Bulls free agency watch (for them to do something stupid)

as the league buzzes with activity, The Chicago Bulls only provide entertainment through ridicule

It was a helpful re-setting of expectations from the Bulls over the weekend. While their drafting of a 18 year old prospect signaled perhaps a change in philosophy, the subsequent trade acquiring Isaac Okoro reminded us of some AKME-era dogma:

1. Exploit market inefficiency of acquiring low-ceiling players who aren’t on the floor in the playoffs because you are instead aiming for a team ‘competitive every night’

2. Have no idea how much to pay their players

3. Have no idea what other assets (draft picks, over or under-valued contracts) could provide for the team

4. See a ‘full’ roster and not realize you can change that through trades and simply cutting bait on past mistakes

While the Bulls aren’t under the Salary Cap, they are ~$53M under their self-imposed hard cap of the luxury tax line, and can add salary in trades and through the Non-Taxpayer Mid Level Exception ($14M).

This would be of value to normal NBA teams, but the Bulls are run by perhaps¹ the worst front office group in the league. So there really is no use in speculating what a normal (let alone well-run) team would do, which is use that capacity to gain assets and take risky swings on young talent.

So maybe Bulls fans’ entertainment - besides adopting league-wide interest or taking on another team for more rooting interest - will be to try and figure out what they’ll do? That way, we can both laugh at it for being dumb plus praise ourselves for being smart?

Item 1 is a contract extension for Josh Giddey, likely signed before free agency even begins for no reason whatsoever. It will immediately be a bad contract, yet we will be told by the same people who thought the Lonzo Ball extension was a good idea (and then those same people months later say we should not be surprised it’d have no trade value).

And then…I really don’t see much else happening. Yes, I previously included Lonzo Ball in that ‘likely staying’ group, but I had missed that Ball was not included in Marc Eversley’s state-of-the-roster sell to fans, he merely included everyone else. And I misread just how severely the Bulls don’t value draft picks, thinking they were holding out on a first for Lonzo that was never going to come.

So that’s why I look at my four rules of AKME team building and it’s hard to see anything available for the other players:

Coby White - a playoff-caliber player² that could get a first round pick or two, but the Bulls don’t want those

Ayo Dosunmu - already the archetype of the caliber of player the Bulls want, meaning not good enough for a contending team to desire. Otherwise, it’d be cool to see an Ayo trade to the Rockets for Cam Whitmore.

Nikola Vucevic - no contender wants him at that salary, and a non-contender doesn’t want him at all. Would have to be a running-in-place team like, well, the Bulls. I could see the Celtics or Bucks working something out where they take Vuc because he makes less than what they can send away, and give the Bulls nothing of value.

Patrick Williams - Bulls do not understand player contract value, so they will be surprised when told they’d have to pay a team in assets to take Williams.

Jevon Carter, Dalen Terry - cut candidates, and while the Bulls could perhaps use a second round pick to get a team to take on their contracts, they don’t have many of those and seem to actively resist them.

Kevin Huerter, Zach Collins - useful as expiring salary, but the only value in those is if you’re taking on a big long-term contract. Which I’d be in favor of, but they won’t be.

And for free agents they can sign, it’ll probably be someone the caliber of Jalen Smith, who was not quite that young and not quite that good and now is an underwater contract after the first of a three-year deal.

And that gives us further reason to believe the Bulls PR signal that they will re-sign unrestricted Free Agent Tre Jones. Jones, nearly the same age as Ayo, was salary flotsam in the Zach LaVine trade from the Spurs, but he ‘impressed’ in the mere 18 games he played as a Bull where he hit over 50% of his threes after being at 30.2% in 279 games with the Spurs. Guess which sample the Bulls will emphasize?

See? That last joke was fun. The Bulls are a laughingstock, and best to be on the right side of that dynamic as the league embarks on what should be another crazy transaction season.

1. Joe Dumars in New Orleans is coming on strong and fast.

2. speculatively