I'm not sure if this adds anything to what people know about the Zo situation and the process involved but Sam Smith talks about it for a bit in this interview.
That's actually the only Bulls YouTube channel I watch (albeit only occasionally). Not saying I think he should quit his day job and become a beat reporter, but he seems to be the best Bulls YouTuber out there by far. Or at least that I've found. Yes, that's a very low bar...
I only stumbled across his channel a year or two ago so I haven't followed for long, but the only sponsor I've ever seen him do is Underdog Fantasy. I personally hate that betting has taken over sports, but I can't blame the man for taking a little cash for a 15 second ad placement on his videos.
I feel like he's a bit hot and cold. One day he'll be calling for the team to be torn down and then the next he'll be saying we should give AK another chance, which I definitely find annoying. My guess is most of that just comes from saying emotional things after games instead of taking some time to collect his thoughts before putting out videos. I know he usually makes them right after games instead of waiting for the following day or something like that. For the most part though, he doesn't seem to be terrible.
If you have any Bulls YouTubers that you feel are actually good, feel free to list them. I'd definitely be interested!
They need to turn over the roster wherever they can. My modest hope is that they can move LaVine for a group of smaller contracts. Maybe you get an ok big man out of that to take minutes away from Vucevic. I’m just so sick of seeing a team weighed down by $80 million going to the likes of LaVine, Vucevic, and Ball. They need more bodies and the flexibility to make moves. I’d probably be ok with re-signing Patrick Williams to have as a potential trade piece. I’m 1000% over watching him as a player but I still think he’s an asset.
yeah I didn't even mention Patrick Williams as I just don't think he's that important
I'd only keep him if they successfully lowball his contract. But the good news is that's a likely outcome. I really don't think there will be another team offering +$20M, and if they do no regrets in letting him walk
Agreed. Maybe am too much of an optimist but wouldn't give up on Williams yet. There have been moments when Williams has been excellent. Bulls can just make the qualifying offer to Williams and see what other teams offer.
Can't see the Bulls or any other team giving Williams the contract that McDaniels received. Hope that the Bulls can get sign Williams to a reasonable contract. The situation worked well for the Bulls in 2018 when the Bulls made LaVine a qualifying offer and ended up signing LaVine to a four year deal for $78 million.
I'm not a tank humper, but I do feel this offseason/season gives the Bulls an opportunity for a somewhat clean one-year tank job that's made even more important by that owed pick to the Spurs. It's really hard to see what meaningful moves the Bulls could make this offseason that would be more important/get them closer to a title than simply moving off these vets and keeping that pick (and this year's pick). And while losing DeMar would certainly make the Bulls worse, they could probably still put out a semi-fun product with Coby, Ayo, some other young guys and a few new vets that would make being bad a bit more palatable and keep the seats filled.
Of course, there is zero evidence at all AK will do this, given he has explicitly stated he doesn't believe in taking a step back. So the assumption is he re-signs DeMar at a big number, uses a Zach trade to try to get a couple "win now" players, maybe uses draft capital to get off Lonzo for another guy who can "win now" and maybe tries to shed some salary somewhere if needed to avoid the tax. And then I'm just assuming that result would be an okay play-in team that gives up the 25 pick but goes nowhere.
Yes, it's obvious to pretty much everyone that this is the path. But the Reinsdorfs care more about max number of tickets sold to games in the short term and nothing else. Absolutely zero long term view. And who's to say that people won't come to the games to cheer a young developing squad and a vision for the future?
Furthering that point: I don't even think Reinsdorf cares enough to have some kind of directive where they can't rebuild. A rebuild is great for him, like you said people will show up anyway and he can keep a low payroll. I think AK has little confidence in his own ability to do a rebuild successfully, and he's actually doing the best he can and is just bad at his job.
Why are people like you so often derogatory of people who prefer a blow-it-up rebuild? I don't get the derision. Should I call you a mediocrity-lover? A play-in champion chaser? A coward-coddler? A safety snuggler? Someone who is scared of taking risks and would rather be "meh".
It's pretty simple. 'Rooting' for losses is inherently weird and lame
Luckily the Bulls are in such a bad spot they don't even have to be that deliberately icky if that's what they wanted to do (they don't but that's a different issue)
This is dumb and black-and-white thinking. Or old thinking. Or both.
You don't have to "root" for losses to believe in a blow-it-up rebuild tank. This team can "blow it up" and still keep Coby White, Patrick Williams, Ayo, whoever else, and bring in other players that are young, and no one will be rooting for losses. They'll be rooting for wins; they'll be rooting for Coby White to take another step. They'll be rooting for Patrick Williams to be more of a stand-out player.
They will know there will be losses, and that's fine., but no one is going to "root" for them, especially with the way the lottery system is now. But blowing it up provides other benefits (salary cap, future assets, etc.) in addition to the chance to draft a super star.
No one was rooting for losses for the Wolves 3 years ago when they ended up drafting Anthony Edwards.
And no one was rooting for losses when the Thunder were winning 21 games 2 years ago and they drafted Holmgren. They knew they would lose because the team wasn't good. But they were cheering the ascendancy of SGA, the youthfulness of the team and running through players to see if they could be players (only 3 were - and all 3 were starters on their #1 seed team). That's fucking fun to watch evne knowing the losses are coming. But no one is actually rooting for a loss. What a stupid idea.
Yeah I don't need to root for losses, they come naturally to the Chicago Bulls on and off the court over the last 26 years. The losses are going to be there regardless - lots of them - and it has nothing to do with what fans want. I'd just like to have any reason to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, although the rational part of me knows that there won't be with this ownership and management.
"re-sign DeMar DeRozan, but only at a “hometown” discount"
Remember when KC tweeted the Bulls were bringing Vooch back on a hometown discount and it turned out to be $20 million a year for three years? It's just as likely that AK decides to tank as it is that he brings DeMar back on a hometown discount.
I think I'm ultimately with Jason Patt though. I'd be fine with a re-tool on the fly if you want to call it that. Or a mini tank. Whatever. Get rid of DeMar, Zach, Vooch and AC for whatever you can get for them. Be bad for a year or two and start this thing over.
This team is going to have to be bad before it can get better. There's just no way around it. They have aging and/or injury-prone players that hold very little value and they have no financial flexibility. Only a genius-level GM could get out of this mess without getting worse and we don't have a genius-level GM. Quite the opposite actually.
So what's the point of bringing DeMar back for two more years? That just guarantees we financially cap ourselves for two more years while Coby and Ayo are on incredibly good deals. Do they then decide to blow it up after that? Blowing it up right when Coby and Ayo (and hopefully Pat, although that's highly unlikely) are starting to hit their primes makes zero sense at all. Are they thinking they'll be able to retool in a couple years once DeMar and Vooch are off the books? I guess I don't see how that's supposed to happen.
Bringing DeRozan back for 2 more years is the same reason coward-coddlers were ultimately "fine" with Vucevic coming back. Sure, he wasn't that good, and he was way too expensive, but if you just rolled with Drummond and some minimum guy (or took a chance on someone else, they could actually be worse, and since they were already "not good" being worse is to scary and unacceptable to think about.
Sure, 1 leads to 4-5 more wins, one leads to zero or takes away a win. It's still overpaying and wanting to stay in mediocrity rather than risk disaster.
Seems to me like offering DeRozan below what he turned down previously - or - working out a sign-and-trade for him PLUS trading a LaVine just to get him off the team PLUS trading/getting rid of Vuc or "just getting someone better" because they can't trade him is actually, pretty much blowing it up.
What am I missing? I guess a "blow it up" would say don't even offer DeRozan and just get rid of Vuc, but you're saying all that is fine, if that's what it comes to.
Get rid of the Mid-3. Get whatever you can for them. Go from there.
You're missing what they're missing: there's no binary choice where you sign DeRozan to a debilitating contract or he goes. And the other two being replaced is more likely to help than hurt
I specifically said "below what he turned down perviously" suggesting (though, admittedly, not specific) that it wouldn't be dibilitating. Like, sure, sign DeRozan to discount. Whatever. But then you say, If not, let him go and get a sign-and-trade to.
There's not a big difference, to me (in practicality), in saying "get him at a discount or do a sign-and-trade" and "let him walk but try to facilitate a sign-and-trade." The chance you get players at a $15 million discount is pretty rare as to be (again, to me) not much of something. The most likely course is that it ends up in the same place.
I suppose it's semantics whether 'blow it up' means just significant turnover or it has to be significant turnover and being a lot worse. Only the DeRozan decision impacts being worse.
I guess so. The Bulls are bad. They were 11th worst team in the league and that was for two reasons: the front office sucks and they don't want to be tank humpers. The Bulls could get rid of DeRozan, Vucevic, LaVine, and Ball, and they would probably be 8-10 games worse.
To me, that's not rooting for losses, but it's as much tanking as anything. And i guess at the trade deadline if the team is on a pace for 30 wins but White and Williams are playign well for them but clearly not All Stars, would you want them traded for future assets, or hang onto them? I guess that's the difference between tanking or what-not? I don't know.
I get how especially during the offseason you have to write more philosophical pieces about this franchise, and people have to comment on those posts in a similar mode. But for real, this doesn't matter. Tank or do the opposite, hit somewhere in the middle, it doesn't matter. Whatever idea you have in your head, they're just going to do one of the worst versions of that idea.
One angle I haven't heard enough though is this: can they try to be entertaining? Like, at all? I mostly watch non-Bulls games. And I watch a lot of them. So I feel fairly qualified to render the following judgement: the Bulls are one of the three most tedious watches in the league. Bottom decile. It's really hard drinking this garbage.
