They'll be around 7-17 when Dec 15 rolls around, enabling other teams to trade the majority of their players, apparently needed to facilitate a Zach trade. Zach will predictably continue to wilt under his new "everyone's against me" sensitivity spotlight which he fully brought on himself, and the media outlets will continue to stoke the fire, suggesting ridiculously low value trades for him in the process to shit teams like the Lakers.
I don't think AKME will continue their former tune; I think in the past they've typically taken what the media has given them as far as baked in excuses and narratives (Lonzo injury, continuity, the idea that being competitive is better than any form of rebuilding...) Thus this time, if AK brings back horrible returns for Zach et al, he has nothing else to do than just read the headlines and say they were in a low leverage spot where Zach could only yield historically bad trade value. Point being: Local media needs to hold the ownership accountable and to a higher standard, to in turn set that expectation with the fans, if we expect AKME to ever hold themselves to any loftier standards. Otherwise AKME will take the easy narrative every time.
What AK should get, at minimum: 2 1st's for Zach or a 1st and a young promising player, a 1st and youngish role player for Caruso, a 1st or a promising young player for DeMar, and the ability to get out of the Vuc contract by packaging him with another deal possibly in return for an expiring big like Valunciunas. In addition to those bare minimumum expectations, they should try to get back as much expiring contracts as possible for salary matches, and keep all their current young players looking to see what they have down the stretch (Pat Williams, your table is ready).
There's no reason we can't be like last seasons Spurs or Rockets, positioned well for the future, if AK actually performs how they should this trade season. There's plenty of desparate teams out there to take advantage of; get our heads out of the ESPN narratives and it's easy to see
part of the problem with that LaVine trade return is the receiving team putting LaVine in that salary slot for the next 2-3 years. They would undoubtedly want to send someone out making long-term money too.
would the Bulls take a player like that and get better assets? probably not because they're shortsighted and cheap
so it is actually pretty hard to think of trade partners who even want LaVine at his number, AND giving up assets for the privilege
Here's my reverse-engineering of Zach trade logic...
Zach's main sales-points for AK: elite shooter, can score at all levels including free throws, can be marketed as an all-star for tix/ merch sales
4 Team Types That Will Trade For Zach (some overlap):
1) Final piece teams: MIA, LAL, NYK, PHI, SAC, GSW
2) Stale Offense teams: TOR, ORL, LAL, MIA, UTAH, DET, NY, BKN
3) Stale Fanbase teams: CHA, ORL, BKN, UTAH, DET, IND
4) Robin for Batman teams: NOLA, SA, MIA, OKC, CHA, DET
From there we can create trades for Zach; personally I think the desparate, stale teams like CHA, NOLA, DET, ORL, etc are the ones I would target. But ya know, AK, feel free to get creative such as throwing in Caruso on an even bigger package with a contender, involving a third team for salary matching, or playing trade partners off each other to gin up a bidding war. But it's absolutely trash to say that Zach is too difficult to trade; get it done, there's plenty of avenues to pursue here
AK should call every team to talk to them about Zach. But given his contract number (which affects both his value, but also makes most teams trade a player(s) who’s contributing to the team to make the salaries work), his defensive and playmaking limitations, and his trade request, his real market is more limited than you suggest (AK shouldn’t worry about the teams he wants to go to, but any mediocre team should consider that a huge red flag).
Definitely not every team, it's about 10-14 teams that have legitimate reasons to trade for Zach. If you're a team like CHA or DET, you are bleeding fans and therefore revenue. Zach may be very limited but he will sell jerseys and get young fans excited. There's many different ways to sell Zach to the different 4 tiers I mentioned above, not all of which are based on the logic of winning games. Some are based on logic of selling tickets, some are based on logic of keeping star players happy. But in the background of it all, is star players don't come available very often, and especially for a small market team, you take your shot when it's available. Zach would be a controlled asset for those teams, who wouldn't be able to sign such a player in the offseason. Doesn't necessarily have to be based on how much Zach fits or affects winning
No of course it's not obvious that Lavine will sell jerseys or get young fans excited- that's a GM's job to sell that vision. Perception is reality and the most important skill in life is not data crunching or logic, it's sales and communications. Detroit and Charlotte are depressingly moribund franchises currently who are desperate to inject energy in their teams; sell them on Lavines jersey sales while in Chicago.
Similarly with Lavine being traded to a team that needs the final piece to a contender or needs to convince their star player not to leave; it doesn't matter if it's actually true (how could you even prove that anyways, it's a gamble regardless), it only matters in AKs ability to sell other teams on those visions. Find their pain point, tell them Zach solves it.
So there's no excuses not to get a good deal done, AK has plenty of resources to do so. It only matters if AK sucks at communication and sales with other GMs (aside from secondary qualities like assessing return value)
we already saw over the summer where the media IS holding LaVine trade value return to a higher standard than the market is bearing out, otherwise there would've been a trade. Or there's a level where the Bulls are holding it to an even higher standard than what we'd consider to be good, thinking internally that there was no rush because continuity was a good plan B. Now that it's shown to fail, maybe they adjust down.
