The answer is 0 percent Russian! <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>The Chicago Bulls today bought out the rest of Viktor Khryapa’s contract. One would assume that the Bulls were allowed to shed off the majority of Viktor’s contract. The trade helps the Bulls salary wise if they were to take on a big contract at the trade deadline, however it strips away a valuable $1.9 million expiring contract. Obviously Khryapa didn’t want to be here. He recently gained a boost in playing time under coach Boylan, so it really is unclear right now what the Bulls are doing.</div> http://www.dabullz.com/2008/02/06/bulls-bu...viktor-khryapa/
http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune....ryapa-gone.html What the hell is that about? Why buy the guy out only a couple weeks before the trade deadline. That makes no sense at all. If this were happening the day after the deadline I could care less. Happening now it's simply careless and stupid and needlessly forecloses possibilities.
If true, it's sort of funny for the Bulls to be spinning this as "doing right by Viktor". If the Bulls side is true, then I still say, "so what", you'd still be doing right by him if you waited a couple weeks and you wouldn't be voluntarily cutting off a trade option. If Viktor simply said "I'm sick of this stuff, screw you guys", then things are more dysfunctional than I thought. If he did that, the Bulls could really just void his contract and not even pay him. Which is pretty amazing. I mean, it's not like VK was a great player or anything, but you've got to give something to a guy who'd give up a couple hundred K of guaranteed money to get on the court somewhere else. But at the same time, just walking away and quitting is pretty lame, and I don't see any reason to do the guy any favors. I think what mostly bothers me is it's just another drop in the bucket showing the Bulls aren't thinking more than 6 minutes ahead of time. Yeah, there's no trades brewing at the moment. Yeah, it's unlikely a trade occurs. But if the last couple years have taught the Bulls anything, it's that circumstances can change very quickly. And when they have, the Bulls have continually seemed unready and caught off guard. This is another move in that direction although a small one. The cost of keeping an option open for another couple weeks was effectively 0 for the Bulls. Yet they went ahead and dismissed it anyway.
