[ed. note - I was thinking of writing something similar this week, so I both damn and praise Sports2 for this work. Of course, it's not "Noc's fault", but Paxson's for overpaying for intangibles.

Beyond the inherent problem with a tax-conscious team paying for a bench guy, there's the on-court issue that with Nocioni, any coach will be tempted to play small. -Matt]

I'm sure this will go over well here, but when I was thinking about the Bulls today, it occurred to me that our major problems seemed to start with resigning Nocioni and our solutions probably start with getting rid of him.

If they'd simply let Noc go to Memphis, or better yet, managed to get a future pick, they would have:

1. Made finances less of an issue when it comes to re-signing Ben and Lou, and thus, even if they hadn't signed extensions, there wouldn't be quite the same context there is now (arguing about a rapidly diminishing fund pool when Noc is sitting there with more than he deserves).

   Our current players aren't morons. I think they saw the bad decisions of the past couple years themselves, saw the implications for themselves, and became distracted. At this point, you've got a situation that's feeding on itself. Everyone looks around and wonders if they're going to be here or even what their role is. That's understandable, but at the same time it has to be distracting, even for players that are pros who work hard.

   And resigning Nocioni was a big part of that.  We paid him way too much and that's figured into everyone else's expectations of what they're worth(if "Noc is worth that much, I must be worth even more") and what's available to go around (everyone knows there's less).

2. Moving him would have forced us to sink or swim with Thabo and Tyrus. The prevailing sentiment, I think, is that they would have gotten their feet under them quite a bit earlier, and we might have pulled out of our early season funk.  Obviously no sure thing, but still...
3. It would have left enough luxury tax maneuvering room to consider something like the Gasol trade. In short, more flexibility.

Likewise, I think our solutions for the future begin with getting Nocioni off the books....

Consider our overpaid guys.  Nocioni, Hinrich and Hughes all, to some extent, are pretty obviously overpaid.  While I "like" him better than Hughes out of these guys, Nocioni is clearly the most expendable.  If he goes then you've cleared up the problem of Thabo and Tyrus' playing time to a large degree.  We'd be left with

1- Hinrich, Gordon
2- Hughes, Gordon, Thabo
3- Deng, Thabo
4- Gooden, Tyrus
5- Noah Gooden

Which is a somewhat workable looking rotation.  What's more important is that Noc and Kirk's contracts are a lot longer than Hughes'.  We're in a position to simply wait Hughes out.  Even if we re-sign Gordon and Deng, we'll be under the cap by a pretty significant amount in 2010 if we can move Kirk or Noc. Thus, why expend an asset (like a draft pick) to move Hughes off the books?  If we're going to use a draft pick to move someone, it ought to be Nocioni or Hinrich.

Now, would it be better to move Nocioni or Hinrich?  Well, look again at the rotation.  While Kirk has been downright awful this year, the truth of the matter is he's still the best PG material we've got.  In fact, he's the only PG material we've got.  Move him and we're looking at Gordon, Thabo, Hughes, and a rookie?  That's not good.  Plus you've still got the frontcourt logjam issue.

So bottom line is Nocioni should be the top priority to be traded.  He's a higher priority than Hughes because his contract is longer and thus screws up the potential for cap space, and he's a higher priority than Hinrich because he's simply much more replaceable.