Honestly this line of thought just angers me. We sat here 18 months ago and everyone in the media and on Bulls fans sites said we "had to sign Zach, it's just what guys like him get paid these days, even if he's not worth it." Now everyone and their brother says "get used to the idea that he's going to go for a bag of peanuts; that's just how it is he's paid too much for his abilities." You can't have it both ways... I was a guy saying they shouldnt have signed him to the max, they should have signed-and-traded him at the time and started the soft reset. Yet I still know that it's 100% possible for AK to get a decent deal done for him; there's plenty of avenues to pursue here. AK needs to do his job, no more BS excuses and narratives. Now it likely won't happen cause AK is possibly the worst GM in the league, but that's a different topic altogether than what SHOULD happen with a reasonably competent GM
the trap of "having to sign Zach" is more because the Bulls had no way to get another max contract player, not so much that he was worth it
and the lack of trade value is due to him not being worth ABOVE the contract. I think he's fine at that number, and if a free agent and everyone had cap space he'd get that number. But it's a harder ask for a team to make LaVine your 3rd highest paid player, and have multiple max contracts on the books going forward, AND then also give up assets
This is well stated and makes total sense, however, it also feels like a subtle admission that by re-signing Zach outside of a sign-and-trade, that was close to a "do-nothing" strategy. It was clear at the time they re-signed him that this core was going nowhere but declining; Lonzo was toast, Vuc and DDR were getting older and sure to decline, the core never played well to begin with, so why make the argument at all that we "had no way to get another max contract player". Are we just signing max players for the sake of it? It seemed clear at the time you either don't sign Zach and let him walk for nothing but gain cap flexibility, or you sign-and-trade, or you sign him on the idea that he was easily tradeable in the future. There was no chance Zach was going to make some big leap developmentally and take this team to another level. So just signing him solely because he was the only max guy we could get sounds like signing him for the mere reason of mainting Play-In competitiveness. The only way signing him made sense is if he was easily movable in the future.
As far as teams trading for him, they're matching contracts so it's not as if they have to necessarily add salary here. And they don't have to make him their 3rd highest paid player; I listed plenty of teams whose situations would warrant making a play for him where he'd be first or second highest paid player. And of course you have to give up assets if you want to substantially upgrade your roster midseason, which is one of the ways we're trying to sell Zach as- the final piece to take a contender over the top. So again, even though I never wanted to sign him to a max and keep him in the first place, I also think there is no excuse not to get a good return back for him.
And as an aside, it seems like you're significantly limiting the amount of teams you think he might go to, by saying he'd be a 3rd highest paid player or an additional max to a team. Are you just assuming the Lakers then? I don't care at all about Zach's preferred teams list; AK should fart in the general direction of that unless it's written in a contract. Enough of this "player's team" mantra; just make winning moves. There's about a third of the league Zach could make sense for; it's AK's job to make it happen. Send Zach to Detroit, don't care
Actually I'll do you one better on that front; Ricky O'Donnell was just a guest on the Game Theory podcast last week and they went over a bunch of trade ideas, most including young players
But the better way to find what young players could possibly be had is to take the teams list I posted elsewhere in these comments, then start doing mock trades. Which in general is fun to do but kind of lame to share with others since none of it will ever happen. But guys like Jaden Ivy, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Keldon Johnson, Brice Sensabaugh, Keyonte George, Marcus Sasser come to mind along with young-ish players like Austin Reaves, Tyler Herro
I don't know if this helps, but I've been doing quite a bit of reading on time travel and without getting too deep in the weeds on specialized language or theoretical definitions, there's some hope. I'll either report back later or things will appear fixed that we didn't even know were broken before. It's all rather hard to explain without diagrams or a small whiteboard. (Mom, If you are reading this, I am back safely and you don't need to worry anymore.)
Stephen Hawking said the way to test if time travel exists is to throw a big party and not tell anyone, then send the invite the day after. If people come, then that proves time travel exists. However, the problem with that is if people come to the party and then the next day you go to send the invite, there's a brief moment where you can pause and realize you are a human with free will and can therefore choose NOT to send the invite, thereby throwing the reality of what happened the day before into question. If writing a sci-fi version of this, I recommend ending the story with the human in question hovering his finger over the Send button, not knowing whether to comply with the test as planned or to tempt potentially radical repercussions by not doing the action the prior day's activities depended upon. It's your choice.
This reminds me of the time in Physics 2 when my professor was trying to explain Schroedinger's Cat and he just kept yelling at me "IS THE CAT IN THE BOX?!?" and I knew right then that I would choose a career in real estate
Since you wouldn't lie to your mom, I assume you are already back from fixing things that were even worse. Thank you for your efforts and I don't ever want to think how bad things were before you fixed them.
I know this is a joke but this saga has really exposed Donovan as useless. What is the point of having a "star player friendly coach" with no stars on the team? He has the job security over LaVine, he should coach him harder. Instead he's bending over backwards to excuse him while behind the scenes Zach's camp is leaking how Donovan is reason to leave
Klutch is known for one thing and that thing is creating constellations of players and making it happen and it's been "reported" by ShamPravda that they've decided Zach LaVine is the 3rd guy to play with LeBron and Anthony Davis. That's Plan A and I assume they are going to exhaust every possibility to make that happen. It's not an ideal situation for a trade but that's what they want and they probably have fascinating powerpoints illustrating the fucking synergies and shit. So nothing is going to happen for awhile, and the Lakers will put out the minimal offer two months from now, and this is likely to go on because by nature these groups of contenders almost never have what a rebuilding team would want and they really don't.
There's probably a higher than normal chance that the Bulls freelance here, because Reinsdorf has his own ideas and has stepped into block trades multiple times. The very idea of going along with a player's wishes with a binding contract in hand is quite distasteful for him, and when they've done it in the past (Scottie Pippen) they've basically held a fucking parade to honor their own altruism. At that point it didn't matter and sign'n'trades were brand new and the idea of getting anything for a FA was pretty cool.
If THAT happens, seems like Zach probably won't be going to Miami or some other contender with assets of limited interest to a team starting over (and increasing their operating profit for the next 3 years.) If the Bulls go rogue vs Klutch's master plan, it'll be to somewhere Klutch never wanted him to play, even from his list of safety schools.
In this case, I'm pretty on board with Reinsdorf... to an extent.
The Lakers have exactly nothing that interests me. Can't trade their pick till 2030. Guys on iffy long-term deals. There's nothing there for the Bulls.
