Deng's contract will be expiring after next season and he is scheduled to make over $14 million. It should be fairly easy to send away Lu and his expiring contract for something. Jimmy Butler will make just less than $1.2 million. The way I see it is it makes zero sense to continue to pay Lu that type of money when we have a capable replacement in Jimmy Butler, who also makes about 14 times less per year. Also, I just can't envision a scenario where we give Lu another long-term contract anyway, so why not deal him in the offseason and get something in return? At the very least, dumping him gives us some more money. He is only going to get worse from this point forward and he has always had injury issues (only playing full seasons twice in nine seasons, which is definitely something that needs to be taken into consideration). Of course, the main goal would be to package a deal around Lu that can net us either a scoring SG or SF. Or the money could be used to get some quality depth that we're sorely lacking.

I believe that Deng's value on this team is far overstated, especially compared to his salary. For all his praise as the "glue guy", we didn't do bad (4-2) when he was out and Jimmy started. We went to Boston and won (granted, Jimmy didn't start this game but he played a huge role in the 4th Q and OT), almost pulled out a win against Memphis, beat LAL, GSW, and ATL. I think, with time, Jimmy can be better than Lu, but we won't know until he's given a shot.

Deng gets hailed for his stellar defense, but he often has trouble guarding SGs and quicker/stronger SFs. He mainly relies on his length to defend. Jimmy was guarding Ty Lawson and Stephen Curry during moments of the games this past week. He's a much better athlete, which is something this Bulls team is lacking, especially at SG and SF. Our situation at the 2 and 3 is unfortunate because many teams have incredibly athletic swingmen. Deng is clearly not one of those.

In conclusion, fuck Rondo.