After the Bulls traded Derrick Rose, general manager Gar Forman said one of the organization’s key goals moving forward was getting “younger and more athletic.”

They accomplished that, in theory, by assembling a roster with nine players with three or fewer years of NBA experience. But while the Bulls have a slew of young players, most of whom barely play, vice president of basketball operations John Paxson admitted the obvious: The athleticism is lacking.

Paxson made his first public comments since the team’s late September media day in a Christmas morning radio interview with David Schuster on 670 AM The Score.

“The area we really do need to improve is with our athleticism,” Paxson said, according to a transcription by Cody Westerlund on the Score website. “That’s been evident this year as well. We’ve got some vets that know how to play, can score, but you know when you look around the league and how the game is now, that’s an area we have to address. That is a part of our plan, and we’ll try to do that obviously through the draft and try to do it through free agency if we can. You always have the trade option, but right now, our roster is what it is.”

Bulls guard Denzel Valentine drives on Milwaukee Bucks guard Tony Snell, as Jimmy Butler watches, in a recent game, a showcase of the Bulls’ wildly different draft picks since 2011. (Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports)

The draft and free agency are a long time away, and the Bulls have historically been conservative when it comes to in-season trades, keeping to salary dumps like the January 2014 Luol Deng trade or around-the-margins moves like last season’s Kirk Hinrich-for-Justin Holiday trade, if they do anything at all.

But there’s another reason a major trade during the season is unlikely: The Bulls simply don’t have much in the way of assets. Unless they decide to blow the entire roster up and move Jimmy Butler, which at this point is extremely unlikely, there isn’t a lot on the roster that would be attractive to other teams, at least not to bring back a rotation player that would move the needle for the Bulls.

Paxson admitted this in a roundabout way on Christmas morning, saying the team needs significant improvement from the younger players. Thus far, the likes of Bobby Portis, Jerian Grant and Denzel Valentine, all former first-round picks, haven’t shown much.

“We’ve really gotten inconsistent play from the guys coming off our bench,” Paxson said. “Losing Doug [McDermott] for that period of time with a concussion really did hurt us, messed with our rotation a little bit, some of the things we can do. But we’ve just been inconsistent in that area.”

Besides the athleticism and inconsistent bench play, the Bulls’ other glaring weakness is their outside shooting. Going into Christmas Day, the Bulls ranked dead last in the NBA in 3-point attempts (19.6 per game), makes (six per game) and shooting percentage (30.8 percent). Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade, their two biggest offseason signings, have never been knockdown shooters. Rondo, who is rarely guarded outside of the paint, is shooting 34.8 percent and Wade is shooting 32.5 on 3-pointers this year.

“It’s hurt us, there’s no question about it,” Paxson said. “We’re last in the league in 3-point shooting. We acknowledged that going in, that that would be an issue with us. We did think and still think that Niko [Mirotic], Doug, they have the capability of being 40-percent 3-point shooters. That’s where they need to be. Right now, Niko’s at 30 and Doug’s at 33. Some of that is shot selection, some of that is finding your rhythm and your groove. But it’s obviously frustrating. At the beginning of the year, we knew that was going to be a weakness of ours. It’s something we have to address. We did think we were going to shoot the ball a little bit better than we’re shooting it right now.”

Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic has had struggled shooting 3-pointers this season, though it helps when D’Angelo Russell fouls you before you shoot. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports)

But Mirotic, in particular, has been a disappointment this season. After shooting 39 percent from 3-point range last season, he’s down to 29.7 percent this year. He was benched for two games last week, missing a pregame walkthrough as well.

“Asking how to get it out of him, a lot of this is in the individual,” Paxson said. “I think sometimes players get, Niko has a tendency to get down on himself, to be honest with you. I think sometimes as a player you just have to kind of say to yourself, ‘Enough is enough, I’m going to go out and I’m going to compete. I’m going to work on my game.’ A lot of this is the individual. Niko is a great guy. He has an ability to get better. He’s shooting 30 [percent] from the 3. His mechanics as a jump shooter are too good to be shooting that percentage. I’m sure he knows that in his mind. But a lot of this game is confidence and opportunity. Fred sat him for a couple games, and he came back and had a big game for us against Detroit. He needs to keep building on that.”

Not all of Paxson’s forecast for the Bulls was gloomy. He was effusive in his praise for Wade, particularly singling out his professionalism. But even though Wade is one of the most highly respected stars in the league, Paxson cautioned fans against getting their hopes up that his presence will help them recruit big-name free agents next season. (For one thing, Wade has a player option after the season, meaning he can leave if the Bulls’ situation isn’t palatable.)

“You can’t count on that,” Paxson said. “I guess in your dreams you hope something like that might happen, but if you’re counting on that, to me, that’s not a plan. You’re just kind of hoping and wishing. That wasn’t a consideration. We looked at it as Dwyane was available in the short term, we hadn’t done anything to get up high in last year’s draft or anything to try to get really young and rebuild and we made that choice … that’s what we were looking at this past summer. So he’s been great. I think he’s been a real positive for this organization.”

The Bulls’ recent draft history have been very spotty since selecting Jimmy Butler with the last pick in the first round in 2011. Since then, their first-round picks are Marquis Teague, Tony Snell, McDermott (the Bulls traded their two first-round picks in 2014 for him), Portis and Valentine. While Teague and Snell, who aren’t on the team anymore, were 20-something picks, McDermott was the 11th pick and Valentine 14th. Paxson blamed the team’s draft slots for these shaky picks.

“We tried to plug holes,” he said. “In the meantime, you’re drafting in the middle of the pack all the time. You’re good enough to make the playoffs a little bit, but you’re picking between 14, 15 and 22. It’s difficult to get impact players, unless you’re lucky like we were with Jimmy [Butler] years ago.”

It’s not often that Paxson addresses the fans, and this time around, he was pretty honest in his assessment of the Bulls’ weaknesses. They’re not athletic, and they’re the worst 3-point shooting team in the league. That much is obvious to anybody. What isn’t obvious is how they’ll fix those problems, and Paxson is as much in search of answers as anybody.