The real problem for the Bulls is that even if Reinsdorf wanted to spite-trade him to Greenland, Greenland has to offer something back and be willing to take him.
To me, Zach is a negative asset on his contract. If we can get the Lakers to send us Russell and Reaves for Lavine, that might just be the best we can get. He clearly does not want to play here and his value will only get worse. And I do not see who would actually give up real assets for him in January.
I would not be surprised if we ended up sending out a pick before this is all over.
We used to say Beal and Zach were similar players, Beal has been injured more and had a no-trade clause but this was Washington's return this summer (including what they got for Chris Paul):
- Jordan Poole
- Landry Shamet
- Patrick Baldwin Jr.
- Ryan Rollins
- Wiz option to swap 2024 1st round pick with the Suns (will not be used)
- Wiz option to swap 2026, 2028, 2030 1st round pick with the Suns
- $3.5 million cash from the Suns + undisclosed cash from the Warriors
This is something else, I would be over the moon if we got this much (which might actually turn out to be almost nothing, but might turn out to be lottery-level picks) for Zach LaVine.
I suspect you are correct, that Karnisovas bet wrong, and now has to wager again whether holding Zach up to and maybe even beyond the trade deadline would yield more than Reaves and D'Angelo Russell and 2030 1st.
yeah I think the hypothetical test case here would be Detroit. Would they give up Jaden Ivey? Would they do so knowing that Zach doesn't want to be there, and they're seeing what that looks like in Chicago? And if he does want to be there it's only because he feels he can be the best option late in games, and you see where that can take your team.
Every player the bulls can get from the lakers should be traded again, it would be easier to trade 40m in contracts in different parts than all at once, which is what you have to do now with Lavine.
Also because no player the lakers will include in a trade will be usefull to what the bulls should pursue now. Maybe Reaves, but that would probably demand sth more than Lavine.
Nah. For one, this is the Bulls we're talking about. Trades are hard all the time, but they're especially hard for these guys. Making a deal with the expectation of having to make a whole series of follow on deals is like expecting them to cure cancer and then go hit 3 hole in ones in a row.
Most if not all of the players we would get from the Lakers are in the 1st year of contract extensions which makes that somewhat difficult.
To take one example: the Lakers acquired Hachimura from the Wizards straight up for a 2023 2nd, 2028 2nd and 2029 2nd, when he was basically in the same contract situation (and career situation) Pat Williams is in. Does he return more in the 1st year of a 3 year/$51 million contract? I don't think you're going to get a "promising young player" back for that — he *is* the "promising young player" in a trade, or at least the mostly unproven one. You're going to get someone else's junk and maybe a 2nd, I would guess, certainly not a 1st and probably not even a very conditional one.
So I'm pretty pessimistic. Like Reaves you might as well hold and see if they outperform when given starter's minutes on a team that has to make up a loss of 18 shots a game. (*)
D'Angelo is whatever he is and is a negative asset for sure on a new contract, probably the only teams really interested would be a place like us that have a minutes hole in the backcourt and don't expect much from him but will somehow get even less.
(*) (I kind of expect a team that replaced Zach with Hachimura, Reaves and D'Angelo Russell would probably be somewhat better, actually.)
Sounds like Lakers don't want to give up Reaves, but he is the best of those 3. Wouldn't we want the youthy stuff like Vanderbilt, Reddish, Christie, and Hood-Sniffles?
From what ESPN has, Reaves isn't tradeable until mid-January, Vanderbilt isn't tradeable at all this year (trade deadline is Feb 8, his contract is tradeable March 8). Anyone could have acquired Reddish for the minimum like 2 months ago. So sure, I guess, where possible but none of this really looks all that good.
This list is also helpful because it shows us that you don’t have to do what LaVine wants because of how powerful Klutch is. Trade him where it makes sense.
Oh no, we’ve pissed off Rich Paul and can’t sign JR Smith
if anything, Klutch owes the Bulls for the LaVine max (and goodies like trade kicker), plus the lemon Lonzo, plus signing Tristan Thompson using the BAE for no real reason
You have to assume that there is some cheapness savant thing for that BAE. Like, using a portion of it this year means they won't have to use it next year and no one can yell at them.
Whether it's wise or not, the Bulls have largely opted out of the whole game and has institutional contempt for most of these guys, which probably stems from Reinsdorf being forced to pick up the check for a coffee with David Falk back 1994 because Falk claimed he only had hundred dollar bills.
I want to say that it's just not smart to be openly contemptuous of sports agents in the sports business but the Bulls operate in a weird parallel universe already. Now they just have to lean into it: don't make a deal around expirings that aren't going to be useful to you as a black hole of free agency. To quote Che Guevara, take on two, three, many Vucevices, only get paid for doing so.
I definitely agree that it’s not smart to be contemptuous of the agents in the sports business, but I see people act like Klutch is the Boras of basketball and that just isn’t the case.
Klutch represents LeBron and his buddies and teammates, but there are plenty of great players who aren’t on their roster if you trade LaVine somewhere not on his list and need to give the Klutch roster a year or two to cool down
AK has kind of changed course with Klutch signings of Ball and Tristan Thompson. Plus the way over market DDR play and Vuc extension. They supposedly want to be more star friendly just can't scout who's an actual star
i don’t expect them to be creative in pulling the levers at their disposal to find a way to get a good return in a trade, because they are incapable. but i do expect them to be creative in finding new ways to embarrass themselves and piss of klutch and like, maybe even lebron
If option A is sending Zach somewhere else and the Bulls get a worse return but it pisses off/eggs the faces of Klutch, and option B is sending Zach to the Lakers, then I would choose option A.
Further logic which AK should use in so far as he decides to reset this veteran core. Order does matter...
