I'm glad Matt wrote this article because this is something I've been so bewildered by these past few months. Everyone from local to national media seems to have accepted that Giddey is getting at least $25 million a year this summer, and I don't get why. Even the Cash Consideration guys seem to have accepted that.
Has everyone forgotten that just one year ago he was played off the floor in the playoffs and told by his boss he'd no longer be starting the coming year? He then proceeded to be so terrible for the first half of this year on a team that was basically begging him to be good that they started benching him in fourth quarters.
The guy had a really solid two month stretch during a time where teams are notoriously tanking (and a lot of them were this year for Flagg) or intentionally resting their players for the playoffs. Don't get me wrong, I hope Giddey's two month stretch was real. But that two month stretch doesn't just erase everything that came before it, and it absolutely does not warrant guaranteeing him $100-150 million over the next four or five years.
As Matt said, there is practically no one to bid against the Bulls this summer except for the Nets. And I don't really see them having any desire for Giddey. Offer him a four year deal in the $18-20 million range with the final year being a team option. He can either accept that or take the QO. If he proves his two month stretch is actually just who he is now, you pay him $25-30 million a year starting next summer.
Another red flag is look how much better the Thunder looked without him this year. I know that some of that improvement was that the team was a year older, but they were so much better. There is a definite ceiling to a team with Giddey as the lead ball handler and that is the seventh seed in the east.
That’s not a red flag that’s development of a formidable team. 1 year older and 1 year better. Giddey engineered one of the best post all star break stretches in the NBA including beating teams fighting for playoff position aka Lakers twice, Indy, Orlando, Miami, Denver, OKc and I could go on.
Gottlieb has seemingly pivoted to 'insider', where he is not saying what he thinks makes sense but if you're AK (based on his impression of him) does it make sense.
I suppose that's a valuable perspective but not on a fan-driven DAILY show, it's more like annoying. Especially when he has to keep saying it right after saying $30M for Giddey isn't bad
I think you are mischaracterizing Giddey's development. He started out at the beginning of the season, looking lost, but then improved steadily from there. By mid season his play was solid, and after Lavine was traded he played like a star.
Overall he had a good year, his stat totals show that. The idea that he was terrible until the last two months is just not right.
Maybe I am being hard on Giddey. I'm willing to accept that. But my overall point still stands. Giddey's season as a whole was not amazing last year, and throughout his first four years in the NBA he has looked anywhere from decent to disappointing.
That doesn't scream $30 million a year. It especially doesn't scream $30 million a year in an offseason where basically only one other team could even offer Giddey that kind of money and that team doesn't seem interested.
The point is the Bulls should play hardball with Giddey because he hasn't proven to be worth $25-30 million beyond a two month stint and they have all the leverage anyway. Maybe that's mean, but the Bulls need to stop handing big contracts to guys who haven't yet proven to be worth those contracts.
'mid-season' is not the All-Star break, I don't recall him playing much better by the time those back to back beatdowns versus the Pistons occurred where he was -29 in both games (Zach was already gone then too).
it's true that he was better, in that Donovan wasn't benching him in the 4th quarter anymore, but I don't remember him being 'solid'. Maybe he was doing what was advertised: big counting stats and negative impact
remember he was injured off an on as well, ultimately playing 19 games after the break.
Matt has thoughtful and insightful commentary, but he won’t let this go. If the Bulls make some surprise run next year and Giddey blossoms into an All Star, Matt Peck will continue focusing on the flaws in his game. Make playoffs outright and win a series and then lose next round, Matt will start cooking Giddey. And it’s not objective cooking, it’s a safety mechanism to refuse to take ownership when he was completely wrong about the Alex Caruso trade and how valuable Giddey has become. We keep talking about these potential deals teams will make, but the league hasn’t event started making outside offers or trades because the season is still running through the finals. The comments he makes of cap constrained teams and lack of financial flexibility is built around false premise that significant movement won’t happen post finals and pre draft. It will, inevitably it will. And major pieces and minor pieces could be moved entirely changing the landscape of teams cap space. Nonetheless, Matt will trash Giddey until he takes his last breadth and if I am wrong, Peck, please make us aware of your criteria to get behind Josh Giddey?
My guess is his criteria for getting behind Giddey is fairly simple and the same as mine: Giddey needs to prove his hot streak last year isn't just a streak, but actually who he is. He needs to play that well during the regular season and the postseason. And he needs to become a good enough defender that teams don't constantly target him in the postseason, which is what the Heat did in the play-in to great effect.
Definitely not a tanker-stan. I'm not against tanking, but I'd prefer not to if it's possible to still build a competitor without it.
With that being said, I don't really care to see the Bulls squeak their way into the playoffs via the play-in and then get absolutely dominated by a team that's actually good.
OKC easily won that. Caruso has been huge for them thru the playoffs and had a killer game 2. Giddey is nowhere near being able to make meaningful contributions on a title or contending team. Im not impressed by the triple doubles in March against scrub teams, outright taking teams or playoff squads who are starting to rest. Offer him 4/84 max or he can take the QO. Him as oneof your bes players is recipe for a 38 win squad
OkC got a player that fits their team but Giddey’s trade value is higher and an exponentially better fit for this upstar Bulls team. Caruso is going on 32, giddey is going on 23. Makes little sense to keep an older bench player on a rebuilding team and get no assets in return. Giddey shown flashes not only of high level play, he showed a large stretch of all NBA and All Star Caliber point guard play in meaningful games that willed the bulls in the playin. We won 39 games. I think a reasonable expectation this year is to look for 44-50 wins this year. Giddey is a cornerstone franchise point guard the Bulls can build around. A modern Day Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in bulls red blender. The kids upside is high level All NBA franchise point guard and league wide star.
I'm fine with $20M, I think. That's bench player money right now for some teams and Giddey is young enough that there's upside even if I'm not a fan.
$25M is probably value neutral at best and anything above that could easily turn into negative value.
However, one point Matt doesn't address that is critical is that teams value the security of a long-term contract, particularly when the cap is rising.
Therefore, I'd be in favor of an extension at 20 over some years because the back end is very likely to look good. My ideal scenario would be to front load the contract so the back end is more tradeable and valuable in the time period where this team could be theoretically contending again.
while that's true, why are there no rumblings of another team wanting Giddey on a sign-and-trade?
this is all perception and hard to pin down, but I do think $20M would be around a range where that would be a desirable contract. You still have the risk of him turning back into a pumpkin and then it's immediately a bad contract.
Yeah, I don't know. The only RFA I've heard trade speculation about is Kuminga, and that's because he's asking for a max contract and GSW doesn't want to pay him, and has salary cap issues anyway.
even so, at least there's rumors about him, that he would shine in a bigger role. I don't think other teams want to give Josh Giddey a bigger role than he already enjoys with the Bulls. Bulls should offer even less money figuring that!
