wait, that's right...the Bulls could instead EXTEND Alex Caruso this summer

it's not the worst idea, but that is only for a not-incompetent front office

The latest changes to the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement has better incentivized keeping your own players, through looser rules for veteran contract extensions. This would normally be a good thing, but as fans of the Bulls it’s dreaded.

And I think we’re all (myself included) so focused on whatever insane raise DeMar DeRozan will get from the Bulls that we forgot that Alex Caruso is also eligible for a contract extension this summer. The difference is that, unlike DeRozan, Caruso is under contract next season for a bargain $9.9M (a no-brainer full guarantee by June 29) whether he extends or not.

I have not heard any rumors that the Bulls are looking to extend Caruso. Perhaps that lack of news, plus assumptions on the relatively small amount they could extend him for, had me thinking it was just not a likelihood at all.

But I listened to Hollinger & Duncan this week as they went through veteran extension candidates throughout the league, and surprisingly Caruso inspired a pretty lengthy discussion.

That’s because the max amount the Bulls can offer is actually a pretty decent raise. While he makes so little next year, a Caruso extension has a starting salary bumped up to the average player salary, plus 140%. Altogether, with max raises in a 4-year deal, it’d be $78.8M through the 2028-29 season when Caruso will turn 35 years old.

John Hollinger said that based off his metrics, Caruso is worth over $27M, so that sub-$20M average amount would be likely be below what Caruso could get in the open market next summer. But Caruso, as we all well know, has a playing style that means he’s hurt a lot already and probably won’t age well in his thirties.

He’s been underpaid his whole career, and coming off back-to-back All-Defense Team selections, so he may rationalize that this is his best opportunity to secure a huge contract. I’ve seen (mostly from the CHGO guys) that Caruso may not want to stay with the Bulls because of their current status as slightly-below-mediocre. But I find that to be naive hopium that Caruso will “save” the Bulls from themselves. Caruso is a “winner”, whatever that means, but he’s also a professional that (like all NBA pros) will take the money first and then can suggest (if not outright dictate) his situation later. He’s already won a championship.

I think Caruso would indeed take this offer.

The lingering question is should the Bulls make it? It’s tough to assess, because the AKME regime is so bad at their jobs we can’t assume baseline rational thinking. They should have traded Caruso already while he was on this bargain deal and firmly in his prime. Now with just a season left on that deal, he has less trade value. I think if the extension increases that trade value then they should go for it.

A hiccup is that once signing an extension, Caruso would be ineligible to be traded until midseason. This brings up another AKME ‘quirk’ we have to account for: they’ve proven to be incapable of making any midseason moves. While Caruso’s less valuable on the trade market this summer than he was at this past do-nothing trade deadline, Caruso still could perhaps get you something good that helps immediately. Like a higher draft pick this year, or ability to move off LaVine or Vucevic.

Ultimately, Duncan said the Bulls should offer the extension to Caruso and then trade him before this year’s deadline. Because even with the raise coming, Caruso would still be at the $9.9M figure this season which contending teams over the tax will clamor for (and worry about future salary later).

But Duncan’s assessment was offered with the disclaimer that this is what he would do. The Bulls almost have a superpower in their hanging on to their guys too long. I think that’s also spurred the cognitive dissonance in a DeRozan extension: the decision is framed as either trade them now or have some disastrous long-term agreement. It doesn’t have to be that binary, if just thinking what the average NBA team would do. The problem, as always, is that the Bulls are a sub-average organization.