I think it's great Coby made a jump. I like that he showed up all the ludicrous ninnies on this site (they'll be harder to find now, but there were plenty) who wanted to write off a 22 year old. And I think he can get better too. But the thing is, it barely moved the needle on the entertainment value of the team. It's just boring as shit. Gotta fix that. Maybe that's something that's within the FOs skill set? Because I know building a contender is not.
While I do think this iteration is hopelessly boring, replacing DeRozan touches with Patrick Williams ones will be boring and terrible too. Also will put too much on Coby making him more boring as well. While if they just stopped playing Vuc and got someone under 28 who could jump it'd add to the entertainment
You know who made the Bulls fun (for half a season)? Lonzo Ball. Funny that when people talk about the big (mid) three of this iteration of the Bulls they mention DeRozan, Lavine and Vucevic, but not Lonzo.
Speaking of, whatever happened to Big Jilm? Is he still around? I kind of wonder if yfbb's constant Vooch-bashing finally pushed him over the edge and he left the site.
In the context of the Bulls direction forward, neither "tank" nor "mediocrity" side is looking at the full accounting.
Not rebuilding can be disastrous. Re-signing Vuc is a literal disaster.
But, it's true that tanking can be disastrous too. For as bad as the Bulls are now, I think the likely outcome of tearing it down the way tanking crowd wants to do is also disastrous.
What is the upside of tanking that merits risking disaster?
The tanking proponents will say that we "have to" because we'll get a lot of "upside", but most of the time when teams try to bottom out like that, they dig themselves further into a hole and then pull the dirt down on top of them. Like the Pistons or Hornets.
On the other hand, the upside of mediocre teams is underestimated. It seems pretty common for teams to be OK or kinda bad, then make a good trade and/or good draft picks and become good.
The Wizards are on the front end of such a rebuild after they tried being mediocre for years. Being mediocre didn't work for them, but tanking is working out terribly for them too, and one would imagine they're going to have another 4 years of being lucky to get above 20 wins barring something unexpected.
I agree with TheMoon above when he says that whichever strategy the Bulls attempt, they'll attempt the worst version of it.
To me, that says don't tank, because the worst versions of tanking are absolutely dreadful. You think the Bulls are boring now? Go review the Pistons or Hornets of the last few years. They make the Bulls look like the fucking Globetrotters.
and I'd say a 'mediocrity' side would be the Pacers, who I think the Bulls look toward as an ideal (lol)
and AK has been trying to build through the middle, he just sucks at it. It's already the worst version of that path. I don't like the idea of giving AK a different path to also suck at.
Maybe this is galaxy brain meme but when I see counter to realistic moves being "no, we need to acknowledge that the Bulls HAVE to blow it up" I want to go more exploding head and say "no, they need to fire management" . They're just as unlikely at the moment
In regard to tanking, there is only one way and that is to accept being very bad for a couple of seasons. Can be longer. The Pistons are on the right track. There is a little luck involved. When the Pistons had the top pick on 2021 the best that they could do was Cade Cunningham. On the other hand, in 2023 when the Spurs had the top pick, Wembanyama was available. Obviously, there is no comparison between Wembanyama and Cunningham.
The Thunder to me seem like they only committed to the tank once they got SGA which is a totally different animal than the kind of tanking you advocate for when you say the Pistons are « on the right track »
They are not. Because they had no plan. Just casting about hoping for lottery luck.
Which gets to my point that the optimal strategy is to wait for the right moment instead of letting your desire to « do something « dictate it to you.
I'm not insinuating that you're wrong (that's the fun part about all of us playing armchair GM - no one is really ever wrong since we're all just sharing opinions), but could you expound on what the "waiting for the right moment" would be to you?
1. Scouting the draft a couple years ahead. If you're going to kick off a rebuild by tanking, or even just selectively being bad for a year, do it in a year where it gets you a chance at a no-brainer pick like Wemby.
2. Be opportunistic with trades. The Thunder and Pacers are good examples here. It's OK to be mediocre if you're opportunistic and when someone offers you a great trade (e.g. for Haliburton or SGA) you take it.
3. Part of it is creating the right moment by not locking yourself in to terrible contracts (Vuc, Lavine).
The second two points are what I'm getting at below. For a team to build from the middle, it has to routinely buy low and sell high on guys. Because, outside of DeRozan, I don't think any of these guys are the difference between being a 40 win team and a 20 win team. The Bulls missed obvious chances to sell high on
- LaVine back in 2021 and 2022
- Thad in 2021
- Caruso both this year (2024) and last year (2023)
- Drummond this year (24)
All these guys are good players in various ways, but we were mediocre with them, and we have proven to be mediocre without them too. So the obvious solution is to be mediocre without them and collect the return we get from trading them at their highest value.
They don't do any churn to collect assets or upside.
On the flip side, the "investments" that the Bulls have made are mostly bad ones.
- Lonzo was a 4 year deal for an injury riddled player
- Zach was a 4 year deal at the max for a very marginal max guy
- Vuc was awful and re-signing him was also awful
- Even at lower levels, the Bulls invested two seconds in Julian Phillips? Why?
Basically they've "bought high" on a lot of guys.
And sold low on others (Lauri, WCJr, Gafford, DJJ)
They've done a few good things (Caruso, not giving up on Coby, Ayo) and a middling thing or two (Pat, much as I like DeMar, it's going to hurt to give up next year's pick for a guy who wasn't going to command a $30M contract from anybody else). But overall everyone does a few good things. The overall weight of their moves have been bad.
- Bad use of their assets
- Bad scouting
- Not having a good sense of when to make moves and when not to.
Your final paragraph seems to have gotten cut off.
Regardless, thanks for the clarification. I definitely agree with you. Sadly, as you say, this front office has mostly been quite bad. I don't see them starting to implement any of the things you outlined above, which means we're basically going to have to get lucky to see any sort of success from this team.
Detroit is in a good position to improve substantially soon. Have Cunningham, Duren, Ivey, Thompson, Stewart, Sasser, Grimes and Flynn. Plus the fifth pick in the upcoming draft and a ton of cap space.
This may be the right moment. It would be disastrous for the Bulls to lose next year's pick. I know AK is treating it just the opposite, but losing a lottery pick next year would be awful.
It's going to be disastrous at some point. If they don't lose it in 2025, they will likely lose it in 2026 or 2027. Which would be bad as well, but it'd be an unexpected kind of bad that they can't control for right in the middle of their "rebuild".
Bulls should not resign DeRozan. DeRozan will be 35 before next season begins. Bulls haven't been more than an average team in DeRozan's three seasons. Understand that DeRozan is a great scorer and highly respected.
Bulls should at least make the qualifying offer to Patrick Williams. Williams has always been relegated to being the fourth or fifth option on offense after DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and White. If Williams can stay healthy, he can assume DeRozan's role.
Sadly, it's very doubtful that Ball can get back to being the player that he was before the injury. Bulls should just resign themselves to the fact that for this season will just have to pay the $21.395 million to Ball. That's the way it goes sometimes.
1. I would keep DeMar if reasonable because we will have a measure of respect from having him.
2. I think Vuc is the opposite. A player that breeds losses, disrespect and mockery for the Bulls. The biggest problem is I don’t see how to get out from under his deal. I don’t see why any team in the league would want him. What we get back for him gonna be bad. And we’ve missed out a whole roster full of better cheaper centers while latching in to Vuc so even if we trade him we are screwed.
3. I don’t think there’s as much open mockery of Zach Lavine, but I don’t think any team has much appetite for him either unless they’re offloading something on us.
4. We’re at the point where it’s too late to really imagine getting the disabled player salary exclusion helps with Lonzo, so … might as well just hope he defies the odds and logic.
5. If the Bulls were really going to tank, the true play would be to trade Coby, Pat, AC, DeMar and Ayo. All of them are good enough to fetch a nice future return, but none of them are good enough we should consider them the cornerstone of a rebuild.
Instead, we would tank by playing LaVine and Vuc until the wheels fall off, which will probably be pretty quick.
I've seen a lot of talk about the Nets trading Simmons and two FRPs for for Zach. If there is any truth to that, AK would reach new depths not to make that trade. Reinsdorf would love it too. Just tell him to sit for the year and rehab his back. Then we could get another insurance payout (for a happy 'dorf), but be rid of the contract in a year.
I have not seen any indication of this. What's in it for the Nets? It's not even that useful for the Bulls either in room under tax (though you're right double insurance!)
The Nets seem to be weirdly fixated on trying to win, so maybe they think Bridges can cover for Zach's bad defense?? I don't know, I'm really grasping at straws here. Brooklyn would be dumb to make that trade.
Well they don't own their picks so they are definitely looking for players. I just hadn't seen indication that LaVine would be one of them. I suppose they may think of it as a fallback option after they strike out on Mitchell and Young
I've seen probably a dozen articles talking about that specific potential trade.
I don't understand it from the Nets' perspective, but I've seen so many articles talking about it that I'm wondering if there is some truth hidden in there.
I'd be happy doing the trade straight up... Zach for Simmons. That wouldn't do much for next year, but would get us off the bad contract after one year, instead of 3.
Regarding point number one, what is a reasonable contract for him? AK seems to think $40 million a year, which I think is ridiculous. Would any other team even offer him more than $20-25 million a year? Would any contending team offer him more than $15-18 million a year?
Really like point number five. I feel like everyone that says we should tank says we should trade everyone except Coby, Ayo and Pat. The problem with tanking is those three guys all likely have good trade value, which means trading them would be beneficial for a tank.
Based on your comments, I'm probably more pro-rebuild than you are. I don't want a full tank, but I would like to see an effort made to sign-and-trade DeMar and then either trade Zach and Vooch this offseason or let them stay and try to raise their value and trade them at the deadline. And obviously Caruso should be dealt this summer too.