I should've clarified that I didn't think the Pat contract was THAT bad at the time, it was a bit unnecessary but if he just stayed the same would've been OK. Pat regressed though which made it so much worse. The Bulls had the benefit of inside information on Pat's health and motivation so they should've known better than my dumb ass
They signed him after being out 6 months with a weird injury, before the injury he had a 1month stretch of him being a no3 level starter. Didn't have to give him the years or the money.
Slightly off-topic, but CHSN is finally coming to Xfinity eight months after it launched. The catch is that you have to subscribe to the Ultimate tier which is any extra $20/month. There was some talk about CHSN discontinuing their OTA broadcast when they got the Xfinity deal, but I didn’t see anything about that.
LOL. It took a lot of effort to extract my household from Xfinity after I finally had my fill of their bullshit. I wouldn't go back to them if they were offering me the 96 Bulls, let alone the depressing slop this organization has been putting on the floor for the last 10+ seasons.
I believe that I cancelled Xfinity tv like four years ago. Between all the fees and the channels I never watched, it was over $200 a month. I was on their website and the ultimate tier is around $150/month without equipment. The real issue is that there are $50 in local broadcast and RSN fees in there.
I did some analysis on this that was clarifying for me. First, look at the league salaries. I broke it down into groups of 30. So, for example, the average salary for a top 30 player (players 1-30) is $45.4M. Median is $44.2, max is $55.7 and min is $36.7.
I rate Giddy at roughly the 85th best player in the league. That'd put him toward the bottom of the "3rd best players on a team" (guys 60-90) or around the top of "4th best players on a team" (guys 90-120).
Adding 10% to this year's salaries (because the 25-26 cap is going up by 10%) the 3rd best player category has a median of $25M and the 4th best player cat has a median of $18M.
That, to me, is the range I would be consider offering Giddey.
Fundamentally, I don't see him ever being better than the 3rd best guy on a good team. More realistically, I think that's optimistic. But I don't think we are screwed if we pay him that.
I would probably start my offer at 4yrs/$85M with incentives. If he wants more than that, he can go sign an offer sheet, which I would match if it's less than 4/$100 or 5/$125. If it's above that, I do a S&T and say goodbye.
I agree with your assessment of his ability. But I question if it is wise to pay your third best player before you acquire your first and second best player. Especially when the effects of the CBA are going to start freezing player movement. I also think that teams wage structures are going to shift dramatically and that the going rate for a third best player may not be what it was during the past 2-3 seasons. So I agree with Matt that this a pretty unnecessary risk for what is a pretty minimal reward.
I dunno. I see two points that make me think it's ok
1. I think under the current CBA, the salary cap is next year will be about $155M. Give or take a few, that means a team could have about $55-60M in salary and still sign two max FAs. Obviously a team has to be smart about that, but what I'm saying is that you need a couple guys to of some ability to set as a starting point for FAs
2. Also, you need tradable salary. Most of the time these days, what seems to be happening rather than outright free agency switches, is that a player signals that he wants to leave and works with his current team on a trade to the new team then an extension. From that perspective, having a couple guys available to trade back is pretty important.
Obviously you still try to drive the best bargain you can, but I'm not too worried about being stuck with him as long as we get him at a reasonable price.
I'd agree that 85th overall is about right. But if you look at players 23 and younger he's probably in the top 20. You expect all those players that age to improve, so you're not paying only for their current skills, but also their future improvement.
Could Giddey, or any other young players, plateau at 23 and not get any better? Sure, it could happen, but it's unlikely.
So, yeah, $20 million per year for current production is reasonable. But expected production is what gets you to the $30 million most people are expecting. It could be that a true market won't develop and we can get away with paying something less, we'll have to wait and see.
I think Mike kind of addresses that in his comment above when he says he doesn't see Giddey ever being better than the third best player on a good team.
If you're truly trying to build a contender, you're most likely going to have two max slots filled. That's roughly $100 million of your $155 million cap. Do you really want to be using another $30 million on your third best player? You'd basically have to fill the rest of your roster with guys on vet minimums.
As to your point, I think it would be fine paying Giddey 5/150 as a third star, depending on how our roster is built. For example, let's say we get Giannis and KP this year. Giannis at $55, KP at $31, and Giddey at $30 still leaves us about $70 to spend up to the tax line.
Even if we truly got two veteran max players, it would be tight, but still doable.
And we need to remember that locking in Giddey now for 5 years makes him cheaper every year going forward as a percent of the salary cap. If the cap goes up 8% a year, in 5 years the cap will be $225 million and the tax line $275m. Josh's $30m could look like a very good deal.
I thought about that, but what I came to is that his position relative to his age peer group isn't all that great. Two ways to think about it:
1. I have him in the mid 30s among his peer group. While he'll rise from 85th as older players decline, new, younger players come into the league every year (e.g. Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Matas, etc). So I don't think his position in the league as a whole is going to change much. Maybe he goes from 85 to 65. But even that sort of advancement will probably take a few years, so paying him based on those expectations doesn't seem wise. I don't think he's ever more than the 3rd best guy on a team, so in a way I'm already pricing him based on expected improvement. I think now He's more like a 4th best starter and his current salary value is probably in the $17-21M range.
2. His peer group ensures that he's got very limited upside. He will never be better than Luka, Victor, Cade, Ant, Haliburton, Shai, Banchero, Mobley, JJJ, Garland, Maxey, Jalen Williams, Ja, Sengun, Wagner, or probably Lamelo. Add in a steady flow of 1 or 2 stars a year, and the possibility that other guys further down the pecking order blow up (Amen Thompson, Matas, Brandon Miller type guys), who have a better chance of blowing up than I think Giddey does.
Basically, paying him $22-25M a year is already paying him for future expectations.
See, I think most players still improve significantly from age 22 until they peak. For example, Giddey at age 22 was better than Lavine and Derozan were, and those guys both made it into the top 50 later on, with multiple All Star games.
You may think Giddey will not make it that far, which is fine, but that would be the exception, not the rule.
Those many other guys who are also young and already better than him are gonna keep improving too, so his relative positioning isn't likely to improve much, if at all.
Not to those players sure, but to everyone else. He just needs to keep improving enough to stay ahead of the new players coming into the league, and pass up the older guys as they start to fade.
This is what a lot of people don't get about "age" relevance. It's age and experience in the league. Players don't just get better because they get older; they get better because they spend more of their time practicing; they get better coaching, they get better nutrition, they get better injury treatment, and they get a LOT more playing time. A player going into their 5th season at age 23 with over 8000 minutes played in the NBA is not going to progress the same as a player the same age going into his second season with 1000 minutes played in the NBA
Lot of different factors influence development for sure. But the body of evidence suggests age is the most important predictor. Physical maturity is probably a big part of that.
We discussed this on here a few years ago, around when Zach was 22 and a lot of us were frustrated with his course of development.
