<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">It could have been one of the best basketball stories ever told around these parts. Local kid Eddy Curry is drafted by the Bulls, his hometown team. Pulls them out of a crater, restores the roar of the glory days. But four years later, it's safe to say that the basketball gods wrote a different script. Now it's time to ask whether Curry and the Bulls would be better off if they went their separate ways. For the record, Bulls general manager John Paxson said he would match any offer for Curry, currently a restricted free agent. Of course Paxson would. This decade, the team has already lost two lottery picks in forward Marcus Fizer (the No. 4 selection in 2000) and guard Jay Williams (No. 2 in 2002) without compensation. Wise man that he is, Paxson won't allow Curry (No. 4 in 2001) to do the same. "We feel we have a good enough young core that we have a great opportunity to improve," said Paxson, who included Curry in the group. What Paxson didn't say is what course he would take in the event Curry signs a lucrative offer sheet elsewhere, which could happen in the next few days. The Bulls have offered a short-term deal laced with incentives, but with Curry and his heart expected to receive a clean bill of health this week, he is sure to want more than that. Indications are Curry will get it from either the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Atlanta Hawks shortly. At nearly $28 million, the Cavaliers have the most salary-cap flexibility in the NBA at the moment, and Atlanta isn't far behind. Both teams are in the market for a center.</div> Source
For the record I am an Eddy Curry fan, and would like nothing more than to see him return to the team. However, I would not mind working a sign and trade for him with another team if we can get some good talent in return or simply expiring contracts. That would free up cap room for the future while giving us some solid role players for the present. We all love our Baby Bulls, but eventually they are going to grow up, and we can not keep all of them. In the next few seasons we will have to free up enough cap to resign Gordon, Hinrich, and Deng three players who have all star potential. I think that they will all get pretty big offers, and we will be lucky to keep even two of the three players. Right now we rank 22nd in the league in team salary, but that is mainly, because we have everyone on there rookie deals. Had we kept Brand and not traded him for Chandler on draft day we would already have one player making 86 million dollars during the course of his contract, which would raise our cap to around 15th or 16th in the league. Gordon will probably be a player who might be worth the max when he hits free agency in a few years, as might Deng. I think in a couple seasons we will have to go through what the Nets did with RJ and Kenyon Martin. They had to let martin go so they could resign RJ. I think we will have to do that with either Deng or Hinrich in the future. A lot has been made about us possibly being eight or nine million dollars under the cap if we let Curry walk and resign Chandler and Duhon. However, we will not be able to spend that money it would be kind of like investing money we would have to hold on to that, to be able to use it on our own players in the future.
