Caron Butler, Hayward and Stevenson from Washington to Dallas for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden and filler. It is not going to be easy to move Hinrich

But they probably aren’t blowing up to start over.

They are probably blowing up to get more money out of their franchise from that other owner. They are in the midst of negotiations now, I think they have two sides evaluate the franchise worth, then if they can’t settle on a price they move to arbitration.

The Bulls probably could’ve received the same players from Washington for Miller and Tyrus. Tempting, to be honest, especially if you then move Deng. Butler is a solid 3, would expire next year (so we could sign another 3 if we didn’t like him) and we wouldn’t end up losing cap room by letting go of Haywood after trading Deng. We would probably improve as a team too, with Haywood shoring up our front line. Butler/Deng is probably a wash, give or take.

It sounds like our biggest worry should be if the org actually moves Hinrich for expirings, not if they have the chance to. You know, the usual concerns.

The trade works out well for Dallas, no doubt, but these are the same two players that stunk so bad when they were paired with Jamison and Arenas this year (and a good shooter in Miller). Butler also makes a decent chunk of change next year, which won’t matter to Dallas but would potentially turn some other teams off.

The big positions of need for the teams willing to spend money will be the deciding factor for Hinrich, at least in my opinion.

Orlando and Cleveland could use some guard depth, LAL certainly could as well. Utah could benefit from somebody like Hinrich (that one is more out there), while teams such as Dallas, Boston and Portland are probably looking for big men.

None of those teams really need a small forward though. Odom, Pierce, Howard, Lebron, etc. so it makes sense why Butler might be had for slightly less than you would have guessed and Hinrich may still go without too big of a problem.

At least the supply and demand seems to favor Hinrich, whether that’s enough to overcome his inflated contract, we’ll find out in the next 5 days.

I don’t think he’s done, by any means. I believe he has also played much better since Arenas has been suspended (stats would back this up, but I’ve read about it enough to believe it without checking into it too deep). Not being able to play well with a shoot first point guard coming off of knee surgery on a “me me me” team with a new coach isn’t exactly stunning. I don’t think Butler has been any less consistent than Deng in the last three years and he comes off the books years earlier than Deng, who has a rising contract in a contracting economic climate. Deng may be better than Butler this year, but next year it’s closer and by year 3 it’s much more likely that you’ll want Luol’s ~13m value to sign what’s available then rather than pay it to Luol. I’m talking about likely though, as Deng could very well become a first team all star, but he could also get hurt again or never improve.