It seem like there was a study by Zach Lowe or someone, that looked at the progression of young players. Whether they came out as freshman or upperclassmen, whether they played big NBA minutes right away or sat on the bench, whether they played on good teams or losers. The conclusion of the study was that age is the biggest factor in a player's improvement.
Somebody on here might remember that study, otherwise I will try to find it.
This is exactly my point. You’re fixated on age. I’m not disputing that at all. But you’re comparing him to all other under-23 players, in which case age is the control variable, and then all those other factors come into play.
Even if 75% of development has to do with age (I made that up, and I’d doubt that number), it is exactly 0% relevant. In fact, it’d actually work against him as he’s on the older part of under-23, no?
But even so, if all those factors are only 25% of the total picture, they are 100% of this discussion. There’s no reason to believe he’ll improve more than those in this under-23 grouping because of all those mother factors; in fact, there are reasons to think he won’t improve as much as them.
First of all, the group I compared him to is 23 and under. Giddey is 22 so there are players up to 16 months older than him.
Second, I was not saying he's going to get better than ANY of the guys in that group that are ahead of him now.
What I did say is that I agree Giddey is around the 85th best player in the NBA NOW, and because 22-year olds almost always get significantly better by time they are 25, then I expect Josh to be considerably better when he is 25. And I think his peak will be in the top 50.
If you disagree with that, it's fine. I just want to make sure you understand.
22 year olds do not always significant get better by 25. Some plateau, some stagnate, some flat out get worse. Improvement is not a guarantee. And my hangup on Giddey is can he contribute to actual winning when it counts or just get great counting stats when pressure is off. When he was an actual good team, he was getting benched....
Giddey finished the year as the 7th ranked player at his position on the season ahead oh Jaylen Briwn, Desmond Bane, Cam Thomas, Normal Powell, Quickley, Lavigne, Suggs and Rj Barrett. And he is 22!! One’ of the leagues best playmakers, elite passer, elite rebounder, solid scorer, efficient, and a massively improving defender who can guard 3-5 due to his size and strength. Kid is a budding superstar and this deal is a bargain.
Xfinity carriage update: as part of their agreement with Xfinity, CHSN is getting rid of their OTA stations in several markets including Chicago. Unbelievable.
The crazy part is that the deal he accepted now was the same deal he could have gotten from the start with Xfinity. He got nothing by holding out except for losing an entire season for the Bulls and Hawks and more than a third of the White Sox season.
He hit more 3s in rate and volume, which was pretty critical to him being on the floor.
Even more importantly, he got out of Vooch territory and onto the valuable side of the ledger on hit FTr, which should be sustainable.
The problem is you just have to be so good on offense to negate being terrible on defense. So the Bulls need all of his 2nd half improvements on offense to stay AND you need his defense to move towards middling or you're not gonna have a good allocation of cap space.
I'd kick the can a year and get more data. That said, the Bulls would probably find a way to learn nothing next year, too.
I don't know, is that the problem? I think the problem might be that everybody knows he's pretty mid and limited in a way that doesn't fit particularly well into most rosters, so while he's young enough with a good enough last 1/3rd of his season that a loser team like the Bulls should see if he made real progress or just a small sample size mirage in silly season, we don't trust that the Bulls understand any of that.
And I think the thing a lot of us are saying is you have all of the leverage here and this FO likely won't use it. Do other teams want to sign him or trade for him and how do they value him?
I don't think that's true. I think we generally have "enough" data to project well; it's just that most teams want to project their good but not great player into being a great player. Jalen Green and Josh Giddey are both good examples. There is very strong evidence that they are both good but not great players. They have a chance at being great, but it's pretty pretty slim. If a player is good and shows potential for being great, most teams almost always pay for the slim potential instead of the most likely scenario.
I think that Bulls management are the ones that are giddy. I wonder if they even watch the Bulls play. Art thinks that we need veterans along with the rookies but keep the right veterans. They need to keep Trey Jones, Horton Tucker, Matas Buzelis, Huerter, White without turnovers, Carter, Phillips maybe Collins, and maybe Dosunmu. Giddey at a discount. I agree that he has to prove himself like anyone else or he can be replaced. Test the market with him. The rest of the guys not mentioned should be trade bait and we need new picks that play defense. Get a new coach that knows how to develop players instead of keeping a lot of them getting paid to warm the bench, if they don't fit, don't keep them and get new management that isn't quick to hand out extensions to players that do not deserve it. If we are going to get Kuminga, swap him for Vuce and Ball. Who would I start? Giddey , White, Jones, Buzelis and Collins. 2nd string new shot blocker at Center, Tucker SG, Huerter SF, Dosunmu PG, Kuminga PF. Carter can sub in first 2 quarters for Huerter. Phillips sub for injured PF.
Over valuing a player is detrimental to the quality of the roster you can build. These players get paid better than any athletes in the world outside of the 2 best baseball players. We're not talking about any difference of amount that will have any quality of life impacts on Giddey, he will save or invest all of the difference.
Pay him what he is worth, use the market leverage to determine that, use the common impression that he is not a good defender and not a playoff player against him. Use Caruso's obvious worth against him. 22 per year is a good figure, it's a movable figure, it's a piece that can be shuffled and re-thought as we rethink Giddey throughout his career.
That's all beside the point. Players and player agents look at how teams treat players. To try and get as low s figure as possible is as counter productive to getting future free agents as Giddey wanting as high a figure as possible is to him. 22 per year is comparatively not going to cut it. I would think 25-27 is the sweet spot. Over four years 22 rather than 30 is 32 million. He would be better off taking qualifying and bring totally unrestricted next year.
It's a good thing they gave Zach a max contract and Vooch a huge extension before either of those guys hit free agency to prove how much of a player-first organization they are. Look at all of the great players who have begged to come to Chicago since!!
Who's getting excited to come to Chicago? Nobody. Why is that? Because the Bulls have made a long series of poor decisions leaving them with an unexciting team.
Is Giddey the player that other players want to play with is one question.
Does Giddey make the Bulls think they're good enough that they should go into the tax is another question.
After a season of him getting pulled in 4th quarters, how can you answer yes to either of those?
Giddey stopped getting pulled on D 50 games ago. Why are you still talking about that? He finished the season strong on defense, and his overall defensive stats for the year are above average. He is very active off the ball, gets lots of steals and blocks, and is a good rebounder.
Your point that the Bulls player-friendly actions have not payed off yet is true, obviously. Let's see if that changes this year and next. AK has got some work to do, not the least of which is to convince ownership to commit the dollars to rebuild the roster.
50 games is not a big enough sample size to switch a defenders reputation from bad to good. Or from unplayable to playable. You still have to squint to see Giddey as a defensively solid player, and there were still some games he got pulled from in the 4th quarter in the last 50 games anyways. (Dallas).
Would you rather your team's reputation be player-friendly or smart? Because universally the entire league thinks the Bulls are dumb to the point of being ignored, uninteresting and undiscussed in all national nba coverage.
