There've been a number of trades thrown out with the Bulls involved and with them not involved and a good many of them made sense.  What I've tried to do is identify my favorite outcome for the Bulls (dumping Larry, keeping 2010 money coming off the table, and oh yeah, landing Brad Miller for 2 years) and make it work for the other teams involved.

So here's the first trade that I've come up with for Pax to make happen. It's a four-teamer and it's a doozy.

Sacramento trades:

Brad Miller

Sacramento Receives:

Gerald Wallace

Bulls Trade:

Larry Hughes

Bulls Receive:

Brad Miller and Jason Hart (or other contract filler for LAC to make the deal work under the cap)

Bobcats Trade:

Gerald Wallace

Bobcats Receive:

Chris Kaman

Clippers Trade:

Chris Kaman

Clippers Receive:

Larry Hughes (2010 cap space)

Why do the Bulls do it?  Duh, they get a real center and keep the $11-12 million coming off the books in 2010.  Why do the Kings do it?  From what I can tell their weakest position is SF (John Salmons).  This gives them instant credibility on the wings and secures that position for a while.   Why do the Bobcats do it? They've wanted Kaman for a while (or any competent post-player really), but haven't had the pieces to get it done.  The Clips need a two-guard and they don't have one they're willing to part with.  Which brings me to why the Clippers do it?  Well, this one is a bit of a leap and it is where the whole trade could break down, but Larry is playing well and sinking ridiculous numbers of threes.  He's a natural two-guard and he expires in 2010.  Kaman is redundant for them and they have been looking to unload him and his 4 years remaining contract.  LA is a great market, so you've got to think if they can get some 2010 expirings they could be players in that free-agent market, or at least you could sell it to their management that way.

That would be the first move I'd try to make.  The next thing I'd try to do if I were Pax is dump Hinrich to the Timberwolves for expiring contracts (either this year or 2010).  Something like Hinrich for Jason Collins and Rashad McCants (who they've soured on) or Hinrich for Brian Cardinal (2010 expiring in the same amount as Jason Collins).  The T'Wolves are going to be way under the cap for 2010 even if they make this deal and it shores up a real weakness of theirs.  They need a defensive minded PG who can hit a jump-shot to pair with Randy "turns out I'm not really a PG at all, despite my size" Foye.  This deal fills one of their big holes and doesn't completely kill them long term in the cap situation.  Then the only bad remaining contract for the Bulls to dump would be Nocioni and his 8 million a year for 5 (!) more years.  I haven't yet figured out where we could dump him off to, but I'm working on it.

At the end of the two proposed deals I've set out we'd have this rotation:

PG: Rose / Hunter / BG

SG: BG / Thabo / McCants / Hart

SF: Deng / Noc / Thabo

PF: Gooden / Tyrus / Noc (hopefully in slim to none minutes)

C: Brad Miller / Noah / Gray

Rose, Gordon, Deng, Gooden, and Brad Miller is a very solid starting five and that bench wouldn't be terrible.  Most importantly the deals would free-up cap space which is crucial for this Bulls team as has been repeated ad nauseam here by me and many, many others.

I've borrowed heavily from the ideas of others here and thrown my own twists on things as well, if you hate it let me know why?  If you think it implausible or impossible let me know as well.  I have a dream for this team and these two deals are the start for that dream.  Now, if only Pax read BaB.

Judging by ESPN's Daily Dime's quote (below) the Clips want an All-Star at the 2 for Kaman.  They have interest in Vince Carter:

The Clips have also maintained longstanding interest in New Jersey's Vince Carter, but even if they wound up talking to the Nets, trying to convince them to take back Kaman's long contract would appear to run counter to the Nets' own hopes of being a free-agent player in the summer of 2010. Especially since Kaman's contract contains a 15 percent trade kicker, which, as of Friday, would have resulted in an extra $6.3 million in salary.

So how do we make this work for the Bulls?  Well, presuming that the Nets are still trying to go for the 2010 plan (a perhaps dubious presumption with the Knicks seemingly taking the lead in the great race for LeBron this week), here's my plan to land Kaman all while dumping Larry.

Bulls Get:

Chris Kaman and Jason Hart

Nets Get:

Larry Hughes, Thabo Sefolosha, and the Bulls 1st round pick

Clippers Get:

Vince Carter

Why do the Bulls do it?  Well, they get rid of Larry Hughes, get a contract that expires this year (Hart) which frees up extra money to re-sign Gordon, and they get Chris Kaman.  They also give up their first round pick, but this is a weak draft and the Bulls don't need to get any younger.

