Andres Nocioni for John Salmons, Tyrus Thomas and 2010 first round draft pick

Every year, it seems, there’s at least some talk of T-Mac to the Bulls. My first thought is that it might actually make sense this year.

To get any trade, you have to have the conditions be right. I see the conditions for T-Mac to the Bulls as something like:

1. T-Mac is healthy approaching the deadline. Don’t think anyone would make this trade now, but suppose T-Mac gets on the court in December-January and show’s he’s not utterly useless.

2. The Rockets are respectable over the course of the season and want to push for playoff revenues while picking up a longer term piece. They’re loaded on the wings, but they needs a PG. A package centered around Brad Miller and Kirk Hinrich could help them. Kirk would fit as the longer-term PG, Miller as the replacement for Yao to get them through the year.

3. The Bulls are also pushing for a playoff berth but also need to gain 2010 flexibility. The problem for the Bulls this year is they’re gonna have a pretty hard time scoring points. TMac is a legitimate bailout option if he’s able to play. For next year, TMac is doubly beneficial. First, he clears Kirk’s $9.5M salary off the books. Second, if there’s some level of success this season with TMac, it might be possible to re-sign him for quite a bit less and still bring in another significant player. A playoff run boosted by the potential return of TMac, next year, might give this team a credibility boost to our hopes of getting a major free agent.

So my basic trade would be Hinrich+Miller for TMac

That leaves us with
1- Rose, Pargo, Hunter
2- McGrady, Salmons
3- Deng, Johnson
4- Thomas, Gibson
5- Noah, Gray

The Rockets roll out
1- Hinrich, Lowry
2- Ariza, Brooks
3- Battier, Buddinger
4- Scola, Landry, Hayes
5- Miller, Andersen (and Yao next year)

I’m pretty skeptical of Deng’s ability to get things together in the long run (I don’t think that’s a secret for those of you who know my posts here). If he looks OK by not great, we might look around at teams that have an obvious hole at SF and see what we can do.

Being injury-riddled, Deng seems sort of a natural fit for the Clip show, since they’re still acting like Al Thornton is any good. I can’t put my finger on it, but Deng seems similar to the mold of Kamen and Brand, other relatively young, solid citizen players the Clips have given money to (and taken the injury hit on).

Camby would be a salary clearing exchange for us, and yet, he might be somewhat helpful in a playoff run. We’d end up moving Salmons back to the 3, which we did ok with in the past, I suppose. And either Hinrich gets more minutes at the 2, or if we did the TMac for Kirk/Miller deal, we’ve got that position covered too.

And we free up $10M in salary space to give to someone else next year.

Optimistically, going into 2010, we’d be looking at:

1-Rose
2- Salmons
3-Johnson
4-Gibson
5- Noah
+ 2010 pick
+ $32M in cap space

FAs: TMac, Tyrus, Camby

With that sort of money, we could potentially lure a max player for $16.5M or so, still resign Tyrus if he breaks out and/or TMac if we wanted him back. Or we could bring in a solid from outside. In short, we’d have a whole lot of options.

The Bulls trade Noah and Hirnich to the Lakers -

The Lakers trade Bynum, Farmar, Powell, Mbenga and 1st round pick to the Bulls.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine

The Lakers make this trade because they have all the scoring they need with Kobe, Gasol, Odom and Artest and need some defense to supplement their line-up. The Lakers also have a hole at point guard – Fisher is getting younger and Farmar was awful to end last season. Noah and Hinrich are young enough and unselfish enough to fit seemelessly on the Lakers – and despite the PER projections, I think this would make the Lakers better. Remember, they won the championship last year and got to the finals they year before without Bynum.

The Bulls make this trade to take a chance on Bynum (a guy who if he pans out could legitimately battle Howard in the post), to get a better fit for Tyrus, and to position themselves for 2010.

Bynum is a legit star in this league if he can stay healthy. He is young, dominant on both ends and the most physically gifted young center not named Howard. The PER projections love him and for good reason – he is a big time low post scorer and rebounder.

I think Tyrus would play much better with a real physical center down low. Tyrus game is based off speed and movement. It is easier to play off the ball with a low post threat than it is with a high post center. The Bulls haven’t played well with Tyrus and Noah both on the floor. I don’t see Lakers taking back Tyrus, so I think Noah would have to go. Plus I think Tyrus has more raw talent. If there is situation where you can maximize his contributions, shouldn’t you take it?

This trade is basically salary neutral for 2010. The Bulls could let Farmar, Mbenga and Powell walk. Bynum makes about the same salary as Noah and Hinrich combined, and he is signed for 3 more years, just like Hinrich.

Our lineup would be post trade

Rose/Farmar or Pargo
Salmons/Pargo
Deng/JJ
Tyrus/Taj/Miller
Bynum/Miller

I think our starting 5 would play better, but obviously we lose punch off the bench without Hinrich. But with a true low post threat, I think we would start to see better performance out of Deng and Tyrus. Both guys can feed the post, cut, work along the base line and hit a J (occasionally). Right now, neither fit well with Noah.

And finally, I think this trade sets us up better than 2010. In 2010 you have Rose, Deng, Bynum, Taj, JJ under contract (approx 28.8 million), Salmons with a player option at 5.8 million, and TT at the qualifying offer at $6.2 million

With the league projecting a $53.6 million dollar salary cap and $65 million luxury tax, the Bulls would have a lot of options.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4312837

I think Rose/Bynum is more attractive to free agents than Rose/Noah as most NBA players would prefer to play with the big, banger center. You can add Wade or Bosh to this lineup and be in good shape. If you found out a way to get rid of Deng you could probably keep Tyrus and Salmons as well. In my ideal scenario, the Bulls would sign Tyrus for the qualifying offer and let Salmons go. They than would offer Wade a max contract (we already know he plays pretty well with a good center). The Bulls 2010 lineup would than be

Rose
Wade
Deng/JJ
Tyrus/Taj
Bynum

Of course, this also has the chance to be the most injury riddled lineup in history. Man, we got get rid of Deng.