Coby and Ayo are good enough that if you surround them with decent players, the team won't bottom out. It'll be bad for a couple years, but hopefully not Pistons or Hornets bad. Let those guys continue to grow, and hopefully Pat too, while also adding more pieces around them. I don't see that being a serious playoff team, but at least it would be a young team with financial flexibility and draft picks. That would at least be a clear direction, as opposed to what we have now.
You mentioned this in another comment about sometimes being mediocre is okay because you can make a move or two and go from being mediocre to being pretty good. I do agree with that, but you also have to be in a position to make those one or two moves and I don't think this current team is. Being a mediocre team filled with young players, having extra cap space, and having lots of draft picks allows you to make those moves that pull you out of mediocrity. I think the Bulls should aim for that.
I'd guess DeMar might get ~$30M in a S&T. I agree $40M is too much, although maybe just as a 1 year deal (with the 2nd being a TO or NG) is the absolute limit.
Depending on how things work out, I could imagine the Nets, Knicks, Lakers, Sixers, Clippers, Hawks having some level of interest. I just don't necessarily see a path to a deal that works.
The other thing to consider with timing is the Bulls owing their pick to San Antonio. (and their 2nd rounder and their 26 and 27 second rounders). If they tank, they better really tank and not be on the fence, because the pick is protected
1-10 in 25
1-8 in 26
1-8 in 27
Even then, they're out 3 high second round picks if they tank.
This is a real pain in the ass. If the Bulls really bottom out and are trash for the next three years, well... that gets to my point about how tanking is pretty not fun. Three seasons of terrible basketball, and there's no reason to believe that Years 4 and beyond will be any better.
Again, I'd point to the difference between OKC and DET.
OKC rebuilt with the idea that they were going to collect a bunch of picks after they already had SGA in hand.
DET just went on a fishing expedition. That's what the Bulls would be doing, but they'd be starting it already knowing that they're down 3 high seconds.
I guess if I'm the Bulls, I might want to at least wait until next summer, give the Spurs the 25 pick, and begin the rebuild having some certainty that I'll actually be able to use my 26 and 27 picks in the rebuild and not give them up.
There's no real right answer there, however, every way they go has a lot of hangover from yesterday's bad decisions. While it could be seen as a sunk cost, being down picks is not truly, because successful rebuilding is about maximizing the quantity of picks so you have good options there.
Am not defending the Piston's past dealings. Am just saying never mind past mistakes that the Pistons made. From here and now, the Pistons are in a good position. Actually, the Pistons have what the Bulls don't have which is lots of cap space and a high draft pick (very unlucky at the draft lottery). The Pistons have flexibility and the opportunity to get better and faster than the Bulls do.
This is true in the sense that going from a 14 win team to a 20 win team technically is getting "better" and a 6 game single season improvement is "faster" than the Bulls are are likely to improve.
The end result is the Bulls still win about double the number of games as the Pistons.
From here, they're in an awful position. They're the worst team in the league on the court, they have bad ownership, management, and I don't think their coaching is all that great. None of their young players look to be developing into stars and none of them look very good together. The same factors that led to past mistakes are in place to create future ones.
Don't think that the Bulls will be able to trade LaVine or Vucevic in the upcoming off season. Might be possible at the trade deadline. Bulls have to figure out how to put the best possible team on the floor with LaVine and Vucevic on the team. When healthy LaVine is a great scorer. Last season, the Bulls began the season 5-14 and then went 34-29 the rest of the way. There are some reasons to be optimistic. I get it that the Bulls can't compete with the upper echelon teams such as Minnesota, Denver, OKC, Boston, NY. Frustrating for the Bulls to be stuck in the middle but seems that this is the reality.
Adding onto yfbb's response, they went 40-42 the year prior with an uncharacteristically healthy season. Their "big 3" logged more minutes together than any other three-man rotation in the league that year and they were still a net negative together.
I like to think I'm not an overly pessimistic person, but I really struggle to find reasons to be optimistic about this team.
Just last year was the 'give everyone another try' year. It's over. Even too-late AK came around to it. Vuc has to go because he's a loser, LaVine has to go because maybe unfairly a loser he is more of one than Coby White
When you say Vucevic and LaVine have to go, how do you think that the Bulls can accomplish that? The other teams aren't stupid. The other teams know the same things as everyone else. Vucevic isn't a bad player. Just has pluses and minuses. AK didn't give the roster much in the way of size to help Vucevic inside. Often times, the Bulls were playing with DeRozan and Caruso as the forwards.
Context matters. Vooch may not be a bad center with the right players around him and on the right contract (less than $5 million annually), but he pretty much can't be the right player at $20 million annually.
Agreed. $20 million is too much. Bulls don't have tall athletic interior players such as McDaniels, Naz Reid, Toppin, Jonathan Isaac, etc. Bam Adebayo would be perfect.
Then who is the Bull's starting center for the 36 minutes? There aren't enough better than average centers to go around. What teams will trade with the Bulls for LaVine before the season begins? Am skeptical if there will be any teams who will want LaVine until after LaVine is seen back on the court. May have a better chance at the mid season trade deadline in the winter.
have to scout the league, get someone in a LaVine trade or another method that may be overpaid but at least can run and jump
Bulls have had 36 minutes of below average center play already, so you're really not losing much
I don't think LaVine's injury moves his value from the toilet to the...sub-toilet(?), and don't think there's any chance he rehabs value by playing for the Bulls this season. Also, in-season trades are too complicated for this executive group. Have to do it now.
Like I keep saying, I don't think they'll have to move a real asset with Zach, and shouldn't. But maybe packaging him with Caruso gets it done. Or using Dalen Terry or the protected Portland pick.
I'm with you. Lonzo was the key piece to this team. If he had recovered, then you could have made smaller moves to get good enough to truly compete. Coby & Ayo's improvements would have helped prep for the future and reduce the load for the main starters , rather than being required to "be competitive"
Not that I think the Bulls are smart enough to pull it off, but what I see this offseason is there are a lot of quality players who should be available.
Stars
Trae (26)
Mitchell (28)
Durant (36)?
Jimmy (36)?
Harden (35)?
PG (35)?
Kawhi (a really old 32)?
Zion (24)
Lebron (40)?
AD (32)?
Solid Starters
Ingram (27)
Murray (28)
Garland (25)
Allen (26)
Herro (25)
M Porter Jr (26)
Marginal Starters
Toppin 26
Overpaid reclamation projects
Ayton (26)
Jordan Poole (25)
Jerami Grant (31)
-----------------
There's different directions that can be gone there, but that's a lot of guys who are available. Lots of them are younger than the guys we've got (DeMar 35, Vuc 34, Caruso 30, LaVine 29 with older legs). Several teams could use the insurance savings they'll likely get from Lonzo.
there was the ESPN (I think, don't want to look it up) report that the Bulls would try and star hunt this offseason. Everyone laughed it off, mostly because it's not something fans (Darnell Mayberry's fans, as the Bulls would say...) want, but the Bulls do have the right combination of desperation, idiocy, and big salaries to obtain a veteran
I'd much rather AKME makes some wheel spinning move to get an actually-good-if-overpaid/misused player versus giving them runway for a multi-year tank and rebuild
Given AKs track record and the Bulls assets, I would expect him to over value distressed assets other teams don't love. He's also shown a willingness to bring in talent and disregard fit. Of the guys on the list I think, he'll pursue a lot of the younger "stars" who may have fizzled elsewhere. Ayton, Ingram, Trae, Porter Jr., Garland, maybe Herro.
A Vuc, Lonzo and the Portland pick for Ayton makes sense for both teams. Bulls free up cap space and get a starting center who better fits Coby/Ayo timeline. Portland gets the full use of their picks for a rebuild. Maybe you throw in Terry to even things out.
I also expect the Bulls to aggressively pursue a bigger named player like Porter Jr or Ingram dangling Caruso and draft picks. I think AK is feeling the heat and I expect him to do the same thing he did when he got here - exchange future assets for guys who can get on the floor now.
It would be the most AK possible thing to trade away a bunch of future picks right as we're starting to get out from under the previous picks we sent out... So I suspect you're right.
I honestly wouldn't hate the Lonzo/Vooch for Ayton trade. And I'd be fine sending Terry out with them so that I don't have to read idiots online talk about how much Terry is improving. Improving from not being an NBA-caliber player to somebody who might be able to make the end of a team's bench is not impressive.
I could see AK pulling off that trade and then also bringing in MPJ and touting those as his big moves only for MPJ to suffer another back injury and never play again.
I think Ingram is the guy. NO is basically in a place where they have to trade him for nothing to get under the tax. He's due to for a big extension but he's not a max player. He basically can take over Zach's salary slot.
you're right that NO may be desperate to just reduce payroll. They also have no center (Larry Nance plays half the games) and are in a bird rights trap with Valenciunas
Would Vuc+Caruso for Ingram be enough for the Pelicans? Saves $6M next season and they don't have to sign a free agent center.
Of course it adds $6M (actually more because Ingram has a trade kicker) to the Bulls, but like you said they are looking to dump Zach by any means necessary anyway. And like I said below I'm not worried about a fit between Ingram and DeRozan bc they can just sign/trade DeRozan somewhere and I wouldn't be as concerned with the floor bottoming out (though Ingram will likely get hurt and they will bottom out)
Hope that the Bulls are realistic. White and Ayo had great seasons. Appreciate how hard that they play. Realistically White and Ayo are nowhere near Mitchell, Brunson and SGA as far as talent. White and Ayo are just solid role players, not stars. White can't become Mitchell, Brunson and SGA through practice. Mitchell, Brunson and SGA have great natural talent that can't be taught. Am not saying that White and Ayo shouldn't be part of an improved Bull's roster.