Why do the Nets do it? They get Hughes and Sefolosha to plug in the hole that Vince leaves for two years when their contracts expire and gives them about $15 million in expiring contracts in 2010.  They also get a first round pick for Vince, which they have to view as a success at this point.  They aren't winning much with Vince and it's better to cut their losses and get 2010 expiring contracts and a first round pick.

Why do the Clips do it?  Their pieces as they are right now don't fit.  They have three capable (using the term loosely with regard to Z-Bo) big men that all are getting paid a lot and will command a lot of minutes.  They need a wing player who can score badly if they want to compete this year, which it seems they do.  They are an older team at their key positions (PG and C) and so getting the older Vince Carter isn't as big of a problem; they are trying to compete now.  Also, Vince is the guy they want according to ESPN and this gets it done. (Side note: Vince was an adjusted plus-minus wonder at +4 last year and has always been consistently positive for his teams, despite the bad rep he gets for not trying hard enough).

So what do you all think?  Critiques, criticisms, and proposed adjustments are all welcome, but I think that this is a pretty good deal for all involved (the only one I can think of who wouldn't pull the trigger is the Nets, if they haven't given up on this year or aren't really going for the 2010 guys).

The general consensus around here seems to be that Thabo has been worse this year than he has been in previous years and that even though Larry Hughes is awful, the difference between he and Thabo is simply that Thabo takes less shots and is paid less (two big bonuses in and of themselves).  From the way Thabo's play has been characterized you'd think the stats would clearly show him a worse player this year.  Only, they don't.

Thabo last year posted a 11.4 PER in 1436 minutes with 42.8% FG shooting and 33% shooting on threes. This year in 151 minutes he's posted a 16.0 PER.  All of his scoring efficiency metrics are up, despite the fact that he's 1 for 11 from three point land this year, an abysmal 9% from deep.  However, he's shooting 46.3% from the field despite that and his eFG% and TS% are both up, at 47.6% and 52.9% respectively.  He's been able to do this primarily on the strength of improved foul shooting.  He's at 90% (9 for 10).  I'd expect regression to the mean on this, but he improved his foul shooting from his rookie year to his second year, so he might not completely regress on his foul shooting from where he is right now.  I'd expect his 3 point shooting to return to his usual 33-35% range as well, so those things will probably mitigate one another or even serve to further increase his eFG% and TS% depending on the number of threes he's taking and times he gets to the line.  Where else has Thabo seemingly improved? His TOV% is way down from 16.6 last year to 11.7 this year.  His block % is up from 1.6 to 2.4, and his steal % has nearly doubled from 2.2% to 4.3%.  He's also passing the ball better, with an increased AST % (from 14.3% up to 15.4%) to go along with his much decreased TOV %.  These improved offensive figures all might have something to do with another number that's dropped, his Usage %.  He went from a USG% of 17.2% his rookie year and 17.3% last year to just 14.6% this year.  He hasn't improved everywhere though, his Reb% are down across the board.  Last year, Thabo's adjusted plus-minus numbers were -0.7 for the year, indicating that Bulls were about the same with him as without him, marginally worse all things considered.  However, looking at the numbers above, with the GIGANTIC caveat that these are based on a horribly small sample size, it looks as though Thabo has improved both offensively and defensively and therefore is more likely to be a net positive when on the floor this year.

A couple of takeaways from this: Thabo is best when he doesn't have the ball in his hands and can focus on his defense.  He's done that in his 14 minutes a game thus far this year and despite some terrible 3 point shooting he's overall had a more positive impact than last year and his rookie year.  Also, if this trend continues, it makes any qualms about sending Hinrich out and running with a three guard rotation of Rose, Ben, and Thabo seem less important, especially given that Rose and Ben are both high usage guys that can and should dominate the ball when paired with Thabo.  Lastly, in order for him to be effective with Rose particularly, Thabo has got to improve his shooting from deep relative to what we have seen thus far, but given that the last two years he's been a 33-35% shooter from long range, I'd say we can at least assume he'll return to that level.  Guys don't just completely forget how to shoot.  So Paxson, buy out Hughes, trade Hinrich after he gets healthy and make sure you show Ben how important he is to us by clearing out some salary for next year.  Then we'll have a nice backcourt rotation to roll out, with three big minute getters being Rose BG and Thabo and with Lindsey Hunter filling in occasionally when Rose is tired, and preferably only when BG is out there to shoulder the offensive load.

Thanks to 82games.com and basketball-reference.com for the stats.

