The Bulls are currently headed nowhere. We don't have the role players or starters needed to compete in this league. While Taj Gibson and Joakim Noah are young and improving, Derrick Rose could turn into a star, and Luol Deng is above-average and adding a three point shot to his arsenal, the rest of the team - to be blunt - could use an overhaul.

Derrick Rose is not assertive. I'm sorry, but it's true. He'll never be a superstar in this league because of his reluctance to take a game over. When Rose is in Alpha Dog mode it is a thing of beauty - however, it is so rare that it is nearly nonexistent. Luol Deng is passive and stops trying at the end of fourth quarters, either passing up jump shots or badly missing. Joakim Noah does not have an offensive game to speak of. Rose's defense also needs a lot of work - he lets people score on him almost as will.

Our substitutes are horrible. Brad Miller has lost three steps. Aaron Gray is Aaron Gray. Jannero Pargo is Jannero Pargo [is a shorter and lower % shooting Larry Hughes]. The Bulls do not have enough cap space to sign a max player, despite the fact that their professed plan is one where they hope to sign one in 2010.

How do we fix this?

A trade with the Nets would help both teams out and provide Chicago with that shot in the arm that it needs to get moving.

They have everything we need. And while we would be giving up a lot, we would not be giving up as much as we would take back.

CDR is the M2GWCDAS! Joakim Noah is kind of a center, but not really. He's much more of a PF, and he has no post game. Lopez is much more of a true center and he has a low-post game for us to base our team around. While Rose is developing nicely, if we were able to get Devin Harris back for him, our team would be fine - note, also, that we have a perfectly average starter rotting on the bench in Kirk Hinrich, who could get sub time for both positions.

With this trade, we could jettison Salmons over to the Nets, making sure that we get enough 2010 money to sign a max player! And meanwhile, we can trade Tyrus Thomas for Yi Jianlian - what does TT do for us? Nothing! And Taj isn't ready to start! Yi is steadily improving and, at the very least, will attract crowds.

So I'm proposing this:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yjlnxyy

If the link doesn't work:

We trade:

Noah, Rose, Salmons, Tyrus

They trade:

Harris, Lopez, CDR, Jianlian, and Trenton Hassell.

As you can see, making this trade will improve the wins of our team by 2, according to PER. Meanwhile, all the players we're dumping on the Nets will bring their win total down by 7. We lose Noah and Rose, which is a problem, but with the players we get back we get better as a team. We also become players in 2010.

Look at the financial impact of this trade: we should be able to resign CDR to a small contract [or let him go], and either way his cap hold is small. Meanwhile, we rid ourselves of Salmons' albatross of a contract, guaranteeing ourselves the cap space to sign a maximum player - like Joe Johnson. Johnson can shoot the three, rebound, pass, defend, everything. He's a bonafide star in this league: the only reason he's not known more is because he's playing in Atlanta.

Taj Gibson is our PF of the future. Tyrus Thomas is only in the way. This trade opens up even more playing time for Taj, and brings over a backup to spell him for 10~15 minutes a night, Tony Battie. If Taj were to somehow not work out, as well, we could always use our large amount of cap space to sign Chris Bosh or Carlos Boozer, who would solve our low-post scoring woes and defensive woes. Vinny Del Negro knows: Tyrus Thomas is overrated. We can get a 'promising player' in Yi Jianlian, one who is so motivated to play that he may have lied about his age when he was drafted. He scores better over a chair than Tyrus Thomas ever could. You know who else could score at will over a chair? Michael Jordan. I'm not saying that he's that caliber, but he could get there, with a lot of hard work.

Chris Douglas-Roberts immediately becomes our SG of the future. He's tall and while not as fast as you would like, he's pesky, and he knows where to be on defense. He has an innate ability to find the holes in a defense and rip it apart, and he can create some in isolation with an array of 10-15 foot jumpers. 

There's only one reason I could see the Bulls not making this trade - if the Nets rejected it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal]