Legit shocker: Bulls make minor, no-downside trade

AKME showing a pulse heading into the deadline?

Heartwarming, encouraging stuff from the Bulls on Saturday night. No, not the skeleton crew on the court getting lucky (again!) with three point shooting and clutch performance to get a win in Miami¹.

But the front office getting involved with the rest of the league, helping facilitate a trade between the Kings and Cavaliers. The framework for this Cavs-Kings deal was first reported by Michael Scotto of HoopsHype earlier on Saturday, mentioning the need for a third team to take Saric (as Cavaliers are deep into 2nd apron).

This was another example of me seeing dozens of these ‘facilitations’ happen all year and I always say to myself ‘Bulls could’ve gotten in on this’, the Bulls actually got in on it: for taking Dario Saric and the remainder of his $5.4M expiring salary, the Bulls received two second round picks.

• a 2027 second-rounder from the Cavs that originally belonged to Denver

• a 2029 second-rounder from the Kings that will be the least favorable of picks among Detroit, Milwaukee and New York

These are not very valuable picks, even for second rounders. But that’s not a complaint, it’s actually a commendation! Second round picks have been treated as completely useless by this front office, so them actually recognizing their utility for future moves, if not taking a chance on a prospect, is improvement.

(now watch, they’ll sell them for cash considerations…)

While a lot of attention has been given to the many expiring contracts for solid contributors, highlighted by Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, the Bulls have always had another asset heading into this trade season: their payroll room under the luxury tax.

They also had a more subjective asset in open roster space. Technically, as KC Johnson always reminds us every summer, the roster was ‘full’. But only technically, as there are several players who could be easily cut without jeopardizing the ‘competitive’ mission statement of this regular season.

You need to cut the players before doing the trade, and in this case Jevon Carter was waived. Carter was a bust of a relatively-praised free agent signing three summers ago, never cracking Billy Donovan’s rotation². Ironically, the Bulls had so many players missing that Carter had a necessary contribution to that win on the night he was waived.

Is this a sign that the front office and coaching staff is willing to do any move that’s not focused towards winning the most games possible this season?

Maybe? This move with Carter is the literally smallest degree of forward thinking. Heck, with Saric being a big, this trade has a ‘win-now’ component of balancing the roster in the wake of so many injuries to Donovan’s frontcourt deployment.

Whether they’d make a move with one of their rotation players would be a much more glaring indicator. They have until Thursday to see if they can do this again, and dare to dream it’ll be more impactful.

1. MyHornets won their 6th straight so the Bulls did well to keep them off their heels!

2. always seemed odd to me,