- Caruso is the easiest to trade and others being traded before him really doesn't affect his value. Therefore he is the trump card and should be traded last, or in an emergency
- Vuc is the hardest to trade as he has the least suitors, so he should be traded asap but will likely need to be thrown in with another player. He should be traded at earliest possibility and every trade discussion should have Vuc thrown in there just to see if we can get away with it
- Zach should be traded first for obvious reasons, but not so early that it's for a bag of peanuts. Must maintain the longview here; this season will end up being about playing Pat, Coby, Ayo, and Phillips heavy minutes later on. It doesn't matter if Zach ruins any supposed "team chemistry" between now and then, those dudes will quickly forget Zach existed. Zach also should be traded early if we plan on using the Jrue Holiday, "re-trade the gained assets" strategy
- DDR also can probably be traded any time and to a team that needs clutch scoring at any cost. His value does not depend on anyone elses, in fact it might go up after Zach leaves cause he'll just score 30 a game
- Torey Craig and Jevon Carter are also good sweeteners on a trade to any contender, and don't factor at all into our rebuild
- Try not to trade any of Pat, Coby, Ayo, and Phillips. We won't get reasonable value back
I think most of the Bulls roster will garner interest since there's a "vultures circling the corpse" narrative being thrown around the NBA. everyone will descend on us to see if we'll give them away for free. That's why the only real variable here is how good AK is at negotiating; just because everyone expects him to blow it doesn't mean he has to
It's good that AKME don't know how to do their job, because reading (and making) this ironic criticism of them has become a real necessity for me. I can't spend a day without reading some bulls fans crapping on the direction and decisions (not) made.
Nov 24, 2023·edited Nov 24, 2023Liked by your friendly BullsBlogger
It will be pretty funny when Art Karni gets less for Zach LaVine than he himself paid for Nikola Vucevic, who was in a somewhat similar situation: under contract for several years, centerpiece of a bad team, 2 all star berths but was maybe only briefly considered top 5 at his position (Zach has clearly been eclipsed this year by Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Maxey. The intangibles don't favor Zach considering that both of them already have more playoff experience.)
Like if we could find another Karni to take advantage of that would be great, but I suspect and fear there is only one.
Fun with stats: offensive fouls (charges, perimeter, etc) drawn this season, the last two seasons and career: https://i.imgur.com/VzCu7tf.png
Alex Caruso is good but actually more impressive is that he's incredibly consistent. Kind of amazing to see so little fluctuation by year.
Did this mainly to measure Coby White, who is spending an awful lot amount of time on the floor. Not surprisingly, Coby White is doing this at a phenomenal, and probably league-leading rate. Yet he was always at least average, which you wouldn't have guessed. This is feeding into my theory that Coby, though seen as a krazy kid with krazy hair, is actually a really smart player and one that is learning.
If an offensive foul is committed in the vicinity of Zach and Vuc, it's probably a coincidence. (Zach has drawn exactly 1 charge in his entire career.)
I noticed this about Coby last year. And also props to DeMar, who seems to know that giving up his body to the basketball gods is his most effective form of defense.
It brings to mind something I wasn't emphasizing even as being on the pessimistic side of speculating a Zach market: since the Bulls won't go into the tax, the receiving team will be taking on more salary and probably in the tax already themselves. There's no calculation of how much more tax Miami pays after adding Zach but it's significant
Arison is as big of a cheapskate as Reinsdorf, I mean this man who has devoted his life to lowballing the families of people who die on his cruise ships. He's just hired well.
Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by your friendly BullsBlogger
These are crazy times. Nobody even suggests an outcome that is different anymore, and few people believe there's some kind of new configuration of players and line-ups that would make any kind of difference. More Jevon Carter? Yeah okay, whatever.
When people claimed that "basketball hell" was having a fun and hard-nosed team that "only" made the playoffs every year, show them this. The Bulls are 29th in points, 30th in assists, 26th in rebounding. It's actually harder to find anything they're good at! They're behind teams that are intentionally trying to lose. Not a few of them. They're behind all of them. And those teams are actually playing their young, long-shot players. Donovan has played Bitim, Phillips, Terry and Taylor a combined 30 minutes in 16 games.
"[Jordan] Poole is a bit of an outlier in terms of generating free throws. Among NBA players with at least 220 field goal attempts this season, only Nikola Vucevic of the Bulls (30 FTA) has taken fewer free throw attempts than Poole’s 41."
They'll be around 7-17 when Dec 15 rolls around, enabling other teams to trade the majority of their players, apparently needed to facilitate a Zach trade. Zach will predictably continue to wilt under his new "everyone's against me" sensitivity spotlight which he fully brought on himself, and the media outlets will continue to stoke the fire, suggesting ridiculously low value trades for him in the process to shit teams like the Lakers.
I don't think AKME will continue their former tune; I think in the past they've typically taken what the media has given them as far as baked in excuses and narratives (Lonzo injury, continuity, the idea that being competitive is better than any form of rebuilding...) Thus this time, if AK brings back horrible returns for Zach et al, he has nothing else to do than just read the headlines and say they were in a low leverage spot where Zach could only yield historically bad trade value. Point being: Local media needs to hold the ownership accountable and to a higher standard, to in turn set that expectation with the fans, if we expect AKME to ever hold themselves to any loftier standards. Otherwise AKME will take the easy narrative every time.
What AK should get, at minimum: 2 1st's for Zach or a 1st and a young promising player, a 1st and youngish role player for Caruso, a 1st or a promising young player for DeMar, and the ability to get out of the Vuc contract by packaging him with another deal possibly in return for an expiring big like Valunciunas. In addition to those bare minimumum expectations, they should try to get back as much expiring contracts as possible for salary matches, and keep all their current young players looking to see what they have down the stretch (Pat Williams, your table is ready).