This is one of the worst takes I have read about the bulls management. Using Patrick Williams who has never been a productive player as justification not to pay our cornerstone franchises point guard is brain dead. Giddey is a blossoming star in this league and outside of his down season with BS off court issues that would ruin anyone psychee, Giddey has been a stud since he entered the league and was playing at an all NBA, All Star level for almost 1/3 of the season after shipping out Lavigne.
it's not looking to screw him over if you're merely trying not to proactively screw over yourself
'showing agents' only makes sense on the superstars. The Bulls have bent over backwards to be "player friendly" with, uh, Vuc, and Rich Paul's D-list clients
Literally one of the dumbest takes I have ever read. GIDDEy exploded once he was given the keys to franchise and inserted as the starting point guard post all stark break and post Lavigne trade. He averaged a 21 point triple double post trade and on the season he finished as the 7th ranked player on Hollingers PER rating at his position ahead of Suggs, Quickley, Bane, Brown, Lavigne and normal Powell. Giddey is 22 and won’t turn 23 till early next season. He is a 6-9 unicorn and the second best passing guard in the game and the best rebounding guard in the game who is a quintissential point forward who can guard 3s, 4s and 5s because of his size and strength. He also massively improved as a defender as highlighted by his 8 steal performance in LA where 7 of those turnovers were created by Giddey steals against Luka Doncic. They played LA again a few days later and engineered a late game steal and buzzer beater to beat Bron and Luka, not once but twice in one week when they were actively battling for playoff position. Giddey is not only a budding star, but a budding superstar with all NBA upside. Giddey also massively improved as a 3 point shooter, shooting nearly 38% on high volume. He also lead the Bulls back to the playin game where he put up 25 and 10. 6-9 point guards don’t exist for the most part, much less 6-9 point guards who are elite passers, elite playmakers and elite rebounders. At 22, his ability to develop is on a launch pad and he continues to improve 30 million will look like a bargain. If he had another month of his performance post all star break he would have earned a max deal. Look at contracts for Scottie Barnes, or Jalen Green or even Evan Mobley before he got a max deal. Giddey has also performed at an elite level on the global stage almost upending a Jokic lead team in the World Cup semi finals. He also took down Gobert and Wemby a couple rounds prior showing he can run a Magesric offense against one of the worlds best defensive duos in the world. Honestly, this take is remedial, and I am going to bookmark this and forward this back to your publication and inquire if you are still employed.
Would I trade him for any of the 3 above? I definitely would not trade him for Jalen Green. I would think about trading him for Barnes but would prefer to keep him as well as Mobley, I would keep him too. Barnes and Mobley are making over 45, green over 40 million this season and Green is a low efficiency chucker and despite his athletic gifts, is inconsistent and an unwilling defender.
Well, I like Matt Peck even though I disagree with him on Josh Giddey. And throwing out some off the cuff comment
that 29 front offices don’t value Giddey when the finals is still raging on is just silly because no movement happens till the season ends. It’s all speculation at this point. What isn’t speculation is the stat I shared that showcases Giddey’s large sample size of being the 7th ranked player on the season, at his position, which also puts him in the top 10 in the league for players ages 22 and under.
To be fair he had a poor year last year because he had off court issues.
He had a slow start due to Lavine still being on the roster and not having the ball in his hands. Outside of that he's been spectacular for a young player.
"Outside of that he's been spectacular for a young player."
I think you're going to need to clarify what your definition of "spectacular" is. I'd say Wemby has been spectacular for his age. Giddey? Overall, I'd say he's been solid in his young career so far. He's had some nice highs, but he's also had some really bad lows that have highlighted some major flaws in his game.
As a raptors fan I would lose my mind if we traded Quickley for giddey. At his best giddey can get you a 30 point triple double but at his worst he can be hunted defensively and ignored as a shooter. He has the potential to be a weak link on both ends of the floor, exactly why okc traded him.
I don't want too argue with you about trolls, but coming on here talking about some crappy player from his crappy team being better than our guy is not "coming in peace":.
The article compares Giddey to Quickley. Multiple comments have talked about Quickley and even more comments have compared Giddey to players of similar age and experience who have gotten paydays similar to what Giddey is seeking.
I know that you're really high on Giddey and that's totally fine. He seems like a really nice guy and since he's most likely going to be in a Bulls uniform for the next 4-5 years, I truly do hope he turns into what he's shown flashes of.
But just because someone who's a fan of another team says they wouldn't want Giddey, it doesn't mean they're trolling. He made a comment that directly related to something the article spoke about and something other people in the comments have also talked about.
Dude that's exactly what trolls do. When we are talking about how good one of our players is and a fan of another team jumps in and says he sucks, that's trolling. Whether our guy actually sucks or not is beside the point. Do not feed a troll.
Anyway, I think I am appropriately high on Giddey. Several sports services, including Bleacher Report and ESPN, have Giddey as the 2nd best of the guys that will become free agents this off season, behind only Turner. They have him ahead of Reid, Alex.-Walker, Kuminga and all the other RFAs. (This doesn't count LeBron, Harden, etc. who are expected to take their player options.)
RIP to David Greenwood, a PF who bridged the Gilmore/Theus Bulls to the cocaine/rookie Jordan team. I recall a Trib article on how mild-mannered and modest he was, still driving the aging Volvo he bought as a UCLA undergrad. His first 4 years were solid, with good rebounding and 15+ PER scores.
I'm glad Matt wrote this article because this is something I've been so bewildered by these past few months. Everyone from local to national media seems to have accepted that Giddey is getting at least $25 million a year this summer, and I don't get why. Even the Cash Consideration guys seem to have accepted that.
Has everyone forgotten that just one year ago he was played off the floor in the playoffs and told by his boss he'd no longer be starting the coming year? He then proceeded to be so terrible for the first half of this year on a team that was basically begging him to be good that they started benching him in fourth quarters.
The guy had a really solid two month stretch during a time where teams are notoriously tanking (and a lot of them were this year for Flagg) or intentionally resting their players for the playoffs. Don't get me wrong, I hope Giddey's two month stretch was real. But that two month stretch doesn't just erase everything that came before it, and it absolutely does not warrant guaranteeing him $100-150 million over the next four or five years.
As Matt said, there is practically no one to bid against the Bulls this summer except for the Nets. And I don't really see them having any desire for Giddey. Offer him a four year deal in the $18-20 million range with the final year being a team option. He can either accept that or take the QO. If he proves his two month stretch is actually just who he is now, you pay him $25-30 million a year starting next summer.
Another red flag is look how much better the Thunder looked without him this year. I know that some of that improvement was that the team was a year older, but they were so much better. There is a definite ceiling to a team with Giddey as the lead ball handler and that is the seventh seed in the east.
