The Bulls are in a slightly curious position since they're a very good team, but have only a small chance to go all the way. Of the pieces they could trade none of them would bring back a player of equal or better value (Pau, Noah, Rose). So if they moved them it'd require the team to get a good bit worse in the short run. That might be okay if there was a good "Long Run" available, but the team's young talent is very disappointing right now. If you wanted to you could probably replace Tony/Doug/Niko with BAE type guys and not miss a beat. What are the chances of that being better than what we have now? Kevin Durant isn't coming here, and the FA class is otherwise pretty bad. It strikes me as 2006 w/ Ben Wallace all over again. I'm inclined to think the best bet is maximizing the team we have right now and rolling the dice. If we get the 2/3 seed I'd say we're at least a 50% chance to make it to the ECF.....I think that's good enough that you ought to be "all in." Despite our team's often lackluster play I think the "all-in" strategy has a pretty straight forward path to optimization: find a good 2-way SF. The big failure of this roster is that neither Doug or Tony has shaped up to be a quality 5th starter, and the team really needed them to do this. Badly. I think it's the reason our splits w/ and w/o Dunleavy have been so stark....it's not necessarily because Dunleavy's this great player, but having that last wheel that can competently do most things on each side of the court is very important for completing a team who's best players are often only good on one side of the ball. It makes the lineups work a lot easier. I also think it's one of the reasons the team played so well with E'Twaun last night.....he's kind of the lite version of what we need. The other good news is that this player we need to acquire doesn't need to be anything special.........just someone who's minimally competent in the most areas possible. We need glue. We need Bogans+. So there's a good chance the player that could make all the difference might not be attracting the attention of other teams all that much. It's a very distinct type of role player that we're after. High-motor, moves the ball, and passably competent in all areas, but no need to be great at anything. (In fact, if this person WAS great at something and still had those other qualities his trade value would probably be too high for us to acquire). But it's the best and easiest way to give the team a best shot at going far this year. And we also have a surplus of frontcourt players. If ever there was a good opportunity for a GM to make a shrewd move, this would be it........finding the right, small time player on someone else's roster that we can go out and nab to complete our team.
I think you're right about the need, but the player you describe IS Mike Dunleavy. Do you think we need two of 'em?
Are you sure the one we have is going to work? I'm thinking a Rodney Hood, Kent Bazemore, Jae Crowder sort of player is what this team needs.
Well we cant get one at deadline. Rumors are we had Noah on the block and some teams were interested. With the injuries to both Noah and Niko, that stops most of the quality trades we could have made. That being said, rumors hinted the Bulls were looking to save money. So were they really going to get the answer at SF at deadine. Yes we need a good SF. This summer will be it.
In this particular matchup, it is you that is the starry-eyed optimist. I have a much better chance of having Dunleavy work than you have of successfully trading for one of the young and good starting SG/SFs you named.
Good post rosenthall. The Bulls should make a trade for one of those guys but they will not. The news release came back with yet another trade deadline of "stand pat." Transplant is right, its starry eyed optimism to expect the Bulls make a useful trade like that. Salary dump to get under the lux tax? Those types of trades they are good at. Assuming Dunleavy will be back to the level he was at last year is also "starry eyed optimism."
I agree that assuming Dunleavy will be back to last year's level is optimistic, particularly if we're talking near term. The 3 players rosenthall mentioned are young starters, two of them on winning teams. I don't believe that their current teams would trade them for any Bulls non-starter and who could blame them. So what's your "Godfather" offer to the Jazz, Hawks or Celts?
Given that Paxson released that the team is going to "stand pat" it doesn't really matter, does it? How about the crown jewels? Mirotic and McDermott for Crowder. Any conversation along these lines is pretty much a waste of time though since we don't know what is actually going on behind the scenes and the Bulls don't tend to make trades other than salary dumps.
I think the person to trade is Bobby Portis. Trading a young, promising 2-way PF for a young, promising 2-way SF seems like a fair enough deal in principle. It wouldn't have to be those players specifically, but a player of that ilk. I'd be keen to find some 8th or 9th guy on another team that's being under utilized due to players ahead of him.
Thinking out loud, these are some other guys that might potentially make sense as trade targets: Omri Casspi PJ Tucker Wilson Chandler
I think Chandler had hip surgery and is out for the season. Tucker is certainly Bogans-esque. Not a 2-way player...he has no offensive game. Good defender and a helluva rebounder for a SG/SF. Phoenix would probably trade him for Snell and a first-rounder, but again, Tucker's a non-factor on offense. If Dunleavy returns close to form, Tucker would play behind him. If the Bulls could get him for Snell and a 2nd-rounder, I'm in. Now Casspi is a great name. He doesn't start for Sacramento, is only 27 and can play. He's not a high-usage guy on offense, but he's not a Bogans/Tucker type. He has pretty good athleticism. He's shooting lights-out from 3 this season, but that's probably going to level out. I'd be interested and the Kings might be willing to deal. I'd give up some stuff for Casspi. As a pre-emptive strike, I'd like to note that the Bulls don't tend to make trades other than salary dumps so we're probably wasting our keystrokes.
Thank you for the update on Chandler. I looked through his game log and saw that he hadn't played recently but I didn't know he was out for the season. Casspi was my favorite guy on the list too. Low usage, sweet shooting role player that's pretty heady and knows his role. If need be you can play him 30 minutes a game and not suffer blackhole production or weird mismatches which force overcompensation from other parts of the team. Sac is also putting guys up on the block, so he seems like he'd be gettable.