I don't want the Bulls to suck this year.  They sucked last year and it was not fun.  I want the young guys to develop, but I also want the Bulls to win games.  I want Ben Gordon back, but he seems to be on his way out.  He's been (reportedly) offered 6 years $59 million and turned it down.  For this, Kelly Dwyer called him "a nutter" in a recent Yahoo BDL chat.  I think Ben should take that deal, because I honestly don't see another NBA team paying him 10 million a year next year and he'll have lost out on over a million dollars this year just for the chance to be an RFA.  Ben is more valuable to the Bulls than he would be to most other teams in the league, because we're so starved for scorers, and yet, Bulls management still only values him at around 10 million a year (based on last year and this year's reported offers).  What does that say about his value on the open market?  I don't expect him to be offered a lot more and think he'd be best suited by taking the money.  However, I think Ben and his agent are convinced the money will be there next year (it might be, you never know with these things).  If it is the case that Ben won't be with us next year or that he'll be on the QO (in which case he shouldn't see much floor action because why would we want to help him drive his value up when he's very likely to bolt this team after the end of the year?) 

I think the Bulls need insurance at the 2 spot, and better insurance than Thabo and Larry Hughes.  This idea is likely to cause a lot of moaning and groaning because the guy has a bad rep, but I think the Bulls should target Vince Carter with Larry Hughes's deal.  Why?  Vince posted an 18.8 PER this year at age 31.  The list of guards who have posted PERs above 18 at age 31 with Vince's size (above 6'5") are Magic Johnson, MJ, Ray Allen, Mitch Richmond, Reggie Miller, George Gervin, Clyde Drexler, Walter Davis, and of course, Vince.  Now, statistically the closest to Vince for his career and at age 31 is Clyde Drexler.  Looking at the next 4 years of Clyde's career after age 31 (which will be the years remaining on Vince's contract and the last year is an unguaranteed team option).  He posted PERs of 22.4, 20.0, 19.9, and 19.8.  Clyde showed remarkable consistency and throughout Vince's career he has shown equally remarkable consistency and I expect him to keep it up.  It should be noted that the other guys on the list were all able to play pretty well into their thirties. The trade would ideally look like that.  The only reason I can think of NJ taking a deal like that would be to shave some payroll this year (since they don't appear to be trying to put a winning team out there) and to get Vince's contract off the books in 2010 which Hughes's deal would provide.  Doing that would get them WAY under the cap, to the point that they might be able to target two members of the big FA class of 2010, like say Lebron and Bosh.  I read a rumor a while back that they almost deal Vince the Cleveland for Wally Z's expiring deal, so maybe this isn't THAT far-fetched.

Of course, simply acquiring Vince wouldn't make us competitive for next year.  That's why we'd have to pull off the much rumored trade of Nocioni and Ced Simmons and a first round pick for Brad Miller.  If they didn't bite on that deal, I'd even be willing to make it a Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas for Gooden, Nocioni and Simmons swap.  They'd get two players they could potentially start, cap relief early in Gooden and they'd shave salary for this year.  Again, these deals are just assuming that Ben Gordon isn't going to be in our long term plans so we don't care about adding salary.  If we pulled off the Vince deal and the second iteration of the Miller deal (including Gooden), we'd have a lineup that looked like this:

PG - Rose / Hinrich

SG - Vince / BG (spot minutes) / Hinrich / Thabo

SF - Deng / Thabo

PF - Tyrus (30 minutes) / Noah (18 minutes) / Kenny Thomas (no minutes unless we need to Hack-a-Player or it's a blowout)

C - Miller (36 minutes) / Noah (12 minutes) / Gray (mop up duty in blowouts)

then there'd be the bench guys: Nichols, minimum salary guys

I think that's a very competitive team in the short term, and then Miller and Thomas's contracts come off the books in 2010 and Vince's contract is only partially guaranteed after 2011.  By that time Rose will be 21 or 22 and hopefully making many appearances on All-Star teams.  Also, a team that was built like that would actually have balance.  Miller would provide offense with Tyrus / Noah providing the D.  Vince would be able to hit shots from outside as well as slash to the bucket and get opposing teams in foul trouble.  Hinrich would get backup minutes behind Rose and Vince (doing his combo guard thing) and Thabo could take ALL the backup SF minutes. That's a pretty good lineup in my view, and all those guys are great adjusted plus / minus guys (we don't know about Rose yet, but I'm assuming he will be because I assume he'll be great).  I think we win a lot of games in the short term, potentially surprise some people in the playoffs, get Rose, Ty, and Noah great experience and then when the old guys are completely shot they'll come off the books.  I like this plan a lot, especially if Ben and the Bulls really can't come to terms.  Feel free to poke holes in the plan (like the small chance that NJN takes that Vince for 2010 cap space deal) and offer better options or different options.  I'm open to hearing what people have to say about this.