That's AK's sweet spot
That’s not a red flag that’s development of a formidable team. 1 year older and 1 year better. Giddey engineered one of the best post all star break stretches in the NBA including beating teams fighting for playoff position aka Lakers twice, Indy, Orlando, Miami, Denver, OKc and I could go on.
Gottlieb has seemingly pivoted to 'insider', where he is not saying what he thinks makes sense but if you're AK (based on his impression of him) does it make sense.
I suppose that's a valuable perspective but not on a fan-driven DAILY show, it's more like annoying. Especially when he has to keep saying it right after saying $30M for Giddey isn't bad
I think you are mischaracterizing Giddey's development. He started out at the beginning of the season, looking lost, but then improved steadily from there. By mid season his play was solid, and after Lavine was traded he played like a star.
Overall he had a good year, his stat totals show that. The idea that he was terrible until the last two months is just not right.
Maybe I am being hard on Giddey. I'm willing to accept that. But my overall point still stands. Giddey's season as a whole was not amazing last year, and throughout his first four years in the NBA he has looked anywhere from decent to disappointing.
That doesn't scream $30 million a year. It especially doesn't scream $30 million a year in an offseason where basically only one other team could even offer Giddey that kind of money and that team doesn't seem interested.
The point is the Bulls should play hardball with Giddey because he hasn't proven to be worth $25-30 million beyond a two month stint and they have all the leverage anyway. Maybe that's mean, but the Bulls need to stop handing big contracts to guys who haven't yet proven to be worth those contracts.
'mid-season' is not the All-Star break, I don't recall him playing much better by the time those back to back beatdowns versus the Pistons occurred where he was -29 in both games (Zach was already gone then too).
it's true that he was better, in that Donovan wasn't benching him in the 4th quarter anymore, but I don't remember him being 'solid'. Maybe he was doing what was advertised: big counting stats and negative impact
remember he was injured off an on as well, ultimately playing 19 games after the break.
YfBb, I can't really comment on your memory, I don't know you that well. But if it's anything like mine, it's getting worse all the time.
Matt has thoughtful and insightful commentary, but he won’t let this go. If the Bulls make some surprise run next year and Giddey blossoms into an All Star, Matt Peck will continue focusing on the flaws in his game. Make playoffs outright and win a series and then lose next round, Matt will start cooking Giddey. And it’s not objective cooking, it’s a safety mechanism to refuse to take ownership when he was completely wrong about the Alex Caruso trade and how valuable Giddey has become. We keep talking about these potential deals teams will make, but the league hasn’t event started making outside offers or trades because the season is still running through the finals. The comments he makes of cap constrained teams and lack of financial flexibility is built around false premise that significant movement won’t happen post finals and pre draft. It will, inevitably it will. And major pieces and minor pieces could be moved entirely changing the landscape of teams cap space. Nonetheless, Matt will trash Giddey until he takes his last breadth and if I am wrong, Peck, please make us aware of your criteria to get behind Josh Giddey?
My guess is his criteria for getting behind Giddey is fairly simple and the same as mine: Giddey needs to prove his hot streak last year isn't just a streak, but actually who he is. He needs to play that well during the regular season and the postseason. And he needs to become a good enough defender that teams don't constantly target him in the postseason, which is what the Heat did in the play-in to great effect.
It WOULD be nice to see the Bulls in the post-season. I'm glad you're not one of those tanker-stans.
Definitely not a tanker-stan. I'm not against tanking, but I'd prefer not to if it's possible to still build a competitor without it.
With that being said, I don't really care to see the Bulls squeak their way into the playoffs via the play-in and then get absolutely dominated by a team that's actually good.
I am not the same Matt as CHGO's Matt Peck
we happen to be a part of the same conspiracy devaluing Josh Giddey, joining 29 NBA front offices
OKC easily won that. Caruso has been huge for them thru the playoffs and had a killer game 2. Giddey is nowhere near being able to make meaningful contributions on a title or contending team. Im not impressed by the triple doubles in March against scrub teams, outright taking teams or playoff squads who are starting to rest. Offer him 4/84 max or he can take the QO. Him as oneof your bes players is recipe for a 38 win squad
OkC got a player that fits their team but Giddey’s trade value is higher and an exponentially better fit for this upstar Bulls team. Caruso is going on 32, giddey is going on 23. Makes little sense to keep an older bench player on a rebuilding team and get no assets in return. Giddey shown flashes not only of high level play, he showed a large stretch of all NBA and All Star Caliber point guard play in meaningful games that willed the bulls in the playin. We won 39 games. I think a reasonable expectation this year is to look for 44-50 wins this year. Giddey is a cornerstone franchise point guard the Bulls can build around. A modern Day Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in bulls red blender. The kids upside is high level All NBA franchise point guard and league wide star.
I'm fine with $20M, I think. That's bench player money right now for some teams and Giddey is young enough that there's upside even if I'm not a fan.
$25M is probably value neutral at best and anything above that could easily turn into negative value.
However, one point Matt doesn't address that is critical is that teams value the security of a long-term contract, particularly when the cap is rising.
Therefore, I'd be in favor of an extension at 20 over some years because the back end is very likely to look good. My ideal scenario would be to front load the contract so the back end is more tradeable and valuable in the time period where this team could be theoretically contending again.
while that's true, why are there no rumblings of another team wanting Giddey on a sign-and-trade?
this is all perception and hard to pin down, but I do think $20M would be around a range where that would be a desirable contract. You still have the risk of him turning back into a pumpkin and then it's immediately a bad contract.
I also think there's no way he takes $20M
Yeah, I don't know. The only RFA I've heard trade speculation about is Kuminga, and that's because he's asking for a max contract and GSW doesn't want to pay him, and has salary cap issues anyway.
Kuminga isn't very good either
even so, at least there's rumors about him, that he would shine in a bigger role. I don't think other teams want to give Josh Giddey a bigger role than he already enjoys with the Bulls. Bulls should offer even less money figuring that!
I should've clarified that I didn't think the Pat contract was THAT bad at the time, it was a bit unnecessary but if he just stayed the same would've been OK. Pat regressed though which made it so much worse. The Bulls had the benefit of inside information on Pat's health and motivation so they should've known better than my dumb ass
They signed him after being out 6 months with a weird injury, before the injury he had a 1month stretch of him being a no3 level starter. Didn't have to give him the years or the money.
They didn’t! They should have let him test free agency. The most he would have gotten from other teams would have been the MLE.
Slightly off-topic, but CHSN is finally coming to Xfinity eight months after it launched. The catch is that you have to subscribe to the Ultimate tier which is any extra $20/month. There was some talk about CHSN discontinuing their OTA broadcast when they got the Xfinity deal, but I didn’t see anything about that.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports-media/2025/06/05/chicago-sports-network-comcast-xfinity-cable-friday-white-sox-bulls-blackhawks-marquee-sports-network-cubs
LOL. It took a lot of effort to extract my household from Xfinity after I finally had my fill of their bullshit. I wouldn't go back to them if they were offering me the 96 Bulls, let alone the depressing slop this organization has been putting on the floor for the last 10+ seasons.
