If we step out of the reality distortion field that is the Bulls unreasoning love for Kurt: Really, trading him by the deadline should be the biggest no brainer of the year.

1. Rose will either be back or nearly be back. So there will basically be like 10-12 minutes per game at PG. Nate is fine for those minutes and Teague is demonstrating he’s coming along as well. If Rose is not nearly back, then it won’t matter one bit anyway.

2. As SG, Kirk is the 3rd best on the team. Maybe 4th. I’d rather play Rip or Marco or in most situations, Butler. Especially next to Rose.

3. He’s on the books for $4M next year that the Bulls would be better off using elsewhere.

4. Despite his general suckitude, there’s a variety of teams out there that he’d upgrade, and possibly even allow us to get something useful back or get under the LT threshold.

Kirk has some value for two reasons

1. He’s a somewhat competent PG. Look at what other teams are trotting out there and tell me he wouldn’t be a noticeable improvement.

2. He is a good defender and smart player. The problem is the marginal value of those qualities on the Bulls is low because the Bulls are already a great defensive team with smart players. The Bulls already have a lot of what Kirk does bring, so the marginal improvement he brings is pretty small even when he’s bringing it. On the other hand, he brings very little of in the way of what they’re really lacking in. Aggressive, competent scoring and PG play that really effectively sets up scorers who otherwise can’t create their own shot. but… on a team with lots of scorers but lacking in glue and cohesion, his strengths would help more and his weaknesses would hurt less.

Teams that should be interested in Kirk:

1. The Lakers. Even if Nash comes back, he’s freaking ancient. Duhon is playing (drinking?) himself out of the league. Blake is out for a long time. He wouldn’t be needed to score much with Kobe and Dwight.

2. The Mavs. Have already benched Collison, everything about that situation is awkward. They seem to want to hold the fort for a year or two, and he could do that.

3. The Wizards, just because they want to be less than absolutely terrible.

4. The Pistons, because they have the worst PG play in the league.

5. The Pacers, because my guess is they think George Hill is really more of a SG and DJ Augustin has been absolutely horrible.

6. The Bucks, because Brandon Jennings is leaving and Skiles is a whacko.

7. The Rockets because Jeremy Lin has been iffy and he’d be generally good glue between either him or Harden. I noticed Lin is starting to come around though.

8. The Kings for "glue" reasons. He’s not that expensive if he’s playing, and he might be somewhat more helpful to them than Aaron Brooks, who might be somewhat more helpful to us than he is to them.