They’re just being cheap

it’s ok to call it what it is, especially if “it’s no big deal”!

I’m not going to do…what everyone thinks I’m going to do…and FLIP OUT over the Bulls going into a rebuilding season with an open roster spot for no other reason than saving money.

It’s truly not that big of a deal as a singular act. It’s potentially a bad signal, compounded with the 2nd round of the draft nonsense, that Bryson Graham was hired because he’s pliable. And as I keep saying: even if true, that doesn’t mean Graham can’t be successful.

What gets me is the reporting around it. KC Johnson works for the team broadcast partner, so this language used makes sense from that perspective:

Plan is to keep 15th roster spot open for now. That could change moving forward but offers flexibility.

But worse when Will Gottlieb of CHGO, who is almost universally really good about this stuff and correctly called out the Bulls being cheap on the second night of the draft, is parroting the ‘logic’:

Bulls still have the room exception, which allows them to take in up to $9.3M without sending any money out.

Smarter to leave the roster spot open so they can use it at the deadline to help a team get cheaper in exchange for draft compensation.

The part about the Room Exception is true. If the Bulls save that for the deadline and can get a better trade using it then than during roster crunch week, it was worth waiting.

But the roster spot has nothing to do with the cap exception, or flexibility in general. Everyone was wrong when they said it after the draft, and they are wrong now.

I don’t know how to be superlatively clear about this: there is no flexibility lost in occupying that roster spot. The only qualifier is that the player is signed without dipping into that Room Exception. It can be at minimum salary and even non-guaranteed, you know, the exact kind of contract that the 15th man on one of the league’s worst teams could reasonably hope to get anyway.

Then if you need a roster spot later in the season around the trade deadline, you ‘gain flexibility’ by cutting that guy! Or, heck, maybe he outplays someone else on the roster and you cut them instead, that would be true flexibility, right?

In the meantime, there is the remote possibility of finding a diamond in the rough - hey waitaminute, wasn’t Graham’s justification for selling the 2nd round picks was the confidence he could find such guys? - or the very likely possibility that the player would simply help in the locker room and on the practice floor if not potentially on the court given how many injuries all teams have during the marathon regular season.

That is very little value, to be sure. But it is more than zero, and zero is the amount of ‘cost’ incurred by signing a 15th man.

I’m defining that as the implicit cost of hampering roster construction. There are many teams in the league that keep roster spots open for those reasons:

A handful of these teams are right up against a hard cap and don’t have the ability to add a 15th man to their standard rosters at this point. That’s the situation for the Cavaliers, Pacers, and Sixers.

Many others are operating in luxury tax territory or right near the tax line and will want to keep that 15th spot open for now in order to either keep their projected tax bill in check or maintain some financial flexibility. Aprons are also a consideration here. Adding a 15th man would push the Knicks over the second apron, for example.

That’s from HoopsRumors.com, who continue:

Not all of these teams face cap- or apron-related constraints though. The Bulls are far clear of the tax, for instance, and could comfortably make a roster addition if they want to.

They don’t want to. There is no possible reason not to want to, besides the explicit cost of cash. And this is cash for a team that has the league’s 3rd lowest payroll expense, over $34M clear of the luxury tax.

This is another example of handwringing, to be sure, but I’m doing my part to at least make such handwringing consistent. In the second round of the draft, Bryson Graham and the Bulls were simply being cheap and gaining cash, and many called that out. If¹ they go into the season without filling the last roster spot, the only thing gained is not flexibility, but cash not paid to that player.

It’s not the end of the world, it doesn’t mean the Bulls can never win and that Bryson Graham can’t succeed under these ‘constraints’. But it is, as plain as day, them being cheap.

1. I will be very pleased if this is all incorrect reporting, not just because it’s the right thing to do but it’ll mean I can save time not following KC’s reporting anymore.