Sun Times says: Now Michael Ruffin is an investment? Let me get this straight. We're keeping a player that can't play on our active roster because if we waived him we'd have to give him an injury settlement. That is, we'd have to pay him either way. But by keeping him, he actually counts more against the salary cap too, so it's that much harder to make the trade(s) the team needs to make. Brilliant.
I don't see how it's that much harder to make a trade, he's just as likely to be the last few hundred thousand needed to balance the deal as he is to be the few hundred thousand preventing the deal, and if he is, he can just be thrown in. More than a few of the trades I did on the trade machine required him to be involved.
There are plenty of other teams out there that are close to the tax as well, and wouldn't be interested in taking on a few hundred K extra for the privilige of taking on Michael Ruffin for the rest of the year.
It's not about the bulls dumping Ruffin on them, it's about making the numbers match within the ranges they need to in order to get a deal done. I don't think the bulls think of Gray as a throw in, and the next smallest salary is 1 million larger, so it gives them better wiggle room to make a deal. And no Gray jokes please.
Hunter could fill the same role And yes... you're really setting up for a Gray joke there, no matter what the Bulls think.
Example: Raptors trade O'Neal. Bulls trade Hughes and Nocioni. Deal works under the rules, but the Bulls take back about 300k in extra salary that will put them over the tax. And since the Raptors are within a couple hundred K of the cap themselves, they can't take Ruffin back. So in short, he screws a potential deal.
