Musings on how the Bulls will screw up this trade deadline too

will Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley go for the 4-peat of no moves?

The games stopped mattering long ago, at least to fans. What is still in question is whether the Bulls free-fall the past couple weeks makes a significant change in how the Bulls front office, Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley, view whether these games matter.

Since they speak so little (it’s not that hard! well I guess for these two, it is…), any rumors suggesting that the Bulls are actually looking to drastically re-shape the roster in the next week looks like wish-casting to me. I haven’t seen reason to budge - and I suppose I won’t until something actually happens - on the idea that AKME thinks this team is pretty good and on the right track, and technically are in the hunt for the postseason which is what fans crave(?)¹, and thus are holding their players to a high price.

the Bulls are not trade deadline sellers, they're suckers

As I said a week and a half ago, that is a fine strategy now. But with very important caveats:

1. already screwed up to get to this point

2. have to resolve this game of chicken at the deadline, not offseason

There hasn’t been any real updates from rumorville, more just a posturing by more important teams and players in likely getting something done but at what degree. So a lot of the below has been the case for weeks, but I really wanted a new post on the blog, and would rather discuss trades than the team on the floor.

Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic

It’s been a few months now, and the Bulls have successfully rehabilitated both Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic’s standing in the league².

Great, but what also hasn’t changed for these few months is anybody wanting to trade for them.

Vucevic has predictably cooled off his career-best shooting (26% from three in January), though I truly don’t think teams were ever convinced in the first place that he became a great three point shooter suddenly at age 34. If they did, they probably would’ve met the Bulls asking price of a first round pick.

Again, it makes sense - at this point - for the Bulls to keep holding out for one. Maybe both sides can call it a win with a heavily-protected first being the price. I’d call it a win too, especially so if they can reduce from Vuc’s 2025-26 cap number. I think it’d be a total failure (if predictable) if they hold Vuc thinking they can do better in the offseason. Or if they continue to think - again, all indications are that this hasn’t changed - Vuc is phenomenal and a core part of the Chicago Bulls basketball club.

LaVine has seen his name re-inserted in speculation if not rumor, just by making logical leaps of a Jimmy Butler mega-deal involving 3, 4, 5 other teams to move other huge salaries like Bradley Beal (Suns) and Khris Middleton (Bucks). Even the Warriors have been re-mentioned as a possibility, though I find it to be coming from Klutch (LaVine, and Draymond Green’s, agency) and not a more useful source.

There is no change in LaVine’s desirability to a contending team, given his combination of performance and contract hasn’t changed. He’s a great scorer and will likely fit in better escaping a go-nowhere situation like what’s in Chicago. But he’s still not a great fit for contenders given his on-court limitations and salary cap consumption: would the Warriors really want to swap out Andrew Wiggins for LaVine and hurt their perimeter defense³? Would the Bucks want a LaVine+Lillard backcourt making $90M? And even more unlikely: would they pay assets to do so?

There is a case to be made that there will be more of a market for LaVine this offseason. That is risky given his injury-prone history, but it’s possible that there is literally no positive value LaVine trade out there. Maybe they should just take a neutral one now.

Lonzo Ball

I’ve read some rumblings about Ball being a trade asset, but only at second round picks level. If we’re talking injury risk with LaVine, Lonzo’s magic knee has held up miraculously well so far but he’ll never shake that label.

That’s reasonable for a trading team if they know his contract is expiring. Even at $20M salary and on a minutes restriction, Lonzo can provide that value if he’s not missing games.

But the Bulls, like with Vuc, are seemingly emotionally over-invested in Lonzo. I think they’d rather not get 2nd round picks if the alternative is extending Ball’s contract. That is a very bad idea, thus why I think it’s likely.

Torrey Craig, Jevon Carter

Both these veterans can play and help a going-somewhere team. The issues:

Craig - he played over 20 minutes like one time and got hurt for weeks and is still out

Carter - He’s signed for almost $7M next season⁴. And if reputation matters, how does it look that Billy Donovan buries him on one of the ten worst teams in the league?

Another issue is that they would, at best, get second-rounder value, and this current regime doesn’t seem to value any draft picks, let alone those in the second round.

Ayo Dosunmu, Coby White

Both Ayo and Coby could actually get significant value in a trade because they’re easier on-court fits and make a lot less than LaVine and Vucevic. But, again, while there are rumors that everyone is on the table I have no faith that’s true.

Trades for cap maneuvering

Jerry Reinsdorf’s dream is being realized: he wanted to cow the free spending owners making him look bad, and now there’s a chill over the trade market due to new CBA rules.

Many teams that would previously keep throwing money at problems are either looking to get below (or required to stay below) both aprons and luxury tax line.

The Bulls are $4.5M under the luxury tax, which isn’t a lot but is about what the Bucks are over the 2nd apron, or what the Pelicans, Hawks, and Clippers need to trim to get under the tax.

The Bulls are potentially way under the tax for next year too⁵, and many teams are already looking at that year’s payroll as incentive to make a trade now.

This is an asset the Bulls possess and could squeeze something from another team if they used it.

But, beyond not being good at valuation, scouting, player development, conceiving and communicating a vision for the team, AKME is also bad at these kinds of more marginal transactions.

They are bad at nearly everything, and sound like morons every chance they deign to speak. We’ll see in a week if they actually do something, or are still truly the worst front office in the league.

1. Will Perdue, after that win over the Nuggets, dropped a horrifying conversation he had “with someone in the organization”, who said: “this is the type of game we need to get people to believe, to get them back in the United Center”

2. though neither were selected to the second-division All Star team this week. Both will be called “All Stars in our hearts” by AK in the next presser, like how he gave Coby White his Most Improved Player ceremonial vote last summer.

3. edited to add: I was too dismissive of the Warriors after learning (thanks Jason Patt) that Golden State can do a LaVine deal without Wiggins as Dennis Schroeder and his $13M can be aggregated in trades before the deadline (just not quite yet). This also means they could do so for Jimmy Butler too.

4. for most executives this would be pointed out as a huge mistake, but it’s merely a small part of a giant pile for AKME

5. And that’s even with nearly $40M tied up in fungible-to-useless players Williams+Smith+Carter+Terry