It's gonna be KD. Somehow he's going to get KD in a Bulls uniform and KD will miss half the regular season partially due to being old and partially due to not wanting to play for this joke of a franchise. They'll make the playoffs and maybe even make the second round if they get some luck on their side, but it'll ultimately fizzle out without producing any results.
Portland is so screwed because they play in the West. Next season they may be the only West team not playing for the play-in at least.
Maybe they try the 'rehab Zach's value' play? It's not going to happen here.
Would they do Grant+Ayton for Zach+Lonzo. Can give them back their first (not much value as it's lotto-protected, but does allow them to trade firsts again), get the Lonzo insurance payout.
I think they' have to have Zach available for other moves, but
Vuc+Lonzo for Ayton might be a workable framework. We could give them back the pick they owe us that we're never going to actually get anyway.
That would make it a kind of face-saving move for both teams. Portland gets to say "We got another pick back! And we got a cheaper "steady hand" so we won't be any worse. And they get to save a fair amount of money.
Ayton sucks, but he doesn't suck as bad as Vuc, and he's much younger, so there's plenty of time to rehab his value. A season down the road, he's an acceptable expiring contract with some upside. A year down the road, Vuc is just roadkill.
From Portland's perspective, doesn't seem a good trade. Would have to pay Ball and Vucevic a total of $41 million for next season and $20 for Vucevic the following season. And trading a 26 year old for a 34 year old center.
No. Ball's contract is 80% covered by insurance. Hence, they will only be paying him ~$4M. Vuc is guaranteed $21.5M, so in total they're taking on $25.5M in true salary.
Ayton guaranteed $70M over the same period. So this reduces Portland's true salary expenditure by ~$45M.
And since Ball is expiring, it frees up $15M in cap space for the 25-26 season too.
$45M is a huge amount. By comparison, that's like double the amount of the league's annual revenue sharing amount. For a rebuilding small market team, that's a huge financial boon.
Thank you for enlightening me. Didn't completely understand how the insurance works. Portland would still have to pay Vucevic for the two seasons left on his contract $20M and $21.481. So, Portland would save $24 not $45M. ($70 - $46= $24) (the $46 is $4 for the Ball contract and $41.5 for the Vucevic contract) over the next two seasons. Is that correct? Still don't think it makes sense for Portland. Yes Ayton is overpaid and is certainly not an Embiid but Ayton is not a bad center either.
If you're Portland would you rather have Ayton or $25 million in savings, your full picks and a young player? I think when they traded for Ayton, they envisioned their young guys being closer than what they are.
I'm not sure the Nulls should be going after Ayton given his extreme aversion to cold weather, but he's better than Vuc.
1. Let Demar walk or S&T. It's a trap. He's been remarkably healthy but he was showing signs of slowing over 2nd half of last season. If he drops off a cliff, tge Bulls are screwed.
2. Trade Zach. It's over. Depending 9n how the summer plays out, may be able to get some value.
3. Replace Vuc. Of course try to trade him but no matter what happens his replacement should be on the roster in either the form of a young player or a better vet.
4. Trade Caruso. This is obvious. You have multiple guys who can play the position and the Bulls really don't want to get in a situation where their paying him 25 million a year to split time with Ayo. You can get a 1st and you need draft capital.
5. Resign Pat. You're going to be able to get him on a better deal than you probably should. Maybe Detroit decides to overpay buy unless that happens I think he's the kind of toolsy guy who can fit in with next steps.
You're basically building around Coby, Ayo, Pat, Dalen, Phillips, #11 picks and whatever young players and picks you can claw out of Derozan. Vuc, Caruso and Lavine trades. It's a total abandonment of the current team. A recognition that none of the main guys will be around when the team is relevant again.
If you did that, you'd probably have enough non negative assets to bounce back relatively quickly in the East after a tank year. You may be even be competitive in free agency or on the trade market. The team has decent role players on the perimeter. Need to get some young bigs and try to get a younger star.
Rumors swirling that the Sixers are targeting certain players and LaVine's name popped up. George, OG, Bron, Butler and Ingram were the other players. If they're really targeting these names LaVine has to be the easiest one to get. Signs of life of offloading Zach, anyone but Tobias please.
Zach may be the easiest to get but he's also probably the worst of those players. Maybe you can argue he's better than OG but he's also way more expensive.
With that being said, I do think Zach could fit in pretty well on that team if he'd accept being the third option and basically just a glorified shooter (Klay Thompson-esque). I think George would be the best fit on that team other than the fact that he seems to struggle to stay healthy. Does Philly want two of its three stars to be injury prone?
LeBron would obviously be a big pickup but is he that great at his age now, and how would he fit with Embiid who already operates out of the midrange and has the ball in his hands a lot?
They already tried the Jimmy thing. I guess Simmons isn't there anymore which is good, but I guess I don't see it. Same with Ingram. Both of those guys operate out of the midrange which I don't think Philly would want next to Embiid.
In my opinion, George and LaVine fit the best. I think George will go to Philly. They've got the money to pay him. If Zach happens to go to Philly though, it would actually work out well for the Bulls since Philly can fully absorb Zach's contract into their cap space. The Bulls wouldn't technically need to bring back any salary in return.
At some point we are going to need to add some rookies/young players who both have high ceilings and can actually crack the rotation in the immediate term. I keep wondering if the Pistons might be dumb enough to make a pick swap the centerpiece of a Zach trade (sad though it is that's about the most I can reasonably imagine getting in return). Some interesting players that will be available with that 5th pick.
I think the problem is this draft isn't particularly strong. I'm not sure there are any players that have high upside and are also already good enough to get immediate playing time and actually contribute nightly.
Like there are some guys who are high floor guys that could probably be impactful from the start, but those guys aren't expected to get significantly better than they currently are (low ceiling). There are also the guys expected to go at the top of the draft that do have higher ceilings and will likely get playing time because they'll be going to bad teams. But even though they'll get playing time, they likely won't be particularly good for a while.
this isn't that crazy to me because the Bulls do need a starting center, immediately. I'll defer to the experts on whether Clingan can take that role right away.
Bulls move from #11 to #7 (Portland), Portland goes down 4 spots and in return removes protection of the pick they owe the Bulls, make it two second round picks immediately and obligation over
I think YFBB is proposing this if Clingan is available at 7. From the hype I've been seeing lately, I don't think that'll be the case.
Proposal that is probably dumb for dozens of reasons:
Rockets get Caruso
Bulls get Adams & pick 3
Why the Rockets would do it: They get a known high level player to replace Adams (who's been out over a year at this point) and just tack on the equivalent of pick 8-12 in a normal draft.
Why the Bulls would do it: Get a (likely) center for the future in Clingan and get an insurance payout for Adams to appease Jerry. Plus Adams can help Clingan learn the ropes at center.
they just traded for Adams knowing he was out all last season, the idea is for him to play for them this year. This took them out of the Vuc market, they were barely plausible before
Well, I said it was probably a dumb idea for a reason. Though I still think it could work because Adams' knees are pretty well shot and Caruso is a great player on an even better contract, but AK doesn't have the chops to pull it off.
I really like this idea. Clingan reminds me of Rudy Hobert in the high end and Omer Asik on the low end. Love his IQ, defense, on court demeanor. Don't like his agility, at all. He looks slow to me. But at 7'3 how fast do you have to be? Can he still be growing into his body? Good gamble to take. Can't say I'm vouching for the guy though.
I wonder if Memphis could be in play if the Bulls want to offload Vucevic? Jackson prefers to play as a power forward and is a great fit next to Vucevic inside (they complement each other well).
Something like Vucevic/Caruso/Bulls 1st round pick for Marcus Smart/Grizzlies 1st round pick. Bulls move up a couple spots in the draft and pick up Smart who is a Caruso replacement. Grizzlies get a new center plus Caruso to replace Smart.
nobody complements Vucevic well because he's garbage. But if they could convince themselves of that, they're still looking to win the trade. I don't think the upgrade from Smart to Caruso is enough of a win for them, especially throwing in the pick swap
They have some dead money in Kennard+Rose (Kennard a team option so MEM doesn't need to move it) that works salary-wise. But that's expiring, and they're taking Vuc for 2 more years at more money. Man the Vuc contract reeks
I'm not sure if this adds anything to what people know about the Zo situation and the process involved but Sam Smith talks about it for a bit in this interview.
https://youtu.be/0Cm402oV-nE?t=889
That's actually the only Bulls YouTube channel I watch (albeit only occasionally). Not saying I think he should quit his day job and become a beat reporter, but he seems to be the best Bulls YouTuber out there by far. Or at least that I've found. Yes, that's a very low bar...
I only stumbled across his channel a year or two ago so I haven't followed for long, but the only sponsor I've ever seen him do is Underdog Fantasy. I personally hate that betting has taken over sports, but I can't blame the man for taking a little cash for a 15 second ad placement on his videos.
I feel like he's a bit hot and cold. One day he'll be calling for the team to be torn down and then the next he'll be saying we should give AK another chance, which I definitely find annoying. My guess is most of that just comes from saying emotional things after games instead of taking some time to collect his thoughts before putting out videos. I know he usually makes them right after games instead of waiting for the following day or something like that. For the most part though, he doesn't seem to be terrible.
If you have any Bulls YouTubers that you feel are actually good, feel free to list them. I'd definitely be interested!