I believe that I cancelled Xfinity tv like four years ago. Between all the fees and the channels I never watched, it was over $200 a month. I was on their website and the ultimate tier is around $150/month without equipment. The real issue is that there are $50 in local broadcast and RSN fees in there.
I did some analysis on this that was clarifying for me. First, look at the league salaries. I broke it down into groups of 30. So, for example, the average salary for a top 30 player (players 1-30) is $45.4M. Median is $44.2, max is $55.7 and min is $36.7.
I rate Giddy at roughly the 85th best player in the league. That'd put him toward the bottom of the "3rd best players on a team" (guys 60-90) or around the top of "4th best players on a team" (guys 90-120).
Adding 10% to this year's salaries (because the 25-26 cap is going up by 10%) the 3rd best player category has a median of $25M and the 4th best player cat has a median of $18M.
That, to me, is the range I would be consider offering Giddey.
Fundamentally, I don't see him ever being better than the 3rd best guy on a good team. More realistically, I think that's optimistic. But I don't think we are screwed if we pay him that.
I would probably start my offer at 4yrs/$85M with incentives. If he wants more than that, he can go sign an offer sheet, which I would match if it's less than 4/$100 or 5/$125. If it's above that, I do a S&T and say goodbye.
I agree with your assessment of his ability. But I question if it is wise to pay your third best player before you acquire your first and second best player. Especially when the effects of the CBA are going to start freezing player movement. I also think that teams wage structures are going to shift dramatically and that the going rate for a third best player may not be what it was during the past 2-3 seasons. So I agree with Matt that this a pretty unnecessary risk for what is a pretty minimal reward.
I dunno. I see two points that make me think it's ok
1. I think under the current CBA, the salary cap is next year will be about $155M. Give or take a few, that means a team could have about $55-60M in salary and still sign two max FAs. Obviously a team has to be smart about that, but what I'm saying is that you need a couple guys to of some ability to set as a starting point for FAs
2. Also, you need tradable salary. Most of the time these days, what seems to be happening rather than outright free agency switches, is that a player signals that he wants to leave and works with his current team on a trade to the new team then an extension. From that perspective, having a couple guys available to trade back is pretty important.
Obviously you still try to drive the best bargain you can, but I'm not too worried about being stuck with him as long as we get him at a reasonable price.
I'd agree that 85th overall is about right. But if you look at players 23 and younger he's probably in the top 20. You expect all those players that age to improve, so you're not paying only for their current skills, but also their future improvement.
Could Giddey, or any other young players, plateau at 23 and not get any better? Sure, it could happen, but it's unlikely.
So, yeah, $20 million per year for current production is reasonable. But expected production is what gets you to the $30 million most people are expecting. It could be that a true market won't develop and we can get away with paying something less, we'll have to wait and see.
I think Mike kind of addresses that in his comment above when he says he doesn't see Giddey ever being better than the third best player on a good team.
If you're truly trying to build a contender, you're most likely going to have two max slots filled. That's roughly $100 million of your $155 million cap. Do you really want to be using another $30 million on your third best player? You'd basically have to fill the rest of your roster with guys on vet minimums.
Yeah, I think Mike is undervaluing Giddey.
As to your point, I think it would be fine paying Giddey 5/150 as a third star, depending on how our roster is built. For example, let's say we get Giannis and KP this year. Giannis at $55, KP at $31, and Giddey at $30 still leaves us about $70 to spend up to the tax line.
Even if we truly got two veteran max players, it would be tight, but still doable.
And we need to remember that locking in Giddey now for 5 years makes him cheaper every year going forward as a percent of the salary cap. If the cap goes up 8% a year, in 5 years the cap will be $225 million and the tax line $275m. Josh's $30m could look like a very good deal.
I thought about that, but what I came to is that his position relative to his age peer group isn't all that great. Two ways to think about it:
1. I have him in the mid 30s among his peer group. While he'll rise from 85th as older players decline, new, younger players come into the league every year (e.g. Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Matas, etc). So I don't think his position in the league as a whole is going to change much. Maybe he goes from 85 to 65. But even that sort of advancement will probably take a few years, so paying him based on those expectations doesn't seem wise. I don't think he's ever more than the 3rd best guy on a team, so in a way I'm already pricing him based on expected improvement. I think now He's more like a 4th best starter and his current salary value is probably in the $17-21M range.
2. His peer group ensures that he's got very limited upside. He will never be better than Luka, Victor, Cade, Ant, Haliburton, Shai, Banchero, Mobley, JJJ, Garland, Maxey, Jalen Williams, Ja, Sengun, Wagner, or probably Lamelo. Add in a steady flow of 1 or 2 stars a year, and the possibility that other guys further down the pecking order blow up (Amen Thompson, Matas, Brandon Miller type guys), who have a better chance of blowing up than I think Giddey does.
Basically, paying him $22-25M a year is already paying him for future expectations.
See, I think most players still improve significantly from age 22 until they peak. For example, Giddey at age 22 was better than Lavine and Derozan were, and those guys both made it into the top 50 later on, with multiple All Star games.
You may think Giddey will not make it that far, which is fine, but that would be the exception, not the rule.
Those many other guys who are also young and already better than him are gonna keep improving too, so his relative positioning isn't likely to improve much, if at all.
Not to those players sure, but to everyone else. He just needs to keep improving enough to stay ahead of the new players coming into the league, and pass up the older guys as they start to fade.
This is what a lot of people don't get about "age" relevance. It's age and experience in the league. Players don't just get better because they get older; they get better because they spend more of their time practicing; they get better coaching, they get better nutrition, they get better injury treatment, and they get a LOT more playing time. A player going into their 5th season at age 23 with over 8000 minutes played in the NBA is not going to progress the same as a player the same age going into his second season with 1000 minutes played in the NBA
Lot of different factors influence development for sure. But the body of evidence suggests age is the most important predictor. Physical maturity is probably a big part of that.
We discussed this on here a few years ago, around when Zach was 22 and a lot of us were frustrated with his course of development.
It seem like there was a study by Zach Lowe or someone, that looked at the progression of young players. Whether they came out as freshman or upperclassmen, whether they played big NBA minutes right away or sat on the bench, whether they played on good teams or losers. The conclusion of the study was that age is the biggest factor in a player's improvement.
Somebody on here might remember that study, otherwise I will try to find it.
This is exactly my point. You’re fixated on age. I’m not disputing that at all. But you’re comparing him to all other under-23 players, in which case age is the control variable, and then all those other factors come into play.
Even if 75% of development has to do with age (I made that up, and I’d doubt that number), it is exactly 0% relevant. In fact, it’d actually work against him as he’s on the older part of under-23, no?