There's no reason we can't be like last seasons Spurs or Rockets, positioned well for the future, if AK actually performs how they should this trade season. There's plenty of desparate teams out there to take advantage of; get our heads out of the ESPN narratives and it's easy to see
part of the problem with that LaVine trade return is the receiving team putting LaVine in that salary slot for the next 2-3 years. They would undoubtedly want to send someone out making long-term money too.
would the Bulls take a player like that and get better assets? probably not because they're shortsighted and cheap
so it is actually pretty hard to think of trade partners who even want LaVine at his number, AND giving up assets for the privilege
Here's my reverse-engineering of Zach trade logic...
Zach's main sales-points for AK: elite shooter, can score at all levels including free throws, can be marketed as an all-star for tix/ merch sales
4 Team Types That Will Trade For Zach (some overlap):
1) Final piece teams: MIA, LAL, NYK, PHI, SAC, GSW
2) Stale Offense teams: TOR, ORL, LAL, MIA, UTAH, DET, NY, BKN
3) Stale Fanbase teams: CHA, ORL, BKN, UTAH, DET, IND
4) Robin for Batman teams: NOLA, SA, MIA, OKC, CHA, DET
From there we can create trades for Zach; personally I think the desparate, stale teams like CHA, NOLA, DET, ORL, etc are the ones I would target. But ya know, AK, feel free to get creative such as throwing in Caruso on an even bigger package with a contender, involving a third team for salary matching, or playing trade partners off each other to gin up a bidding war. But it's absolutely trash to say that Zach is too difficult to trade; get it done, there's plenty of avenues to pursue here
AK should call every team to talk to them about Zach. But given his contract number (which affects both his value, but also makes most teams trade a player(s) who’s contributing to the team to make the salaries work), his defensive and playmaking limitations, and his trade request, his real market is more limited than you suggest (AK shouldn’t worry about the teams he wants to go to, but any mediocre team should consider that a huge red flag).
Definitely not every team, it's about 10-14 teams that have legitimate reasons to trade for Zach. If you're a team like CHA or DET, you are bleeding fans and therefore revenue. Zach may be very limited but he will sell jerseys and get young fans excited. There's many different ways to sell Zach to the different 4 tiers I mentioned above, not all of which are based on the logic of winning games. Some are based on logic of selling tickets, some are based on logic of keeping star players happy. But in the background of it all, is star players don't come available very often, and especially for a small market team, you take your shot when it's available. Zach would be a controlled asset for those teams, who wouldn't be able to sign such a player in the offseason. Doesn't necessarily have to be based on how much Zach fits or affects winning
I guess I don’t think LaVine will obviously sell jerseys or get young fans excited.
Nor would I think any star on another team would be happy about acquiring LaVine except in a framework that would lead to winning.
I see 3 fits now (LAL, ORL, TOR), and maybe GSW if Wiggins starts to play well, but Thompson is clearly finished.
Hopefully I’m wrong and you’re right.
No of course it's not obvious that Lavine will sell jerseys or get young fans excited- that's a GM's job to sell that vision. Perception is reality and the most important skill in life is not data crunching or logic, it's sales and communications. Detroit and Charlotte are depressingly moribund franchises currently who are desperate to inject energy in their teams; sell them on Lavines jersey sales while in Chicago.
Similarly with Lavine being traded to a team that needs the final piece to a contender or needs to convince their star player not to leave; it doesn't matter if it's actually true (how could you even prove that anyways, it's a gamble regardless), it only matters in AKs ability to sell other teams on those visions. Find their pain point, tell them Zach solves it.
So there's no excuses not to get a good deal done, AK has plenty of resources to do so. It only matters if AK sucks at communication and sales with other GMs (aside from secondary qualities like assessing return value)
we already saw over the summer where the media IS holding LaVine trade value return to a higher standard than the market is bearing out, otherwise there would've been a trade. Or there's a level where the Bulls are holding it to an even higher standard than what we'd consider to be good, thinking internally that there was no rush because continuity was a good plan B. Now that it's shown to fail, maybe they adjust down.
Honestly this line of thought just angers me. We sat here 18 months ago and everyone in the media and on Bulls fans sites said we "had to sign Zach, it's just what guys like him get paid these days, even if he's not worth it." Now everyone and their brother says "get used to the idea that he's going to go for a bag of peanuts; that's just how it is he's paid too much for his abilities." You can't have it both ways... I was a guy saying they shouldnt have signed him to the max, they should have signed-and-traded him at the time and started the soft reset. Yet I still know that it's 100% possible for AK to get a decent deal done for him; there's plenty of avenues to pursue here. AK needs to do his job, no more BS excuses and narratives. Now it likely won't happen cause AK is possibly the worst GM in the league, but that's a different topic altogether than what SHOULD happen with a reasonably competent GM
the trap of "having to sign Zach" is more because the Bulls had no way to get another max contract player, not so much that he was worth it
and the lack of trade value is due to him not being worth ABOVE the contract. I think he's fine at that number, and if a free agent and everyone had cap space he'd get that number. But it's a harder ask for a team to make LaVine your 3rd highest paid player, and have multiple max contracts on the books going forward, AND then also give up assets
This is well stated and makes total sense, however, it also feels like a subtle admission that by re-signing Zach outside of a sign-and-trade, that was close to a "do-nothing" strategy. It was clear at the time they re-signed him that this core was going nowhere but declining; Lonzo was toast, Vuc and DDR were getting older and sure to decline, the core never played well to begin with, so why make the argument at all that we "had no way to get another max contract player". Are we just signing max players for the sake of it? It seemed clear at the time you either don't sign Zach and let him walk for nothing but gain cap flexibility, or you sign-and-trade, or you sign him on the idea that he was easily tradeable in the future. There was no chance Zach was going to make some big leap developmentally and take this team to another level. So just signing him solely because he was the only max guy we could get sounds like signing him for the mere reason of mainting Play-In competitiveness. The only way signing him made sense is if he was easily movable in the future.
