A quick unified theorem of Bulls offseason priorities

and it starts, but shouldn't end, with killing the "big" "three"

Now, we all know the Bulls should fire their current management and rebuild pretty much the entire roster. What this blog post¹ presupposes is: they won’t, so it’s at least extremely-slightly more productive to think in the context of what the current management will do.

As I’ve said before: I don’t even want a ‘blow it up’ if these doofuses are in charge of it. That drastic path will just provide cover for a low payroll, and they’ll screw up the more-crucial scouting element of such a plan. They’ve already screwed up the asset valuation part by not making any sell-off trades over the past couple seasons.

Their lack of self-awareness does make any speculation of action difficult in that it’s a challenge to form baseline assumptions of their basic ambitions. Based on what they say and do, I think they believe they’re extremely close to being a top-4 seed in the NBA second division. I think they see the Pacers about to begin the conference finals, thanks in part to better teams being injured, and remember their team beat the Pacers twice in the spring. This also means they are very much not in the mindset that they need to try and keep their top-10 protected 2025 first round pick. If anything, getting that pick obligation out of the way as early as possible opens up opportunities to make more win-sooner moves.

That’s mostly wrong and misguided, but what we have to work with in trying to get in their mostly-empty heads.

[I’m holding out hope that they have these meager ambitions, but also would somewhat recklessly swing for a distressed max player. Like, I think they should be in any Trae Young conversation, if only because they should be too desperate to rule anything out.]

With all those caveats in mind, here are my big ideas for what to do this summer:

re-sign DeMar DeRozan, but only at a “hometown” discount

I think if DeRozan is off the team, the whole floor of quality play disintegrates and this becomes a clearly tanking team. That’s how productive (in points and - perhaps more importantly - minutes) DDR has been, and also speaks to how little else they have. There is also an unmeasurable-but-real benefit to having DeRozan as team leader.

All that said, the Bulls cannot treat DeRozan’s free agency like he has all the leverage. Unfortunately, if it’s indeed true that they offered $40M annually for two years, they are priming to make the same mistake that they did with Vucevic last summer.

Instead, the Bulls should operate like they are the ones with the leverage here. There are extremely few teams with cap space, and I don’t think any of them would view DeRozan as a great fit. So if an over-the-cap team needs a cap exception, the most they could offer is ~$13M. Why such a huge gap between that and what the Bulls are offering?

This is obvious, but likely still necessary to emphasize given how the current regime has handled contracts: you don’t pay for past performance. And there’s no meaningful gain in ‘respect around the league’ or whatever by overpaying for veterans. It’s been widely reported that part of Arturas Karnisovas’s management style is to try and make moves that improves Chicago as a destination for stars, but all that’s been achieved in practice is that Nikola Vucevic is extremely indulged.

Make the offer to DeRozan more like $25M a year for maximum two years. Keeps the team ‘competitive’, and should be an actually-tradeable asset. That’s a lot more than he can get on the open market, and the Bulls need to remember they can offer non-monetary benefits like continuity (!), and a huge role for DeRozan both on and off the court.

And if DeRozan balks and works out a sign-and-trade to a team can give him more money, that’s not that bad of a result. You can get assets for working that out, it’s what San Antonio did for the Bulls to lose this 2025 pick in the first place. And that pick will become more valuable immediately as you are now featuring Patrick Williams on-ball touches, a.k.a. becoming a lottery team.

trading Zach LaVine is essential addition-by-subtraction

I think the Bulls still believe they have a ‘big’ three, and so all their talk about ‘big’ change can be validated if they trade Zach LaVine. That will be difficult, but not impossible, and really it needs to happen before training camp.

Not even so much because of the Bulls looming tax crunch, as they just ‘need’ to get under by the end of the regular season. But the Bulls cannot have LaVine in the rotation this year. I’m not sure how many more minutes LaVine has to play for people to give up hope that any scenario with this current roster will raise his value.

And it’s more about the other guys, most importantly Coby White. White only flourished - and can only improve going forward - if LaVine is not around.

So it really doesn’t matter what the Bulls get in return in a LaVine trade, they shouldn’t delay it to try and improve that return. The better return will be giving runway to the young guards already here and signed pretty cheaply.

get out of the Lonzo Ball business

Already covered pretty thoroughly a couple weeks ago.

Here's what the Bulls need to do with Lonzo Ball now

In the time since the only ‘news’ surrounding Lonzo is that he is certainly not indicating he’s going to give up the comeback attempt. That’s admirable, but doesn’t mean the Bulls have to participate.

get a new starting center

As easily predicted, the Nikola Vucevic contract extension is a disaster, perhaps only eclipsed by the Vucevic trade in the list of AKME disasters.

The problem with that trade all along wasn’t the idea of swinging for win-now veteran. It’s that Vucevic, as an actual player instead of just a conceptual All-Star, is not good. He never was that good at his peak to where it justified how his limitations effected the rest of the roster. But now in addition to his weaknesses getting weaker his prior strengths have eroded.

In addition to being one of the worst high-volume three point shooters in the league, the team defense fell to 21st this season. Vuc is not going to become more mobile at age 34, the Bulls need to get a different kind of big to anchor both sides of the ball. Someone with rim protection on defense and a rim threat on offense. This would also open up flexibility in trades and deal from a relative strength. Most explicitly: don’t have to cling to Alex Caruso because he solves every defensive deficiency.

As hard as it is to deal LaVine’s contract, Vuc’s money may be even harder to move. But it’s technically less money, so it’s not as desperate a financial situation. But it is desperate on the court: need to find a new starting center and Vuc can be a very expensive backup.

This will be difficult in part because Billy Donovan is also part of the cult of Vuc. But perhaps that’s not entirely fair, as the prior in-house alternative, Andre Drummond, was not significantly better (at least not at rim protection). In my mind, “starting center” doesn’t have to be anyone that great, just someone that Donovan would start over Vuc.

As another benefit, we wouldn’t have to consider his team assessments (“we need more Vuc, everyone thinks it”) anymore.

1. always hated use of ‘blog’ as a noun. Deadspin/Defector is the most prominent abuser