http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...s=356~2780~1027~2506&teams=25~4~4~4&te=&cash= Hughes and $3M cash to the Thunder for Earl Watson, Damien Wilkins, Johan Petro. This deal should have appeal for both teams. For the Bulls, it trimes $1.5M off this year's cap and just under $1M off next year's cap. If we let Petro (an RFA this summer) walk, we'd save another $2.85M. The Thunder are so far under the cap it won't really matter for them. In terms of actual finances, the Thunder might find this attractive. They've got $24M committed for this year and next to those three guys. $21M if they let Petro Walk. Hughes will cost them $26M the cash, so $23M. So the basic jist is that they're getting Hughes for $2M, or they're getting $1M to take on Hughes. Either way, that seems workable. On the court, I don't see why both teams would mind. The guys the Thunder are trading absolutely suck (in terms of PER and pretty much every other mode of measuring production) and they need a SG in the worst way. Hughes is producing slightly above average as a SG. It's a good fit. For us, the good fit is getting rid of Hughes, getting some luxury tax breathing room, and getting some cap flexibility. I guess we can say that Watson is a true "backup PG" if we end up trading Kirk. He's acceptable there, but nothing more these days. Damien Wilkins, I guess, fills backup minutes at the 3 if Deng's injury is worse than we think. He also sucks. Johan Petro... pretty yucky, but tall. Worth a look for a half a year.
you probably know what I would say, but also wouldn't the bulls have to cut several guaranteed contracts to do that deal?
Nope. The Bulls have 14 players under contract, so they can do a two for one deal without cutting anyone. Thus, they'd have to cut one player to do this deal. Ruffin and Hunter are non-guaranteed, I believe, and Hunter doesn't appear to have a role with the arrival of Watson anyway. So we can actually shave a few hundred thousand there as well.
Heh, Hughes would actually be a good veteran leader in OKC. He's much better than anybody you have at SG and he'd be happy playing big minutes for them. Plus he comes off of the books in two years. OKC is epically, tragically bad, and this would clearly be a needed upgrade. They also wouldn't be in any danger of getting less than the second most ping pong balls and missing out on Blake Griffin, which is clearly their current plan. Remember, ping pong balls can be finicky sometimes and a big expiring contract is a useful asset if they do end up second.
I'm not going to go so far as to say "good", but I agree that he'd be fine with OKC. I don't actually consider Hughes a malignancy in the absolute sense. He just is because of the particulars of his and the Bulls current situation. I don't think he's a horrible person or horrible player in the abstract. And in OKC, they don't have any of the factors that make him a problem here. He'd be happy and they'd be better.