As far as teams trading for him, they're matching contracts so it's not as if they have to necessarily add salary here. And they don't have to make him their 3rd highest paid player; I listed plenty of teams whose situations would warrant making a play for him where he'd be first or second highest paid player. And of course you have to give up assets if you want to substantially upgrade your roster midseason, which is one of the ways we're trying to sell Zach as- the final piece to take a contender over the top. So again, even though I never wanted to sign him to a max and keep him in the first place, I also think there is no excuse not to get a good return back for him.
And as an aside, it seems like you're significantly limiting the amount of teams you think he might go to, by saying he'd be a 3rd highest paid player or an additional max to a team. Are you just assuming the Lakers then? I don't care at all about Zach's preferred teams list; AK should fart in the general direction of that unless it's written in a contract. Enough of this "player's team" mantra; just make winning moves. There's about a third of the league Zach could make sense for; it's AK's job to make it happen. Send Zach to Detroit, don't care
Curious to know what you and everyone else on this blog thing are 'promising young players' who might even be gettable?
Actually I'll do you one better on that front; Ricky O'Donnell was just a guest on the Game Theory podcast last week and they went over a bunch of trade ideas, most including young players
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io3kKAPl98U&ab_channel=GameTheoryPodcastw%2FSamVecenie
But the better way to find what young players could possibly be had is to take the teams list I posted elsewhere in these comments, then start doing mock trades. Which in general is fun to do but kind of lame to share with others since none of it will ever happen. But guys like Jaden Ivy, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Keldon Johnson, Brice Sensabaugh, Keyonte George, Marcus Sasser come to mind along with young-ish players like Austin Reaves, Tyler Herro
I don't know if this helps, but I've been doing quite a bit of reading on time travel and without getting too deep in the weeds on specialized language or theoretical definitions, there's some hope. I'll either report back later or things will appear fixed that we didn't even know were broken before. It's all rather hard to explain without diagrams or a small whiteboard. (Mom, If you are reading this, I am back safely and you don't need to worry anymore.)
Is this the plot to "Big"? Have you been reading up on zoltar machines
Stephen Hawking said the way to test if time travel exists is to throw a big party and not tell anyone, then send the invite the day after. If people come, then that proves time travel exists. However, the problem with that is if people come to the party and then the next day you go to send the invite, there's a brief moment where you can pause and realize you are a human with free will and can therefore choose NOT to send the invite, thereby throwing the reality of what happened the day before into question. If writing a sci-fi version of this, I recommend ending the story with the human in question hovering his finger over the Send button, not knowing whether to comply with the test as planned or to tempt potentially radical repercussions by not doing the action the prior day's activities depended upon. It's your choice.
This reminds me of the time in Physics 2 when my professor was trying to explain Schroedinger's Cat and he just kept yelling at me "IS THE CAT IN THE BOX?!?" and I knew right then that I would choose a career in real estate
Since you wouldn't lie to your mom, I assume you are already back from fixing things that were even worse. Thank you for your efforts and I don't ever want to think how bad things were before you fixed them.
Acne needs to fire Donny and ask Rich Paul who Zach would like installed as his immediate replacement. I mean, he’s our superstar fer chrissakes!
It was not too long ago where it was very en vogue among the fanbase to say that the Bulls should rebuild around Zach and Pat
I know this is a joke but this saga has really exposed Donovan as useless. What is the point of having a "star player friendly coach" with no stars on the team? He has the job security over LaVine, he should coach him harder. Instead he's bending over backwards to excuse him while behind the scenes Zach's camp is leaking how Donovan is reason to leave
Klutch is known for one thing and that thing is creating constellations of players and making it happen and it's been "reported" by ShamPravda that they've decided Zach LaVine is the 3rd guy to play with LeBron and Anthony Davis. That's Plan A and I assume they are going to exhaust every possibility to make that happen. It's not an ideal situation for a trade but that's what they want and they probably have fascinating powerpoints illustrating the fucking synergies and shit. So nothing is going to happen for awhile, and the Lakers will put out the minimal offer two months from now, and this is likely to go on because by nature these groups of contenders almost never have what a rebuilding team would want and they really don't.
There's probably a higher than normal chance that the Bulls freelance here, because Reinsdorf has his own ideas and has stepped into block trades multiple times. The very idea of going along with a player's wishes with a binding contract in hand is quite distasteful for him, and when they've done it in the past (Scottie Pippen) they've basically held a fucking parade to honor their own altruism. At that point it didn't matter and sign'n'trades were brand new and the idea of getting anything for a FA was pretty cool.
If THAT happens, seems like Zach probably won't be going to Miami or some other contender with assets of limited interest to a team starting over (and increasing their operating profit for the next 3 years.) If the Bulls go rogue vs Klutch's master plan, it'll be to somewhere Klutch never wanted him to play, even from his list of safety schools.
In this case, I'm pretty on board with Reinsdorf... to an extent.
The Lakers have exactly nothing that interests me. Can't trade their pick till 2030. Guys on iffy long-term deals. There's nothing there for the Bulls.
The real problem for the Bulls is that even if Reinsdorf wanted to spite-trade him to Greenland, Greenland has to offer something back and be willing to take him.
To me, Zach is a negative asset on his contract. If we can get the Lakers to send us Russell and Reaves for Lavine, that might just be the best we can get. He clearly does not want to play here and his value will only get worse. And I do not see who would actually give up real assets for him in January.
I would not be surprised if we ended up sending out a pick before this is all over.
I'm not sending out any picks if I'm the Bulls, but at the same time, I don't expect a lot.