They need to turn over the roster wherever they can. My modest hope is that they can move LaVine for a group of smaller contracts. Maybe you get an ok big man out of that to take minutes away from Vucevic. I’m just so sick of seeing a team weighed down by $80 million going to the likes of LaVine, Vucevic, and Ball. They need more bodies and the flexibility to make moves. I’d probably be ok with re-signing Patrick Williams to have as a potential trade piece. I’m 1000% over watching him as a player but I still think he’s an asset.
yeah I didn't even mention Patrick Williams as I just don't think he's that important
I'd only keep him if they successfully lowball his contract. But the good news is that's a likely outcome. I really don't think there will be another team offering +$20M, and if they do no regrets in letting him walk
Agreed. Maybe am too much of an optimist but wouldn't give up on Williams yet. There have been moments when Williams has been excellent. Bulls can just make the qualifying offer to Williams and see what other teams offer.
BG was an UFA though. Asik had a poison pill. So not really the same circumstances in either of those contracts.
Can't see the Bulls or any other team giving Williams the contract that McDaniels received. Hope that the Bulls can get sign Williams to a reasonable contract. The situation worked well for the Bulls in 2018 when the Bulls made LaVine a qualifying offer and ended up signing LaVine to a four year deal for $78 million.
I'm not a tank humper, but I do feel this offseason/season gives the Bulls an opportunity for a somewhat clean one-year tank job that's made even more important by that owed pick to the Spurs. It's really hard to see what meaningful moves the Bulls could make this offseason that would be more important/get them closer to a title than simply moving off these vets and keeping that pick (and this year's pick). And while losing DeMar would certainly make the Bulls worse, they could probably still put out a semi-fun product with Coby, Ayo, some other young guys and a few new vets that would make being bad a bit more palatable and keep the seats filled.
Of course, there is zero evidence at all AK will do this, given he has explicitly stated he doesn't believe in taking a step back. So the assumption is he re-signs DeMar at a big number, uses a Zach trade to try to get a couple "win now" players, maybe uses draft capital to get off Lonzo for another guy who can "win now" and maybe tries to shed some salary somewhere if needed to avoid the tax. And then I'm just assuming that result would be an okay play-in team that gives up the 25 pick but goes nowhere.
Yes, it's obvious to pretty much everyone that this is the path. But the Reinsdorfs care more about max number of tickets sold to games in the short term and nothing else. Absolutely zero long term view. And who's to say that people won't come to the games to cheer a young developing squad and a vision for the future?
My biggest concern with a tank now is that its necessity only means more that AK should be fired
And if they did pivot to this it'd mean an even longer leash
Furthering that point: I don't even think Reinsdorf cares enough to have some kind of directive where they can't rebuild. A rebuild is great for him, like you said people will show up anyway and he can keep a low payroll. I think AK has little confidence in his own ability to do a rebuild successfully, and he's actually doing the best he can and is just bad at his job.
Why are people like you so often derogatory of people who prefer a blow-it-up rebuild? I don't get the derision. Should I call you a mediocrity-lover? A play-in champion chaser? A coward-coddler? A safety snuggler? Someone who is scared of taking risks and would rather be "meh".
It's pretty simple. 'Rooting' for losses is inherently weird and lame
Luckily the Bulls are in such a bad spot they don't even have to be that deliberately icky if that's what they wanted to do (they don't but that's a different issue)
This is dumb and black-and-white thinking. Or old thinking. Or both.
You don't have to "root" for losses to believe in a blow-it-up rebuild tank. This team can "blow it up" and still keep Coby White, Patrick Williams, Ayo, whoever else, and bring in other players that are young, and no one will be rooting for losses. They'll be rooting for wins; they'll be rooting for Coby White to take another step. They'll be rooting for Patrick Williams to be more of a stand-out player.
They will know there will be losses, and that's fine., but no one is going to "root" for them, especially with the way the lottery system is now. But blowing it up provides other benefits (salary cap, future assets, etc.) in addition to the chance to draft a super star.
No one was rooting for losses for the Wolves 3 years ago when they ended up drafting Anthony Edwards.
And no one was rooting for losses when the Thunder were winning 21 games 2 years ago and they drafted Holmgren. They knew they would lose because the team wasn't good. But they were cheering the ascendancy of SGA, the youthfulness of the team and running through players to see if they could be players (only 3 were - and all 3 were starters on their #1 seed team). That's fucking fun to watch evne knowing the losses are coming. But no one is actually rooting for a loss. What a stupid idea.
Yeah I don't need to root for losses, they come naturally to the Chicago Bulls on and off the court over the last 26 years. The losses are going to be there regardless - lots of them - and it has nothing to do with what fans want. I'd just like to have any reason to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, although the rational part of me knows that there won't be with this ownership and management.
it becomes black-and-white thinking when it comes to protecting the draft pick
like a general 'rebuild' is fine to want, but 'we have to keep our pick' is more gross
"re-sign DeMar DeRozan, but only at a “hometown” discount"
Remember when KC tweeted the Bulls were bringing Vooch back on a hometown discount and it turned out to be $20 million a year for three years? It's just as likely that AK decides to tank as it is that he brings DeMar back on a hometown discount.
I think I'm ultimately with Jason Patt though. I'd be fine with a re-tool on the fly if you want to call it that. Or a mini tank. Whatever. Get rid of DeMar, Zach, Vooch and AC for whatever you can get for them. Be bad for a year or two and start this thing over.
This team is going to have to be bad before it can get better. There's just no way around it. They have aging and/or injury-prone players that hold very little value and they have no financial flexibility. Only a genius-level GM could get out of this mess without getting worse and we don't have a genius-level GM. Quite the opposite actually.
So what's the point of bringing DeMar back for two more years? That just guarantees we financially cap ourselves for two more years while Coby and Ayo are on incredibly good deals. Do they then decide to blow it up after that? Blowing it up right when Coby and Ayo (and hopefully Pat, although that's highly unlikely) are starting to hit their primes makes zero sense at all. Are they thinking they'll be able to retool in a couple years once DeMar and Vooch are off the books? I guess I don't see how that's supposed to happen.
Bringing DeRozan back for 2 more years is the same reason coward-coddlers were ultimately "fine" with Vucevic coming back. Sure, he wasn't that good, and he was way too expensive, but if you just rolled with Drummond and some minimum guy (or took a chance on someone else, they could actually be worse, and since they were already "not good" being worse is to scary and unacceptable to think about.
I think putting them in similar context means ignoring the key difference in that objectively DeRozan is really good and Vuc sucks
Sure, 1 leads to 4-5 more wins, one leads to zero or takes away a win. It's still overpaying and wanting to stay in mediocrity rather than risk disaster.
Literally, no.
A guy who adds 5 wins, if he's paid reasonably isn't overpaid.
A guy who takes away wins (which I agree Vucevic does) is overpaid and by himself a disaster. We'd literally be better off sending him home.
VucShrug.jpg
Seems to me like offering DeRozan below what he turned down previously - or - working out a sign-and-trade for him PLUS trading a LaVine just to get him off the team PLUS trading/getting rid of Vuc or "just getting someone better" because they can't trade him is actually, pretty much blowing it up.
What am I missing? I guess a "blow it up" would say don't even offer DeRozan and just get rid of Vuc, but you're saying all that is fine, if that's what it comes to.
Get rid of the Mid-3. Get whatever you can for them. Go from there.
You're missing what they're missing: there's no binary choice where you sign DeRozan to a debilitating contract or he goes. And the other two being replaced is more likely to help than hurt
I specifically said "below what he turned down perviously" suggesting (though, admittedly, not specific) that it wouldn't be dibilitating. Like, sure, sign DeRozan to discount. Whatever. But then you say, If not, let him go and get a sign-and-trade to.
There's not a big difference, to me (in practicality), in saying "get him at a discount or do a sign-and-trade" and "let him walk but try to facilitate a sign-and-trade." The chance you get players at a $15 million discount is pretty rare as to be (again, to me) not much of something. The most likely course is that it ends up in the same place.
I suppose it's semantics whether 'blow it up' means just significant turnover or it has to be significant turnover and being a lot worse. Only the DeRozan decision impacts being worse.
I guess so. The Bulls are bad. They were 11th worst team in the league and that was for two reasons: the front office sucks and they don't want to be tank humpers. The Bulls could get rid of DeRozan, Vucevic, LaVine, and Ball, and they would probably be 8-10 games worse.
To me, that's not rooting for losses, but it's as much tanking as anything. And i guess at the trade deadline if the team is on a pace for 30 wins but White and Williams are playign well for them but clearly not All Stars, would you want them traded for future assets, or hang onto them? I guess that's the difference between tanking or what-not? I don't know.
I get how especially during the offseason you have to write more philosophical pieces about this franchise, and people have to comment on those posts in a similar mode. But for real, this doesn't matter. Tank or do the opposite, hit somewhere in the middle, it doesn't matter. Whatever idea you have in your head, they're just going to do one of the worst versions of that idea.
One angle I haven't heard enough though is this: can they try to be entertaining? Like, at all? I mostly watch non-Bulls games. And I watch a lot of them. So I feel fairly qualified to render the following judgement: the Bulls are one of the three most tedious watches in the league. Bottom decile. It's really hard drinking this garbage.
I think it's great Coby made a jump. I like that he showed up all the ludicrous ninnies on this site (they'll be harder to find now, but there were plenty) who wanted to write off a 22 year old. And I think he can get better too. But the thing is, it barely moved the needle on the entertainment value of the team. It's just boring as shit. Gotta fix that. Maybe that's something that's within the FOs skill set? Because I know building a contender is not.
While I do think this iteration is hopelessly boring, replacing DeRozan touches with Patrick Williams ones will be boring and terrible too. Also will put too much on Coby making him more boring as well. While if they just stopped playing Vuc and got someone under 28 who could jump it'd add to the entertainment
You know who made the Bulls fun (for half a season)? Lonzo Ball. Funny that when people talk about the big (mid) three of this iteration of the Bulls they mention DeRozan, Lavine and Vucevic, but not Lonzo.