But even so, if all those factors are only 25% of the total picture, they are 100% of this discussion. There’s no reason to believe he’ll improve more than those in this under-23 grouping because of all those mother factors; in fact, there are reasons to think he won’t improve as much as them.
First of all, the group I compared him to is 23 and under. Giddey is 22 so there are players up to 16 months older than him.
Second, I was not saying he's going to get better than ANY of the guys in that group that are ahead of him now.
What I did say is that I agree Giddey is around the 85th best player in the NBA NOW, and because 22-year olds almost always get significantly better by time they are 25, then I expect Josh to be considerably better when he is 25. And I think his peak will be in the top 50.
If you disagree with that, it's fine. I just want to make sure you understand.
22 year olds do not always significant get better by 25. Some plateau, some stagnate, some flat out get worse. Improvement is not a guarantee. And my hangup on Giddey is can he contribute to actual winning when it counts or just get great counting stats when pressure is off. When he was an actual good team, he was getting benched....
Giddey finished the year as the 7th ranked player at his position on the season ahead oh Jaylen Briwn, Desmond Bane, Cam Thomas, Normal Powell, Quickley, Lavigne, Suggs and Rj Barrett. And he is 22!! One’ of the leagues best playmakers, elite passer, elite rebounder, solid scorer, efficient, and a massively improving defender who can guard 3-5 due to his size and strength. Kid is a budding superstar and this deal is a bargain.
http://insider.espn.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/position/sg
It's no surprise that Giddey is ahead of Lavigne. She only had one good song and that was 15 years ago.
Xfinity carriage update: as part of their agreement with Xfinity, CHSN is getting rid of their OTA stations in several markets including Chicago. Unbelievable.
https://www.chsn.com/ota-faq-june-6-25
Master negotiator Reinsdorf got bulldozed over with this network rollout lol
The crazy part is that the deal he accepted now was the same deal he could have gotten from the start with Xfinity. He got nothing by holding out except for losing an entire season for the Bulls and Hawks and more than a third of the White Sox season.
plus pissing off fans by insisting on them rigging up antennas
And pissing them off even more now that their antenna can no longer provide them free games.
At least White Sox fans will be done with him in a few years. Bulls fans are stuck with his nepo baby son forever.
If I'm looking for the positives-
He hit more 3s in rate and volume, which was pretty critical to him being on the floor.
Even more importantly, he got out of Vooch territory and onto the valuable side of the ledger on hit FTr, which should be sustainable.
The problem is you just have to be so good on offense to negate being terrible on defense. So the Bulls need all of his 2nd half improvements on offense to stay AND you need his defense to move towards middling or you're not gonna have a good allocation of cap space.
I'd kick the can a year and get more data. That said, the Bulls would probably find a way to learn nothing next year, too.
That’s the problem with getting guys on the last year of their rookie contract. You don’t have a big enough sample size to determine their worth.
I don't know, is that the problem? I think the problem might be that everybody knows he's pretty mid and limited in a way that doesn't fit particularly well into most rosters, so while he's young enough with a good enough last 1/3rd of his season that a loser team like the Bulls should see if he made real progress or just a small sample size mirage in silly season, we don't trust that the Bulls understand any of that.
And I think the thing a lot of us are saying is you have all of the leverage here and this FO likely won't use it. Do other teams want to sign him or trade for him and how do they value him?
But nobody does sunk cost fallacy like AK.
I don't think that's true. I think we generally have "enough" data to project well; it's just that most teams want to project their good but not great player into being a great player. Jalen Green and Josh Giddey are both good examples. There is very strong evidence that they are both good but not great players. They have a chance at being great, but it's pretty pretty slim. If a player is good and shows potential for being great, most teams almost always pay for the slim potential instead of the most likely scenario.
Just FYI, Giddey's defensive stats ended up looking pretty good last year. Check out his EPM and BPM.
I think that Bulls management are the ones that are giddy. I wonder if they even watch the Bulls play. Art thinks that we need veterans along with the rookies but keep the right veterans. They need to keep Trey Jones, Horton Tucker, Matas Buzelis, Huerter, White without turnovers, Carter, Phillips maybe Collins, and maybe Dosunmu. Giddey at a discount. I agree that he has to prove himself like anyone else or he can be replaced. Test the market with him. The rest of the guys not mentioned should be trade bait and we need new picks that play defense. Get a new coach that knows how to develop players instead of keeping a lot of them getting paid to warm the bench, if they don't fit, don't keep them and get new management that isn't quick to hand out extensions to players that do not deserve it. If we are going to get Kuminga, swap him for Vuce and Ball. Who would I start? Giddey , White, Jones, Buzelis and Collins. 2nd string new shot blocker at Center, Tucker SG, Huerter SF, Dosunmu PG, Kuminga PF. Carter can sub in first 2 quarters for Huerter. Phillips sub for injured PF.
Show prospective free agents and player agents you're a team that looks to screw over players. Thank god you're not a GM.
Over valuing a player is detrimental to the quality of the roster you can build. These players get paid better than any athletes in the world outside of the 2 best baseball players. We're not talking about any difference of amount that will have any quality of life impacts on Giddey, he will save or invest all of the difference.
Pay him what he is worth, use the market leverage to determine that, use the common impression that he is not a good defender and not a playoff player against him. Use Caruso's obvious worth against him. 22 per year is a good figure, it's a movable figure, it's a piece that can be shuffled and re-thought as we rethink Giddey throughout his career.
That's all beside the point. Players and player agents look at how teams treat players. To try and get as low s figure as possible is as counter productive to getting future free agents as Giddey wanting as high a figure as possible is to him. 22 per year is comparatively not going to cut it. I would think 25-27 is the sweet spot. Over four years 22 rather than 30 is 32 million. He would be better off taking qualifying and bring totally unrestricted next year.
It's a good thing they gave Zach a max contract and Vooch a huge extension before either of those guys hit free agency to prove how much of a player-first organization they are. Look at all of the great players who have begged to come to Chicago since!!
Who's getting excited to come to Chicago? Nobody. Why is that? Because the Bulls have made a long series of poor decisions leaving them with an unexciting team.
Is Giddey the player that other players want to play with is one question.
Does Giddey make the Bulls think they're good enough that they should go into the tax is another question.
After a season of him getting pulled in 4th quarters, how can you answer yes to either of those?
Giddey stopped getting pulled on D 50 games ago. Why are you still talking about that? He finished the season strong on defense, and his overall defensive stats for the year are above average. He is very active off the ball, gets lots of steals and blocks, and is a good rebounder.
Your point that the Bulls player-friendly actions have not payed off yet is true, obviously. Let's see if that changes this year and next. AK has got some work to do, not the least of which is to convince ownership to commit the dollars to rebuild the roster.
50 games ago the world stopped paying attention to the Bulls
50 games is not a big enough sample size to switch a defenders reputation from bad to good. Or from unplayable to playable. You still have to squint to see Giddey as a defensively solid player, and there were still some games he got pulled from in the 4th quarter in the last 50 games anyways. (Dallas).