We used to say Beal and Zach were similar players, Beal has been injured more and had a no-trade clause but this was Washington's return this summer (including what they got for Chris Paul):
- Jordan Poole
- Landry Shamet
- Patrick Baldwin Jr.
- Ryan Rollins
- Wiz option to swap 2024 1st round pick with the Suns (will not be used)
- Wiz option to swap 2026, 2028, 2030 1st round pick with the Suns
- 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2030 Suns 2nd round picks
- 2027 Warriors 2nd
- 2030 Warriors 1st (top 20 protected, else 2nd round)
- $3.5 million cash from the Suns + undisclosed cash from the Warriors
This is something else, I would be over the moon if we got this much (which might actually turn out to be almost nothing, but might turn out to be lottery-level picks) for Zach LaVine.
I suspect you are correct, that Karnisovas bet wrong, and now has to wager again whether holding Zach up to and maybe even beyond the trade deadline would yield more than Reaves and D'Angelo Russell and 2030 1st.
yeah I think the hypothetical test case here would be Detroit. Would they give up Jaden Ivey? Would they do so knowing that Zach doesn't want to be there, and they're seeing what that looks like in Chicago? And if he does want to be there it's only because he feels he can be the best option late in games, and you see where that can take your team.
Detroit probably he'd be right that he's the best option. I guess I wouldn't do it if I were them, but Troy Weaver's seat looks pretty hot.
Every player the bulls can get from the lakers should be traded again, it would be easier to trade 40m in contracts in different parts than all at once, which is what you have to do now with Lavine.
Also because no player the lakers will include in a trade will be usefull to what the bulls should pursue now. Maybe Reaves, but that would probably demand sth more than Lavine.
Nah. For one, this is the Bulls we're talking about. Trades are hard all the time, but they're especially hard for these guys. Making a deal with the expectation of having to make a whole series of follow on deals is like expecting them to cure cancer and then go hit 3 hole in ones in a row.
Most if not all of the players we would get from the Lakers are in the 1st year of contract extensions which makes that somewhat difficult.
To take one example: the Lakers acquired Hachimura from the Wizards straight up for a 2023 2nd, 2028 2nd and 2029 2nd, when he was basically in the same contract situation (and career situation) Pat Williams is in. Does he return more in the 1st year of a 3 year/$51 million contract? I don't think you're going to get a "promising young player" back for that — he *is* the "promising young player" in a trade, or at least the mostly unproven one. You're going to get someone else's junk and maybe a 2nd, I would guess, certainly not a 1st and probably not even a very conditional one.
So I'm pretty pessimistic. Like Reaves you might as well hold and see if they outperform when given starter's minutes on a team that has to make up a loss of 18 shots a game. (*)
D'Angelo is whatever he is and is a negative asset for sure on a new contract, probably the only teams really interested would be a place like us that have a minutes hole in the backcourt and don't expect much from him but will somehow get even less.
(*) (I kind of expect a team that replaced Zach with Hachimura, Reaves and D'Angelo Russell would probably be somewhat better, actually.)
Sounds like Lakers don't want to give up Reaves, but he is the best of those 3. Wouldn't we want the youthy stuff like Vanderbilt, Reddish, Christie, and Hood-Sniffles?
From what ESPN has, Reaves isn't tradeable until mid-January, Vanderbilt isn't tradeable at all this year (trade deadline is Feb 8, his contract is tradeable March 8). Anyone could have acquired Reddish for the minimum like 2 months ago. So sure, I guess, where possible but none of this really looks all that good.
Helpful list
https://basketball.realgm.com/info/agent-client-list/Rich-Paul/258
So the current constellations are Lakers, Warriors, and Hawks. Maybe Cavs. Mostly ex-Lakers flung elsewhere after getting paid by the Lakers
This list is also helpful because it shows us that you don’t have to do what LaVine wants because of how powerful Klutch is. Trade him where it makes sense.
Oh no, we’ve pissed off Rich Paul and can’t sign JR Smith
if anything, Klutch owes the Bulls for the LaVine max (and goodies like trade kicker), plus the lemon Lonzo, plus signing Tristan Thompson using the BAE for no real reason
You have to assume that there is some cheapness savant thing for that BAE. Like, using a portion of it this year means they won't have to use it next year and no one can yell at them.
Whether it's wise or not, the Bulls have largely opted out of the whole game and has institutional contempt for most of these guys, which probably stems from Reinsdorf being forced to pick up the check for a coffee with David Falk back 1994 because Falk claimed he only had hundred dollar bills.
I want to say that it's just not smart to be openly contemptuous of sports agents in the sports business but the Bulls operate in a weird parallel universe already. Now they just have to lean into it: don't make a deal around expirings that aren't going to be useful to you as a black hole of free agency. To quote Che Guevara, take on two, three, many Vucevices, only get paid for doing so.
I definitely agree that it’s not smart to be contemptuous of the agents in the sports business, but I see people act like Klutch is the Boras of basketball and that just isn’t the case.
Klutch represents LeBron and his buddies and teammates, but there are plenty of great players who aren’t on their roster if you trade LaVine somewhere not on his list and need to give the Klutch roster a year or two to cool down
AK has kind of changed course with Klutch signings of Ball and Tristan Thompson. Plus the way over market DDR play and Vuc extension. They supposedly want to be more star friendly just can't scout who's an actual star
i don’t expect them to be creative in pulling the levers at their disposal to find a way to get a good return in a trade, because they are incapable. but i do expect them to be creative in finding new ways to embarrass themselves and piss of klutch and like, maybe even lebron
If option A is sending Zach somewhere else and the Bulls get a worse return but it pisses off/eggs the faces of Klutch, and option B is sending Zach to the Lakers, then I would choose option A.
But we might get shut out of all those high price free ag lol sorry I couldn't do this with a straight face
We just need to hold out until next year's draft, when we can use the #7 pick to draft Bronny. All the klutchers will move to Chicago then!!!
