Are Bulls willing to sacrifice 'competitive' for 'building'?

this trade deadline is an opportunity

I dare say: Arturas Karnisovas and the entire front office¹ beat the blogger to this year’s trade deadline preview.

Big picture goals, ranked:

1. Acquire a superstar, even a busted-ass one

2. Acquire assets that better position you to acquire a superstar this summer using the following trade chips:

   1. Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu - Bulls should know what it will take to re-sign both. If it’s not a number you think is team-friendly and tradeable in the future, then trade them now.

   2. Tre Jones and/or Jalen Smith, if you can get a not-backend first rounder, trade them now.

   3. Other expiring salary (and Isaac Okoro) - these aren’t worth a first rounder on their own, but if you take another team’s multi-year salary, you can get draft picks attached.

In their facilitation of a Dario Saric salary dump over the weekend, the Bulls actually utilized one of their other trade chips: current breathing room under the 2025-26 luxury tax. Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic reported today that they still plan on using the room they have left (~$8M).

multiple league sources indicated to The Athletic that the Bulls have signaled to teams that they’re available as a hub to facilitate money for apron and tax-paying teams, which they helped Cleveland do in this deal.

Teams looking to get under tax line/aprons or maybe just save on their end of season payroll bill include Dallas, Boston, Magic, Sixers, Raptors, Nuggets, plus some teams that may want to get farther below to acquire players for the stretch run like OKC, Portland, Miami.

On the other end of the payroll spectrum are teams ‘competing’ as a salary dumping ground with even more capacity than the Bulls, like Milwaukee, Charlotte, Washington, Utah, and Brooklyn.

What the Bulls have that these other teams lack is rotation-quality players on expiring contracts. So, if trading with the Bulls: instead of merely saving money they wouldn’t be adversely affecting their team and perhaps even improve it. That should get the Bulls a better return!

But this brings to mind the fundamental problem: the Bulls, openly delusional, see themselves also as a team looking to be as good as possible in the short-term.

This Saric acquisition was a no-downside move. Heck, Billy Donovan was talking like Saric would be in the current injury-riddled frontcourt rotation². The Zach LaVine trade a year ago was a solid move as well, and they may have actually been smart in figuring LaVine’s loser vortex meant any replacement - they didn’t scout or seek the players in that return, they were merely the matching salary - would not harm their short-term goals.

But I’m not convinced they have really changed their self-assessment. Remember two deadlines ago when Andre Drummond - a useful rotation player on an expiring contract - was kept past the deadline in lieu of receiving multiple second round picks.

In Lorenzi’s report it’s already being implied that the Bulls will pursue a path with their cap flexibility that is not changing direction: they will do next to nothing at the deadline, and try to acquire a free agent this summer.

This is believable because it is typical Bulls strategy:

1. kicks the can down the road

2. has built-in excuses for when it doesn’t work, in this case the good free agents will be retained by their incumbent teams

I think there is a market for Coby and Ayo currently to where they can get a first rounder, and even more if they package another rotation player and long-term salary relief.

My favorite of my own trade ideas³ is a deal with Portland, who owe a first rounder to the Bulls that conveys if they make the playoffs. The Blazers are currently in the Western Conference version of play-in purgatory (so, drastically more difficult competition than the East), and want to make the playoffs not only as a positive step for their own player development, but to extinguish the obligation and free up future picks to be traded.

The Blazers have some near-dead expiring salary in Matisse Thybulle ($11.5M), and barely enough room under the tax to take White but would gain several million in breathing room if taking Ayo or Jones. This would help their playoff push, and they could give the Bulls a little extra by reducing pick protection from lottery to top-4. This way, the pick is extremely-likely conveyed this summer and the Bulls will have two mid-round selections in a purportedly talent-rich draft.

This is a no-brainer type of move for the Bulls, except: they would get worse immediately. They’ve yet to demonstrate they’re willing to do this.

If they were true to their longstanding goal of competitive being unassuming and non-embarrassing enough to stay employed, well, their team is fighting for 10th with or without Coby/Ayo/Tre. But they have instead been more in alignment with the partially-contradictory goal of never taking a step back, and trying to give themselves the best chance at making the real⁴ playoffs.

Instead of Jevon Carter, if the Bulls instead dealt any of “Billy’s guys”⁵, that would be an actual indicator that they’re changing direction. Any other reporting suggesting change is not to be believed, especially after their ‘laying groundwork’ fiasco last year.

1. Marc Eversley, maybe 2 more (sweat)suits, John “small staff” Paxson still in the building for some reason, and Billy Donovan?

2. that you can’t rely on a 2nd round pick and/or two-way player to usurp the turbo-washed Saric is another indictment on this team’s player development

3. I wasteway too much time daydreaming such things, especially wasteful if it’s the Bulls

4. it’s the East, so this isn’t even really true

5. for the record: Coby, Ayo, Jones, Smith, fucking Vuc, Isaac Okoro, Kevin Huerter, and Zach Collins if he was healthy.