Would you rather your team's reputation be player-friendly or smart? Because universally the entire league thinks the Bulls are dumb to the point of being ignored, uninteresting and undiscussed in all national nba coverage.
This is one of the worst takes I have read about the bulls management. Using Patrick Williams who has never been a productive player as justification not to pay our cornerstone franchises point guard is brain dead. Giddey is a blossoming star in this league and outside of his down season with BS off court issues that would ruin anyone psychee, Giddey has been a stud since he entered the league and was playing at an all NBA, All Star level for almost 1/3 of the season after shipping out Lavigne.
it's not looking to screw him over if you're merely trying not to proactively screw over yourself
'showing agents' only makes sense on the superstars. The Bulls have bent over backwards to be "player friendly" with, uh, Vuc, and Rich Paul's D-list clients
Literally one of the dumbest takes I have ever read. GIDDEy exploded once he was given the keys to franchise and inserted as the starting point guard post all stark break and post Lavigne trade. He averaged a 21 point triple double post trade and on the season he finished as the 7th ranked player on Hollingers PER rating at his position ahead of Suggs, Quickley, Bane, Brown, Lavigne and normal Powell. Giddey is 22 and won’t turn 23 till early next season. He is a 6-9 unicorn and the second best passing guard in the game and the best rebounding guard in the game who is a quintissential point forward who can guard 3s, 4s and 5s because of his size and strength. He also massively improved as a defender as highlighted by his 8 steal performance in LA where 7 of those turnovers were created by Giddey steals against Luka Doncic. They played LA again a few days later and engineered a late game steal and buzzer beater to beat Bron and Luka, not once but twice in one week when they were actively battling for playoff position. Giddey is not only a budding star, but a budding superstar with all NBA upside. Giddey also massively improved as a 3 point shooter, shooting nearly 38% on high volume. He also lead the Bulls back to the playin game where he put up 25 and 10. 6-9 point guards don’t exist for the most part, much less 6-9 point guards who are elite passers, elite playmakers and elite rebounders. At 22, his ability to develop is on a launch pad and he continues to improve 30 million will look like a bargain. If he had another month of his performance post all star break he would have earned a max deal. Look at contracts for Scottie Barnes, or Jalen Green or even Evan Mobley before he got a max deal. Giddey has also performed at an elite level on the global stage almost upending a Jokic lead team in the World Cup semi finals. He also took down Gobert and Wemby a couple rounds prior showing he can run a Magesric offense against one of the worlds best defensive duos in the world. Honestly, this take is remedial, and I am going to bookmark this and forward this back to your publication and inquire if you are still employed.
Would you, if you had Barnes, Green, or Mobley, trade them for Josh Giddey making $30M
I suppose that doesn't even matter: none of those teams would, therefore that number is overvaluing Giddey no matter how many times you post his PER
Would I trade him for any of the 3 above? I definitely would not trade him for Jalen Green. I would think about trading him for Barnes but would prefer to keep him as well as Mobley, I would keep him too. Barnes and Mobley are making over 45, green over 40 million this season and Green is a low efficiency chucker and despite his athletic gifts, is inconsistent and an unwilling defender.
Or just think of if the Hornets were to make LaMelo Ball available. Would they want Josh Giddey in return? At what sign-and-trade price?
Well, I like Matt Peck even though I disagree with him on Josh Giddey. And throwing out some off the cuff comment
that 29 front offices don’t value Giddey when the finals is still raging on is just silly because no movement happens till the season ends. It’s all speculation at this point. What isn’t speculation is the stat I shared that showcases Giddey’s large sample size of being the 7th ranked player on the season, at his position, which also puts him in the top 10 in the league for players ages 22 and under.
There is speculation of players before and during the finals. PER is not a player ranking. and I am not Matt Peck
Besides all that great comment
here, there are rumors about Myles Turner, WHO IS PLAYING IN THESE VERY FINALS
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/06/hawks-among-teams-eyeing-myles-turner.html
To be fair he had a poor year last year because he had off court issues.
He had a slow start due to Lavine still being on the roster and not having the ball in his hands. Outside of that he's been spectacular for a young player.
"Outside of that he's been spectacular for a young player."
I think you're going to need to clarify what your definition of "spectacular" is. I'd say Wemby has been spectacular for his age. Giddey? Overall, I'd say he's been solid in his young career so far. He's had some nice highs, but he's also had some really bad lows that have highlighted some major flaws in his game.
As a raptors fan I would lose my mind if we traded Quickley for giddey. At his best giddey can get you a 30 point triple double but at his worst he can be hunted defensively and ignored as a shooter. He has the potential to be a weak link on both ends of the floor, exactly why okc traded him.
Quickly sucks and your team sucks. Go away.
Thank you for your kind words
Kiss my ass. Your team is the Bulls from two years ago. Good luck with all your shooters who can't defend and good luck with Barnes on a max contract.
Cope harder, man. Why don't you try to not be an asshole to a fan of another team who was coming in peace?
I don't want too argue with you about trolls, but coming on here talking about some crappy player from his crappy team being better than our guy is not "coming in peace":.
The article compares Giddey to Quickley. Multiple comments have talked about Quickley and even more comments have compared Giddey to players of similar age and experience who have gotten paydays similar to what Giddey is seeking.
I know that you're really high on Giddey and that's totally fine. He seems like a really nice guy and since he's most likely going to be in a Bulls uniform for the next 4-5 years, I truly do hope he turns into what he's shown flashes of.
But just because someone who's a fan of another team says they wouldn't want Giddey, it doesn't mean they're trolling. He made a comment that directly related to something the article spoke about and something other people in the comments have also talked about.
Dude that's exactly what trolls do. When we are talking about how good one of our players is and a fan of another team jumps in and says he sucks, that's trolling. Whether our guy actually sucks or not is beside the point. Do not feed a troll.
Anyway, I think I am appropriately high on Giddey. Several sports services, including Bleacher Report and ESPN, have Giddey as the 2nd best of the guys that will become free agents this off season, behind only Turner. They have him ahead of Reid, Alex.-Walker, Kuminga and all the other RFAs. (This doesn't count LeBron, Harden, etc. who are expected to take their player options.)
Knicks coaching search extends down to Billy Donovan, Bulls denied permission and gave KC (who got the scoop!) more talking points of how great BD is
https://substack.com/profile/3012-your-friendly-bullsblogger/note/c-125167425
Are lifetime contracts a thing in the NBA? Because if they are, I fully expect to hear Billy has signed one.
Jesus, even we are dunking on them?
RIP to David Greenwood, a PF who bridged the Gilmore/Theus Bulls to the cocaine/rookie Jordan team. I recall a Trib article on how mild-mannered and modest he was, still driving the aging Volvo he bought as a UCLA undergrad. His first 4 years were solid, with good rebounding and 15+ PER scores.