Unfortunately, while he's under 28, he can't jump anymore.
he definitely was what made the team fun to watch.
i mean, watching demar do his thing can be fun, but not as a constant.
the team really is boring af. i am glad coby proved me wrong, but you're right that it didn't help much in that regard.
i think it's vuc that makes them boring. if it was gafford in his place i'd say they'd be pretty entertaining
well the nba is fantastic
Speaking of, whatever happened to Big Jilm? Is he still around? I kind of wonder if yfbb's constant Vooch-bashing finally pushed him over the edge and he left the site.
Ultimately I am rooting for entertainment value but I feel like that’s just fundamentally impossible with Vucevic playing starter’s minutes.
In the context of the Bulls direction forward, neither "tank" nor "mediocrity" side is looking at the full accounting.
Not rebuilding can be disastrous. Re-signing Vuc is a literal disaster.
But, it's true that tanking can be disastrous too. For as bad as the Bulls are now, I think the likely outcome of tearing it down the way tanking crowd wants to do is also disastrous.
What is the upside of tanking that merits risking disaster?
The tanking proponents will say that we "have to" because we'll get a lot of "upside", but most of the time when teams try to bottom out like that, they dig themselves further into a hole and then pull the dirt down on top of them. Like the Pistons or Hornets.
On the other hand, the upside of mediocre teams is underestimated. It seems pretty common for teams to be OK or kinda bad, then make a good trade and/or good draft picks and become good.
The Wizards are on the front end of such a rebuild after they tried being mediocre for years. Being mediocre didn't work for them, but tanking is working out terribly for them too, and one would imagine they're going to have another 4 years of being lucky to get above 20 wins barring something unexpected.
I agree with TheMoon above when he says that whichever strategy the Bulls attempt, they'll attempt the worst version of it.
To me, that says don't tank, because the worst versions of tanking are absolutely dreadful. You think the Bulls are boring now? Go review the Pistons or Hornets of the last few years. They make the Bulls look like the fucking Globetrotters.
and I'd say a 'mediocrity' side would be the Pacers, who I think the Bulls look toward as an ideal (lol)
and AK has been trying to build through the middle, he just sucks at it. It's already the worst version of that path. I don't like the idea of giving AK a different path to also suck at.
Maybe this is galaxy brain meme but when I see counter to realistic moves being "no, we need to acknowledge that the Bulls HAVE to blow it up" I want to go more exploding head and say "no, they need to fire management" . They're just as unlikely at the moment
In regard to tanking, there is only one way and that is to accept being very bad for a couple of seasons. Can be longer. The Pistons are on the right track. There is a little luck involved. When the Pistons had the top pick on 2021 the best that they could do was Cade Cunningham. On the other hand, in 2023 when the Spurs had the top pick, Wembanyama was available. Obviously, there is no comparison between Wembanyama and Cunningham.
OKC is a great example of tanking and being patient.
The Thunder to me seem like they only committed to the tank once they got SGA which is a totally different animal than the kind of tanking you advocate for when you say the Pistons are « on the right track »
They are not. Because they had no plan. Just casting about hoping for lottery luck.
Which gets to my point that the optimal strategy is to wait for the right moment instead of letting your desire to « do something « dictate it to you.
I'm not insinuating that you're wrong (that's the fun part about all of us playing armchair GM - no one is really ever wrong since we're all just sharing opinions), but could you expound on what the "waiting for the right moment" would be to you?
Waiting for the right moment means
1. Scouting the draft a couple years ahead. If you're going to kick off a rebuild by tanking, or even just selectively being bad for a year, do it in a year where it gets you a chance at a no-brainer pick like Wemby.
2. Be opportunistic with trades. The Thunder and Pacers are good examples here. It's OK to be mediocre if you're opportunistic and when someone offers you a great trade (e.g. for Haliburton or SGA) you take it.
3. Part of it is creating the right moment by not locking yourself in to terrible contracts (Vuc, Lavine).
The second two points are what I'm getting at below. For a team to build from the middle, it has to routinely buy low and sell high on guys. Because, outside of DeRozan, I don't think any of these guys are the difference between being a 40 win team and a 20 win team. The Bulls missed obvious chances to sell high on
- LaVine back in 2021 and 2022
- Thad in 2021
- Caruso both this year (2024) and last year (2023)
- Drummond this year (24)
All these guys are good players in various ways, but we were mediocre with them, and we have proven to be mediocre without them too. So the obvious solution is to be mediocre without them and collect the return we get from trading them at their highest value.
They don't do any churn to collect assets or upside.
On the flip side, the "investments" that the Bulls have made are mostly bad ones.
- Lonzo was a 4 year deal for an injury riddled player
- Zach was a 4 year deal at the max for a very marginal max guy
- Vuc was awful and re-signing him was also awful
- Even at lower levels, the Bulls invested two seconds in Julian Phillips? Why?
Basically they've "bought high" on a lot of guys.
And sold low on others (Lauri, WCJr, Gafford, DJJ)
They've done a few good things (Caruso, not giving up on Coby, Ayo) and a middling thing or two (Pat, much as I like DeMar, it's going to hurt to give up next year's pick for a guy who wasn't going to command a $30M contract from anybody else). But overall everyone does a few good things. The overall weight of their moves have been bad.
- Bad use of their assets
- Bad scouting
- Not having a good sense of when to make moves and when not to.
Anyway, fundamentally they
Your final paragraph seems to have gotten cut off.
Regardless, thanks for the clarification. I definitely agree with you. Sadly, as you say, this front office has mostly been quite bad. I don't see them starting to implement any of the things you outlined above, which means we're basically going to have to get lucky to see any sort of success from this team.
The Thunder did trade George and Westbrook for a lot of draft picks.
Detroit is in a good position to improve substantially soon. Have Cunningham, Duren, Ivey, Thompson, Stewart, Sasser, Grimes and Flynn. Plus the fifth pick in the upcoming draft and a ton of cap space.
This may be the right moment. It would be disastrous for the Bulls to lose next year's pick. I know AK is treating it just the opposite, but losing a lottery pick next year would be awful.
It's going to be disastrous at some point. If they don't lose it in 2025, they will likely lose it in 2026 or 2027. Which would be bad as well, but it'd be an unexpected kind of bad that they can't control for right in the middle of their "rebuild".
Bulls should not resign DeRozan. DeRozan will be 35 before next season begins. Bulls haven't been more than an average team in DeRozan's three seasons. Understand that DeRozan is a great scorer and highly respected.
Bulls should at least make the qualifying offer to Patrick Williams. Williams has always been relegated to being the fourth or fifth option on offense after DeRozan, LaVine, Vucevic and White. If Williams can stay healthy, he can assume DeRozan's role.
Sadly, it's very doubtful that Ball can get back to being the player that he was before the injury. Bulls should just resign themselves to the fact that for this season will just have to pay the $21.395 million to Ball. That's the way it goes sometimes.
all this is making me realize that krause wasn't so bad. sure michael hated him but at least he fuckin tried to win
well until he wanted to hire tim floyd lol
yeah true. lets just go with senility by then ha
Some random thoughts:
1. I would keep DeMar if reasonable because we will have a measure of respect from having him.
2. I think Vuc is the opposite. A player that breeds losses, disrespect and mockery for the Bulls. The biggest problem is I don’t see how to get out from under his deal. I don’t see why any team in the league would want him. What we get back for him gonna be bad. And we’ve missed out a whole roster full of better cheaper centers while latching in to Vuc so even if we trade him we are screwed.
3. I don’t think there’s as much open mockery of Zach Lavine, but I don’t think any team has much appetite for him either unless they’re offloading something on us.
4. We’re at the point where it’s too late to really imagine getting the disabled player salary exclusion helps with Lonzo, so … might as well just hope he defies the odds and logic.
5. If the Bulls were really going to tank, the true play would be to trade Coby, Pat, AC, DeMar and Ayo. All of them are good enough to fetch a nice future return, but none of them are good enough we should consider them the cornerstone of a rebuild.
Instead, we would tank by playing LaVine and Vuc until the wheels fall off, which will probably be pretty quick.
Re: Zach trade
I've seen a lot of talk about the Nets trading Simmons and two FRPs for for Zach. If there is any truth to that, AK would reach new depths not to make that trade. Reinsdorf would love it too. Just tell him to sit for the year and rehab his back. Then we could get another insurance payout (for a happy 'dorf), but be rid of the contract in a year.
I have not seen any indication of this. What's in it for the Nets? It's not even that useful for the Bulls either in room under tax (though you're right double insurance!)
The Nets seem to be weirdly fixated on trying to win, so maybe they think Bridges can cover for Zach's bad defense?? I don't know, I'm really grasping at straws here. Brooklyn would be dumb to make that trade.
Well they don't own their picks so they are definitely looking for players. I just hadn't seen indication that LaVine would be one of them. I suppose they may think of it as a fallback option after they strike out on Mitchell and Young
I've seen probably a dozen articles talking about that specific potential trade.
I don't understand it from the Nets' perspective, but I've seen so many articles talking about it that I'm wondering if there is some truth hidden in there.
I'd be happy doing the trade straight up... Zach for Simmons. That wouldn't do much for next year, but would get us off the bad contract after one year, instead of 3.
Regarding point number one, what is a reasonable contract for him? AK seems to think $40 million a year, which I think is ridiculous. Would any other team even offer him more than $20-25 million a year? Would any contending team offer him more than $15-18 million a year?
Really like point number five. I feel like everyone that says we should tank says we should trade everyone except Coby, Ayo and Pat. The problem with tanking is those three guys all likely have good trade value, which means trading them would be beneficial for a tank.
Based on your comments, I'm probably more pro-rebuild than you are. I don't want a full tank, but I would like to see an effort made to sign-and-trade DeMar and then either trade Zach and Vooch this offseason or let them stay and try to raise their value and trade them at the deadline. And obviously Caruso should be dealt this summer too.