Further logic which AK should use in so far as he decides to reset this veteran core. Order does matter...
- Caruso is the easiest to trade and others being traded before him really doesn't affect his value. Therefore he is the trump card and should be traded last, or in an emergency
- Vuc is the hardest to trade as he has the least suitors, so he should be traded asap but will likely need to be thrown in with another player. He should be traded at earliest possibility and every trade discussion should have Vuc thrown in there just to see if we can get away with it
- Zach should be traded first for obvious reasons, but not so early that it's for a bag of peanuts. Must maintain the longview here; this season will end up being about playing Pat, Coby, Ayo, and Phillips heavy minutes later on. It doesn't matter if Zach ruins any supposed "team chemistry" between now and then, those dudes will quickly forget Zach existed. Zach also should be traded early if we plan on using the Jrue Holiday, "re-trade the gained assets" strategy
- DDR also can probably be traded any time and to a team that needs clutch scoring at any cost. His value does not depend on anyone elses, in fact it might go up after Zach leaves cause he'll just score 30 a game
- Torey Craig and Jevon Carter are also good sweeteners on a trade to any contender, and don't factor at all into our rebuild
- Try not to trade any of Pat, Coby, Ayo, and Phillips. We won't get reasonable value back
Apparently Pat is still gathering some interest. So maybe trade him while he still is gathering some?
I think most of the Bulls roster will garner interest since there's a "vultures circling the corpse" narrative being thrown around the NBA. everyone will descend on us to see if we'll give them away for free. That's why the only real variable here is how good AK is at negotiating; just because everyone expects him to blow it doesn't mean he has to
It's good that AKME don't know how to do their job, because reading (and making) this ironic criticism of them has become a real necessity for me. I can't spend a day without reading some bulls fans crapping on the direction and decisions (not) made.
I'm just glad YFBB has to write it all season, and not me! Somebody pay the man!!!
Donations encouraged (not by me, no sir!)
yeah... it'd be a lot cooler to have a real NBA team to watch every few days though
LaVine hit the injury report for tomorrow, probable with a foot sprain
Spurs looking for "leadership." Can we trade Demar back there?
Why would any team pay 2 1sts for LaVine?
This is a serious question. I mean 1st round picks are not all equal so maybe you can get 2 highly protected picks that may or may not convey.
It will be pretty funny when Art Karni gets less for Zach LaVine than he himself paid for Nikola Vucevic, who was in a somewhat similar situation: under contract for several years, centerpiece of a bad team, 2 all star berths but was maybe only briefly considered top 5 at his position (Zach has clearly been eclipsed this year by Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Maxey. The intangibles don't favor Zach considering that both of them already have more playoff experience.)
Like if we could find another Karni to take advantage of that would be great, but I suspect and fear there is only one.
Getting less from Zach than what we gave for Vuc... Bro that's TOUGH
Vuc was seen under a great contract at the time. It was declining! ::swoon::
Fun with stats: offensive fouls (charges, perimeter, etc) drawn this season, the last two seasons and career: https://i.imgur.com/VzCu7tf.png
Alex Caruso is good but actually more impressive is that he's incredibly consistent. Kind of amazing to see so little fluctuation by year.
Did this mainly to measure Coby White, who is spending an awful lot amount of time on the floor. Not surprisingly, Coby White is doing this at a phenomenal, and probably league-leading rate. Yet he was always at least average, which you wouldn't have guessed. This is feeding into my theory that Coby, though seen as a krazy kid with krazy hair, is actually a really smart player and one that is learning.
If an offensive foul is committed in the vicinity of Zach and Vuc, it's probably a coincidence. (Zach has drawn exactly 1 charge in his entire career.)
I noticed this about Coby last year. And also props to DeMar, who seems to know that giving up his body to the basketball gods is his most effective form of defense.
Rumor today no Heat pursuit of LaVine
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2023/11/heat-not-pursuing-zach-lavine.html#ref=home
It brings to mind something I wasn't emphasizing even as being on the pessimistic side of speculating a Zach market: since the Bulls won't go into the tax, the receiving team will be taking on more salary and probably in the tax already themselves. There's no calculation of how much more tax Miami pays after adding Zach but it's significant
Arison is as big of a cheapskate as Reinsdorf, I mean this man who has devoted his life to lowballing the families of people who die on his cruise ships. He's just hired well.
These are crazy times. Nobody even suggests an outcome that is different anymore, and few people believe there's some kind of new configuration of players and line-ups that would make any kind of difference. More Jevon Carter? Yeah okay, whatever.
When people claimed that "basketball hell" was having a fun and hard-nosed team that "only" made the playoffs every year, show them this. The Bulls are 29th in points, 30th in assists, 26th in rebounding. It's actually harder to find anything they're good at! They're behind teams that are intentionally trying to lose. Not a few of them. They're behind all of them. And those teams are actually playing their young, long-shot players. Donovan has played Bitim, Phillips, Terry and Taylor a combined 30 minutes in 16 games.
Okay but what the fuck is Scottie Barnes doing here?
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1728249684039241922
Why is no one punching him in his adult-baby looking face?
Scottie is legit on the spectrum....
Some recommended literature: https://autisticempath.com/the-autistic-jerk-is-just-a-jerk/
"[Jordan] Poole is a bit of an outlier in terms of generating free throws. Among NBA players with at least 220 field goal attempts this season, only Nikola Vucevic of the Bulls (30 FTA) has taken fewer free throw attempts than Poole’s 41."
Woohoo, first!
Double double machine is afraid of human contact on both ends of the court
browser link for Nets game thread: https://substack.com/chat/1508779/post/43336f94-43b5-463f-b7a7-88a694f2ad49?utm_source=post-permalink