I'm pretty much looking at the trades we made with dismay. I know we've clamored for Miller or another real big man, but I, at least, didn't prioritize getting him or a similar guy over a modicrum improving our financial position for the future. The $12M we're spending on him next year could very likely have paid both Ben Gordon and Rasho Nestorovic's salary next year, for example. And on the court, I think we've acquired him at the point where the need for him was starting to diminish due to the (somewhat) improved consistency of Noah and Thomas. Our guard rotation had finally been properly thinned out by exiling Hughes and recognizing that Thabo sucked. The addition of Salmons just re-introduced a problem that had been solved. With only one trade we could at least say we swapped the too many forwards problem of Noc for the reintroduction of the too many guards problem with Salmons, but we also, apparently, are willing to actually play Tim Thomas. And apparently we value Salmons so much (and Pax said as much) that we'll play Deng at the 4 as well. So basically, we came into the season with a financial problem, that we've actually made worse, and a depth problem that we've, if anything, actually made worse (since Miller and Salmons were "wanted" acquisitions, they're gonna get significantly more breathing room than Hughes and Gooden got). At best we rearranged the deck chairs. At worse we're taking on water more quickly.
I'm going to have to give it more than one game. But I have a quibble prior to that. But it's not all about our payroll in 2009-2010. Having Gordon and Rasho in 2009-2010 would lock in $12-14M more than Brad Miller in 2010-2011.
The financial problem was secondary to the performance issues. There are still players who aren't playing up to their potential or consistently enough to warrant their contracts, or contract demands. The fact that these guys cratered in such spectacular fashion last year and continue to struggle to put together 48 minutes to beat even mediocre teams indicates to me they aren't nearly as good as they or some of us think they are.
I don't think it's all that secondary. To a very large extent, I think you're right. These guys aren't as good as we think they are. But if that's the case, further limiting our flexibility, instead of increasing it, was not the way to go. Look at it this way. Suppose the Bulls had been able and willing to go in the complete opposite direction. They trad Kirk, Thabo, and Noc for all or mostly expirings. They don't trade for Miller. How much are we losing out by doing that? Not much. We're mediocre either way. But in that case we're mediocre but heading into the summer $10 under the cap. In this market, that could get us a very good player at a very good price. Instead we've locked ourselves into a couple of OK players for $19M, and we've got another $9M going to a backup PG. Which means we really didn't solve much of anything with the trades.
I'm far from a Paxson apologist but it's not clear that this was a viable option. Boston was rumored to be thinking about expirings for Noch but Stein's take is in the final analysis they decided "no". There wasn't even a rumored expiring deal for Hinrich on the table as far as I could ascertain. If lowest possible commited salary was the goal, it seems the best bet would have been to flip Salmons to a third team for expirings but Miller seemed to be the price for getting rid of Noch. And if Pax is confident he can flip Salmons this summer if needed, it's good to have him as insurance against BG leaving this summer which is a real option. For instance, If they would have spent it on Chandler, maybe OK decides it can spend $10M a year on BG.
But traditionally, expiring contracts become useful the summer before those contracts are going to expire. We have a whole bunch of contracts that expire in 2010, and thanks to the Hughes trade, we have a whole bunch of dollar amounts in expirings that we can compile to match incoming players with. Look, before the Miller trade, we would have entered 2009 with only two 4/5's on our roster (Tyrus and Noah). We would have had to have signed a few more bigs to this team, and inevitably, anyone who was decent would have required a multi-year deal. This would have killed any possibility of acquiring 2010 free agents. I'm still holding out hope for Bosh or Amare, so in my mind, we positioned ourselves pretty well for one of them. 0nce we didn't have the chips to trade for Amare, I think we did pretty well at the deadline. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to trade Kirk Hinrich for expiring contracts. Whereas I think the team is in for a rude awakening if we don't resign Gordon, I think we missed the boat with him this summer, and I think there was less than a 25% chance he was coming back anyway, even before we acquired the fish.
I think you're missing the point. This summer's free agent list pales in comparison to next summers, when the bulls will have an enormous amount of flexibility. Nobody but a few people on message boards are concerned with losing BG. It might be bad PR, but it certainly won't harm the bulls in any meaningful way going forward. So flexibility this upcoming season isn't a priority. Plus, they can still get the flexibility they need to sign BG if they really have to. Pax is well positioned to trade for or sign Bosh now. (This was a reply to two above...)
Don't you think if Pax and Reinsdorf were that worried about getting BG signed, they would have signed him when BG said he accept and while they still had time last summer and not played hardball with him?
Ever see the Seinfeld where George did way better in life when he went with the opposite of his natural instinct? Pax would have been way ahead if he had gone this route over the last 3 years.
As long as Reinsdorf is willing to pony up for Ben Gordon this summer, I think they're good. If he uses the luxury tax as an excuse to let Gordon walk, then they will have been disastrous trades.
I'm not following here. If the lowest possible salary commitment is the goal, then you just stand pat. Gooden walks this summer and you have a salary commitment of $7.5M next year for Noc. Now you've got a commitment of $6.9M for Salmons and $12.25M for Miller. So even if you trade Salmons to a team under the cap, you've increased your cap obligations by close to $5M. And you know, I don't see any reason to think Salmons is in that kind of demand. If he was, why would the Bulls have to pay a "price" to take him? The King would have simply traded him for expirings/picks themselves. I think the reality is just that the Bulls wanted to spend on Salmons and Miller because they think they're a lot better than I do. Me, I think the extra $12M we're spending on Miller isn't going to be money well spent. And this is coming from a guy who like's Miller. I just don't see that he makes us that much better. How many victories does he give us vs. for example, offering a 1 year, $7M extension to Drew Gooden. We get a similar player for $5M less. I agree that he's a lesser player than Miller, I'm not arguing that at all. What I'm pointing out is, he's not worth $5M more to this team.
Sure... no problem with the Hughes trade. That was trading a douche who'd never play for us for moderately more attractive trade pieces. I don't see why anyone decent would have required a multi-year deal. You think Gooden's going to get more than we could have offered over one year? And he's... decent. And, short of a huge Bosh deal, that's what we need. In that circumstance, we pay a short-term contract to a guy or two to be backups. There's no reason to go out and offer a mult-year contract to a guy when the reality is we're going to use next season to either trade for a big name guy or develop the kids. Not to mention that we'll be so close to the LT with Miller and Salmons that it'll hamper making trades because we can't take back any salary. Perhaps, but then try had to get him to a team under the cap now. Get something for him. Get him to OKC for one of their better picks and keep Thabo.
This article says 5 teams were interested in Salmons (and 3 in Miller). http://www.sacbee.com/sports/story/1632955.html I wasn't 100% clear. I didn't state that I think Pax and the Bulls decided that having BG, Deng, Hinrich and Nocioni all on the roster at big $$$ in the summer of 2010 would be professional negligence. I'm sure they still won't go for BG, Deng, Hinrich and Salmons all on the roster next year but at least they got rid of the worst current contract of the original bunch.