Coby and Ayo are good enough that if you surround them with decent players, the team won't bottom out. It'll be bad for a couple years, but hopefully not Pistons or Hornets bad. Let those guys continue to grow, and hopefully Pat too, while also adding more pieces around them. I don't see that being a serious playoff team, but at least it would be a young team with financial flexibility and draft picks. That would at least be a clear direction, as opposed to what we have now.
You mentioned this in another comment about sometimes being mediocre is okay because you can make a move or two and go from being mediocre to being pretty good. I do agree with that, but you also have to be in a position to make those one or two moves and I don't think this current team is. Being a mediocre team filled with young players, having extra cap space, and having lots of draft picks allows you to make those moves that pull you out of mediocrity. I think the Bulls should aim for that.
I'd guess DeMar might get ~$30M in a S&T. I agree $40M is too much, although maybe just as a 1 year deal (with the 2nd being a TO or NG) is the absolute limit.
Depending on how things work out, I could imagine the Nets, Knicks, Lakers, Sixers, Clippers, Hawks having some level of interest. I just don't necessarily see a path to a deal that works.
The other thing to consider with timing is the Bulls owing their pick to San Antonio. (and their 2nd rounder and their 26 and 27 second rounders). If they tank, they better really tank and not be on the fence, because the pick is protected
1-10 in 25
1-8 in 26
1-8 in 27
Even then, they're out 3 high second round picks if they tank.
This is a real pain in the ass. If the Bulls really bottom out and are trash for the next three years, well... that gets to my point about how tanking is pretty not fun. Three seasons of terrible basketball, and there's no reason to believe that Years 4 and beyond will be any better.
Again, I'd point to the difference between OKC and DET.
OKC rebuilt with the idea that they were going to collect a bunch of picks after they already had SGA in hand.
DET just went on a fishing expedition. That's what the Bulls would be doing, but they'd be starting it already knowing that they're down 3 high seconds.
I guess if I'm the Bulls, I might want to at least wait until next summer, give the Spurs the 25 pick, and begin the rebuild having some certainty that I'll actually be able to use my 26 and 27 picks in the rebuild and not give them up.
There's no real right answer there, however, every way they go has a lot of hangover from yesterday's bad decisions. While it could be seen as a sunk cost, being down picks is not truly, because successful rebuilding is about maximizing the quantity of picks so you have good options there.
Am not defending the Piston's past dealings. Am just saying never mind past mistakes that the Pistons made. From here and now, the Pistons are in a good position. Actually, the Pistons have what the Bulls don't have which is lots of cap space and a high draft pick (very unlucky at the draft lottery). The Pistons have flexibility and the opportunity to get better and faster than the Bulls do.
This is true in the sense that going from a 14 win team to a 20 win team technically is getting "better" and a 6 game single season improvement is "faster" than the Bulls are are likely to improve.
The end result is the Bulls still win about double the number of games as the Pistons.
From here, they're in an awful position. They're the worst team in the league on the court, they have bad ownership, management, and I don't think their coaching is all that great. None of their young players look to be developing into stars and none of them look very good together. The same factors that led to past mistakes are in place to create future ones.
Don't think that the Bulls will be able to trade LaVine or Vucevic in the upcoming off season. Might be possible at the trade deadline. Bulls have to figure out how to put the best possible team on the floor with LaVine and Vucevic on the team. When healthy LaVine is a great scorer. Last season, the Bulls began the season 5-14 and then went 34-29 the rest of the way. There are some reasons to be optimistic. I get it that the Bulls can't compete with the upper echelon teams such as Minnesota, Denver, OKC, Boston, NY. Frustrating for the Bulls to be stuck in the middle but seems that this is the reality.
They went 5-14 with everyone healthy
Adding onto yfbb's response, they went 40-42 the year prior with an uncharacteristically healthy season. Their "big 3" logged more minutes together than any other three-man rotation in the league that year and they were still a net negative together.
I like to think I'm not an overly pessimistic person, but I really struggle to find reasons to be optimistic about this team.
Just last year was the 'give everyone another try' year. It's over. Even too-late AK came around to it. Vuc has to go because he's a loser, LaVine has to go because maybe unfairly a loser he is more of one than Coby White
When you say Vucevic and LaVine have to go, how do you think that the Bulls can accomplish that? The other teams aren't stupid. The other teams know the same things as everyone else. Vucevic isn't a bad player. Just has pluses and minuses. AK didn't give the roster much in the way of size to help Vucevic inside. Often times, the Bulls were playing with DeRozan and Caruso as the forwards.
Context matters. Vooch may not be a bad center with the right players around him and on the right contract (less than $5 million annually), but he pretty much can't be the right player at $20 million annually.
Agreed. $20 million is too much. Bulls don't have tall athletic interior players such as McDaniels, Naz Reid, Toppin, Jonathan Isaac, etc. Bam Adebayo would be perfect.
they have to go from the rotation. I'm not confident they can move Vuc, but make him a 12 minute backup
LaVine I'm pretty confident they will move by any means necessary
Then who is the Bull's starting center for the 36 minutes? There aren't enough better than average centers to go around. What teams will trade with the Bulls for LaVine before the season begins? Am skeptical if there will be any teams who will want LaVine until after LaVine is seen back on the court. May have a better chance at the mid season trade deadline in the winter.
have to scout the league, get someone in a LaVine trade or another method that may be overpaid but at least can run and jump
Bulls have had 36 minutes of below average center play already, so you're really not losing much
I don't think LaVine's injury moves his value from the toilet to the...sub-toilet(?), and don't think there's any chance he rehabs value by playing for the Bulls this season. Also, in-season trades are too complicated for this executive group. Have to do it now.
Like I keep saying, I don't think they'll have to move a real asset with Zach, and shouldn't. But maybe packaging him with Caruso gets it done. Or using Dalen Terry or the protected Portland pick.
Nicolas Claxton is a player who could be what the Bulls are missing. Claxton is a free agent. Imagine that many teams will be interested in Claxton.
I'm with you. Lonzo was the key piece to this team. If he had recovered, then you could have made smaller moves to get good enough to truly compete. Coby & Ayo's improvements would have helped prep for the future and reduce the load for the main starters , rather than being required to "be competitive"
Not that I think the Bulls are smart enough to pull it off, but what I see this offseason is there are a lot of quality players who should be available.
Stars
Trae (26)
Mitchell (28)
Durant (36)?
Jimmy (36)?
Harden (35)?
PG (35)?
Kawhi (a really old 32)?
Zion (24)
Lebron (40)?
AD (32)?
Solid Starters
Ingram (27)
Murray (28)
Garland (25)
Allen (26)
Herro (25)
M Porter Jr (26)
Marginal Starters
Toppin 26
Overpaid reclamation projects
Ayton (26)
Jordan Poole (25)
Jerami Grant (31)
-----------------
There's different directions that can be gone there, but that's a lot of guys who are available. Lots of them are younger than the guys we've got (DeMar 35, Vuc 34, Caruso 30, LaVine 29 with older legs). Several teams could use the insurance savings they'll likely get from Lonzo.
there was the ESPN (I think, don't want to look it up) report that the Bulls would try and star hunt this offseason. Everyone laughed it off, mostly because it's not something fans (Darnell Mayberry's fans, as the Bulls would say...) want, but the Bulls do have the right combination of desperation, idiocy, and big salaries to obtain a veteran
I'd much rather AKME makes some wheel spinning move to get an actually-good-if-overpaid/misused player versus giving them runway for a multi-year tank and rebuild
Given AKs track record and the Bulls assets, I would expect him to over value distressed assets other teams don't love. He's also shown a willingness to bring in talent and disregard fit. Of the guys on the list I think, he'll pursue a lot of the younger "stars" who may have fizzled elsewhere. Ayton, Ingram, Trae, Porter Jr., Garland, maybe Herro.
A Vuc, Lonzo and the Portland pick for Ayton makes sense for both teams. Bulls free up cap space and get a starting center who better fits Coby/Ayo timeline. Portland gets the full use of their picks for a rebuild. Maybe you throw in Terry to even things out.
I also expect the Bulls to aggressively pursue a bigger named player like Porter Jr or Ingram dangling Caruso and draft picks. I think AK is feeling the heat and I expect him to do the same thing he did when he got here - exchange future assets for guys who can get on the floor now.
It would be the most AK possible thing to trade away a bunch of future picks right as we're starting to get out from under the previous picks we sent out... So I suspect you're right.
I honestly wouldn't hate the Lonzo/Vooch for Ayton trade. And I'd be fine sending Terry out with them so that I don't have to read idiots online talk about how much Terry is improving. Improving from not being an NBA-caliber player to somebody who might be able to make the end of a team's bench is not impressive.
I could see AK pulling off that trade and then also bringing in MPJ and touting those as his big moves only for MPJ to suffer another back injury and never play again.
I think Ingram is the guy. NO is basically in a place where they have to trade him for nothing to get under the tax. He's due to for a big extension but he's not a max player. He basically can take over Zach's salary slot.
They just have to find a place to dump Zach.
I could see Ingram too because he absolutely doesn't fit next to DeMar since they both like to operate out of the midrange.
Could you imagine a starting five of Coby, AC, DeMar, Ingram and Ayton? Defenses would just have to clog the paint.
if they got Ingram I'd be fine letting DeRozan walk
I am more into this idea today.
you're right that NO may be desperate to just reduce payroll. They also have no center (Larry Nance plays half the games) and are in a bird rights trap with Valenciunas
Would Vuc+Caruso for Ingram be enough for the Pelicans? Saves $6M next season and they don't have to sign a free agent center.
