The Pau Gasol extension strikes fear into the league

Should be using this opportunity to get a star player from one of these struggling teams instead of this fake 2010 pipe dream. This just pisses me off how they are not showing any clear plan. Either go for the really big cap space by dumping some salary like Kirk, Salmons or Deng, or fleece one of these cash strapped teams for their good players but for goodness sakes, don’t just sit there and do nothing.

send them Hinrich! Dear God, I’ve been wanting the Bulls to trade Hinrich to the Lakers all season, ever since it became apparent Fisher and Farmar were a sub par point guard combo.

Bulls trade Hinrich to Lakers for Farmar, Mbenga and Vujacic or Morrison. (I’d prefer Morrison because he expires, but just to have the $4 million extra in savings is worth it.)

The Bulls should than follow up that trade by sending Salmons to the Spurs for Finley/Mason Jr. The Bulls would than have enough cash to get a max free agent and possibly retain Tyrus.

Rose/Farmar
Mason Jr. / Vujacic
Deng/JJ
Tyrus/Taj
Noah/Mbenga/Miller

The Bulls would lose a bit on the court but the extra flexibility and the chance to retain Tyrus make it worth it. If the Lakers are willing to spend, the Bulls should take advantage and try to send them something they need.

“It costs twice as much to sign this guy.” Sure, they signed Pau Gasol once they were over the tax, but if they didn’t have Adam Morrison, Sasha Vujacic, Luke Walton or Jordan Farmar on the team, they might have been able to pay a whole LOT less. Why not say they’re paying THOSE guys $10 million to sit on the bench?

It was the same thing with Gordon: "We can’t pay him because it would cost $20 million. Well, true, but it’s not paying HIM that much. If they would have traded Hinrich, they could have kept Gordon. If they wouldn’t have signed Wallace or Nocioni, they could have had Gordon. Re-sign Gordon and then tell yourself that you’re keeping Hinrich around for $18 million a year to be a backup. Changes the dynamic a bit.

Instead, why not we just figure the luxury tax payments and divide that by all the players? Seems like that would make sense to me. And it’s not like it’s that hard to get a general idea.

Teams are looking to cut costs and are already making small moves. The Jazz dumped Eric Maynor, their 1st round pick who played well when Deron Williams went down, on OKC for the rights to some foreign guy overseas in order to save money. The Hornets tried to dump Devin Brown on the T-wolves but instead the Suns gave the Wolves their former 1st round pick Alando Tucker for Jason Hart, then waived Hart. Yet another cost cutting move. I just question whether GarPax will even by players in any of this stuff. As the trade deadline approaches, things will start to heat up. Salmons and TT for Boozer would work and it saves the Jazz $1 mil in salary from the payroll and gets them a little closer to being under the tax line. The Jazz are barely an 8th seed right now so they may be more open to anything that will save some money.

I think most of my feelings were pretty well fleshed out in the trade discussion we had here a few weeks ago before the Lakers came to Chicago. In any case, I would love Hinrich; he’s a huge upgrade on any of the Lakers’ existing point guards, mainly because he can actually shoot threes and plays far better defense. I’m going to assume his numbers for this month are more indicative of his actual play, and he actually be playing in a defensive scheme in L.A., unlike the “stick Kirk on an island against the other team’s best perimeter threat” that seems to be employed here.

As far as our current point guards, Fisher’s shooting has appeared to have deserted him save in clutch situations, and his defense against nearly all of the league’s point guards is awful. He routinely gets eviscerated by faster point guards, he doesn’t move through screens well, and about the only thing he does well is sell charges. Farmar has been a fairly poor fit for the triangle from the outset, and while he’s a significant improvement on Fisher defensively, he still makes mind-numbing decisions on both ends. As for Brown, he really isn’t a point guard for starters, and has trouble keeping up with the same kind of faster point guards that give Fisher trouble, although he’s been halfway-serviceable against two guards. He and Farmar seem to alternate having good offensive games, and the lack of consistency, along with Walton (and recently, Artest) being gone has killed the Lakers’ bench play. Having Hinrich come off the bench (or sending Fisher to the bench) would significantly improve it.