during a contract year.
Dosunmu said he had spoken with members of the Bulls coaching staff and sensed the energy was off. “I just felt the feeling, like how their words were coming off, how they were interacting, it felt like something was going down,” he said. “Energy felt completely off.” He said he had known for weeks that the Bulls might deal him, but had no sign a Minnesota move was close until it happened.
What made the day harder, he said, was that he was born and raised in Chicago. He had become a starter in his second season with the Bulls in 2022-23, then lost that role after veteran Patrick Beverley joined the team and Billy Donovan moved Beverley into the lineup. Dosunmu said he started journaling after that demotion, using a composition notebook and pen to write down his thoughts by hand. He dates each entry and adds the time on the page.
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“I just started journaling,” he said. “How did I feel in that exact moment? Raw emotions. What can I do to not let this happen again? I just started writing my notes down every day.” He said he does not journal to produce polished prose. “I don’t journal to write a book. I journal for me to understand it,” he said. “I can write like five words. Like... furious, very angry, excited. Or it could be two sentences, writing all over [the page]. It just helps me go.”
That habit has filled countless journals over the past four years, a stretch that also included a Denver trip with several teammates at Donovan’s recommendation to hear a mental health specialist speak. Dosunmu said that experience changed how he thought about mental health, and after the trade he wrote again at his Toronto hotel, trying to work through the shock in real time. “I wanted to make sure I embraced all my feelings. I didn’t want to bottle up anything,” he said. “As the hours went on, I was able to understand it and be like: This is a great opportunity for me. Excited to be here with the Timberwolves.”
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The trade turned a Chicago homecoming into a sudden departure, but Dosunmu’s reaction suggests the larger story is not just where he landed. It is how quickly a player who had already spent years preparing for uncertainty had to put those notes to work.