Of course it adds $6M (actually more because Ingram has a trade kicker) to the Bulls, but like you said they are looking to dump Zach by any means necessary anyway. And like I said below I'm not worried about a fit between Ingram and DeRozan bc they can just sign/trade DeRozan somewhere and I wouldn't be as concerned with the floor bottoming out (though Ingram will likely get hurt and they will bottom out)
Hope that the Bulls are realistic. White and Ayo had great seasons. Appreciate how hard that they play. Realistically White and Ayo are nowhere near Mitchell, Brunson and SGA as far as talent. White and Ayo are just solid role players, not stars. White can't become Mitchell, Brunson and SGA through practice. Mitchell, Brunson and SGA have great natural talent that can't be taught. Am not saying that White and Ayo shouldn't be part of an improved Bull's roster.
It's gonna be KD. Somehow he's going to get KD in a Bulls uniform and KD will miss half the regular season partially due to being old and partially due to not wanting to play for this joke of a franchise. They'll make the playoffs and maybe even make the second round if they get some luck on their side, but it'll ultimately fizzle out without producing any results.
that would honestly be fun if vuc is gone. or even zach
Portland is so screwed because they play in the West. Next season they may be the only West team not playing for the play-in at least.
Maybe they try the 'rehab Zach's value' play? It's not going to happen here.
Would they do Grant+Ayton for Zach+Lonzo. Can give them back their first (not much value as it's lotto-protected, but does allow them to trade firsts again), get the Lonzo insurance payout.
I think they' have to have Zach available for other moves, but
Vuc+Lonzo for Ayton might be a workable framework. We could give them back the pick they owe us that we're never going to actually get anyway.
That would make it a kind of face-saving move for both teams. Portland gets to say "We got another pick back! And we got a cheaper "steady hand" so we won't be any worse. And they get to save a fair amount of money.
Ayton sucks, but he doesn't suck as bad as Vuc, and he's much younger, so there's plenty of time to rehab his value. A season down the road, he's an acceptable expiring contract with some upside. A year down the road, Vuc is just roadkill.
From Portland's perspective, doesn't seem a good trade. Would have to pay Ball and Vucevic a total of $41 million for next season and $20 for Vucevic the following season. And trading a 26 year old for a 34 year old center.
No. Ball's contract is 80% covered by insurance. Hence, they will only be paying him ~$4M. Vuc is guaranteed $21.5M, so in total they're taking on $25.5M in true salary.
Ayton guaranteed $70M over the same period. So this reduces Portland's true salary expenditure by ~$45M.
And since Ball is expiring, it frees up $15M in cap space for the 25-26 season too.
$45M is a huge amount. By comparison, that's like double the amount of the league's annual revenue sharing amount. For a rebuilding small market team, that's a huge financial boon.
Thank you for enlightening me. Didn't completely understand how the insurance works. Portland would still have to pay Vucevic for the two seasons left on his contract $20M and $21.481. So, Portland would save $24 not $45M. ($70 - $46= $24) (the $46 is $4 for the Ball contract and $41.5 for the Vucevic contract) over the next two seasons. Is that correct? Still don't think it makes sense for Portland. Yes Ayton is overpaid and is certainly not an Embiid but Ayton is not a bad center either.
If you're Portland would you rather have Ayton or $25 million in savings, your full picks and a young player? I think when they traded for Ayton, they envisioned their young guys being closer than what they are.
I'm not sure the Nulls should be going after Ayton given his extreme aversion to cold weather, but he's better than Vuc.
Ayton is not a bad center in the same way that Vuc is not a bad center.
That is, people don't like saying he's a bad center, but... he's a bad center.
Hope that the Bulls stay as far as way as possible with some of the players that you listed such as Trae, Leonard, Harden and PG.
Here's my 5 things I would do -
1. Let Demar walk or S&T. It's a trap. He's been remarkably healthy but he was showing signs of slowing over 2nd half of last season. If he drops off a cliff, tge Bulls are screwed.
2. Trade Zach. It's over. Depending 9n how the summer plays out, may be able to get some value.
3. Replace Vuc. Of course try to trade him but no matter what happens his replacement should be on the roster in either the form of a young player or a better vet.
4. Trade Caruso. This is obvious. You have multiple guys who can play the position and the Bulls really don't want to get in a situation where their paying him 25 million a year to split time with Ayo. You can get a 1st and you need draft capital.
5. Resign Pat. You're going to be able to get him on a better deal than you probably should. Maybe Detroit decides to overpay buy unless that happens I think he's the kind of toolsy guy who can fit in with next steps.
You're basically building around Coby, Ayo, Pat, Dalen, Phillips, #11 picks and whatever young players and picks you can claw out of Derozan. Vuc, Caruso and Lavine trades. It's a total abandonment of the current team. A recognition that none of the main guys will be around when the team is relevant again.
If you did that, you'd probably have enough non negative assets to bounce back relatively quickly in the East after a tank year. You may be even be competitive in free agency or on the trade market. The team has decent role players on the perimeter. Need to get some young bigs and try to get a younger star.
Rumors swirling that the Sixers are targeting certain players and LaVine's name popped up. George, OG, Bron, Butler and Ingram were the other players. If they're really targeting these names LaVine has to be the easiest one to get. Signs of life of offloading Zach, anyone but Tobias please.
Zach may be the easiest to get but he's also probably the worst of those players. Maybe you can argue he's better than OG but he's also way more expensive.
With that being said, I do think Zach could fit in pretty well on that team if he'd accept being the third option and basically just a glorified shooter (Klay Thompson-esque). I think George would be the best fit on that team other than the fact that he seems to struggle to stay healthy. Does Philly want two of its three stars to be injury prone?
LeBron would obviously be a big pickup but is he that great at his age now, and how would he fit with Embiid who already operates out of the midrange and has the ball in his hands a lot?
They already tried the Jimmy thing. I guess Simmons isn't there anymore which is good, but I guess I don't see it. Same with Ingram. Both of those guys operate out of the midrange which I don't think Philly would want next to Embiid.
In my opinion, George and LaVine fit the best. I think George will go to Philly. They've got the money to pay him. If Zach happens to go to Philly though, it would actually work out well for the Bulls since Philly can fully absorb Zach's contract into their cap space. The Bulls wouldn't technically need to bring back any salary in return.
At some point we are going to need to add some rookies/young players who both have high ceilings and can actually crack the rotation in the immediate term. I keep wondering if the Pistons might be dumb enough to make a pick swap the centerpiece of a Zach trade (sad though it is that's about the most I can reasonably imagine getting in return). Some interesting players that will be available with that 5th pick.
I think the problem is this draft isn't particularly strong. I'm not sure there are any players that have high upside and are also already good enough to get immediate playing time and actually contribute nightly.
Like there are some guys who are high floor guys that could probably be impactful from the start, but those guys aren't expected to get significantly better than they currently are (low ceiling). There are also the guys expected to go at the top of the draft that do have higher ceilings and will likely get playing time because they'll be going to bad teams. But even though they'll get playing time, they likely won't be particularly good for a while.
How about Tyler Smith? Smith looks like a talent and the Bulls need size.
Don't know much about him other than he's projected to go in the 20s. I don't really see AK trading down this year.
Givony has a rumor that Bulls looking to move up and draft Clingan
https://www.bleachernation.com/bulls/2024/05/31/report-chicago-bulls-up-dc/
this isn't that crazy to me because the Bulls do need a starting center, immediately. I'll defer to the experts on whether Clingan can take that role right away.
trade idea:
Bulls move from #11 to #7 (Portland), Portland goes down 4 spots and in return removes protection of the pick they owe the Bulls, make it two second round picks immediately and obligation over
Who do the Bulls target with #7?
I think YFBB is proposing this if Clingan is available at 7. From the hype I've been seeing lately, I don't think that'll be the case.
Proposal that is probably dumb for dozens of reasons:
Rockets get Caruso
Bulls get Adams & pick 3
Why the Rockets would do it: They get a known high level player to replace Adams (who's been out over a year at this point) and just tack on the equivalent of pick 8-12 in a normal draft.
Why the Bulls would do it: Get a (likely) center for the future in Clingan and get an insurance payout for Adams to appease Jerry. Plus Adams can help Clingan learn the ropes at center.
I'd be fine with this, but also sounds way too complicated for AK to pull off.
they just traded for Adams knowing he was out all last season, the idea is for him to play for them this year. This took them out of the Vuc market, they were barely plausible before
Well, I said it was probably a dumb idea for a reason. Though I still think it could work because Adams' knees are pretty well shot and Caruso is a great player on an even better contract, but AK doesn't have the chops to pull it off.
I really like this idea. Clingan reminds me of Rudy Hobert in the high end and Omer Asik on the low end. Love his IQ, defense, on court demeanor. Don't like his agility, at all. He looks slow to me. But at 7'3 how fast do you have to be? Can he still be growing into his body? Good gamble to take. Can't say I'm vouching for the guy though.
I wonder if Memphis could be in play if the Bulls want to offload Vucevic? Jackson prefers to play as a power forward and is a great fit next to Vucevic inside (they complement each other well).
Something like Vucevic/Caruso/Bulls 1st round pick for Marcus Smart/Grizzlies 1st round pick. Bulls move up a couple spots in the draft and pick up Smart who is a Caruso replacement. Grizzlies get a new center plus Caruso to replace Smart.
nobody complements Vucevic well because he's garbage. But if they could convince themselves of that, they're still looking to win the trade. I don't think the upgrade from Smart to Caruso is enough of a win for them, especially throwing in the pick swap
They have some dead money in Kennard+Rose (Kennard a team option so MEM doesn't need to move it) that works salary-wise. But that's expiring, and they're taking Vuc for 2 more years at more money. Man the Vuc contract reeks