1. People need to understand that our “goodness” last year was not a result of “up and comingness”, but largely the result of a fairly veteran team playing about to its potential. That is, Kirk, Ben, Salmons, Miller are all veteran players in their prime years (Gordon just entering, Kirk about in the middle, and Salmons and Miller on the downhill path). And their potential is about what we saw. A good first round series, with the potential to sneak into the second round. While it’s true we need to be good enough to lure a free agent, we need to face the reality that being good on the back’s of Kirk, Miller and Salmons basically gets us nowhere, because we can probably only keep one of those guys and get a free agent. Maybe we can’t keep any of them and get a free agent. Perhaps worse, these guys are so much older than the rest of our players that it’s hard to see how keeping them, and adding another younger vet, is going to create a team that has much of a window of opportunity to win anything. This is very similar to how I felt when we drafted Tyrus and Thabo, got Wallace and Brown, and then dumped Chandler. In the NBA, probably more than any other sport, you have to have all guys lined up and ready to contribute. That team was built a little bit to “win now” with title hungry vets and a little bit to “win later” with raw as sushi rookies and guys playing for new contracts. It wasn’t coherent. And that’s not to say that no rookie can contribute, or you should have all youth if you want to win later, but the Bulls were obviously going in a couple different directions. Now seems pretty similar. You’ve basically got three guys, maybe four if Johnson works out, that will be entering their prime and potentially good players all at once. Rose, Noah, Deng, and Johnson. The latter two have significant questions surrounding them. We’ve got Tyrus, who the team seems to really want to move. Then, we’ve got a team of much older guys. Kirk, Salmons, Miller. If we continue to pay and play them, we can certainly reach the playoffs. If one of them (or a younger player) gets hurt or otherwise falls apart, we’re probably gonna suck because the next guy off the bench is Pargo. 2. Now here’s the real kicker. As constituted, this team doesn’t have enough cap space to even get one max free agent if the predictions about next year’s salary cap going down are even remotely close to true. Assuming the cap goes down or stays even, what rationale does Salmons have to opt out? Very little that I can see. So if we can’t execute a trade of him or Kirk, we end up without max cap space. But if we do make a trade of them, we have to get something back to keep us from stinking, because if we stink, no FA will come anyway. Sounds like the perfect solution would be to trade a couple of those guys, say Kirk and Tyrus ($14.5M outgoing) for a young all star with about $12.5M coming back, and then using the balance to pick up another FA guard. Hmm… where could we have done that?
I think we're goin in a good direction, its just a slow pace. Its not like we cant do the deal with the blazers and jazz, but we want bayless to make up for losing BG and depth in out backcourt and Portland doesnt seem to be biting. As long as we're being aggressive and actually talking blockbuster deals then I'm hopeful that something will come through.
Heh, at the pace we're going, we, not to mention our players, will be retired by the time we get there
I'm getting pretty impatient myself, it sucks that we were teased three seasons ago, then had a shitty season and one decent playoff series just to watch our best player walk to our hated rival. I won't know what to think about this team until the roster is finalized for the season and game 1 begins.
You're freaking out today, huh. Kirk is a backup, Salmons is a placeholder/stopgap, and Miller is an expiring contract. They are in no way the future of the bulls. But it helps to have guys who play the right way and make those around them better. And Boozer is not a young all-star if that was to whom you were referring. He's an old 29 with a history of missing 40% of his games each season. And I like Amare even less as a guy with worse injuries.
They're more than that. This team needs those guys to play well to amount to anything. Contrast it with say, the Jazz. They have an obvious core of younger guys they can go forward with. AK-47 27 Korver 27 Williams 24 Brewer 23 Millsap 23 and one guy, Okur, who's 29. Those guys were 1-6 in minutes played for them. #7 was CJ Miles, who's 21. That's a young team with a guy at every position and lots of room for growth. The top (returning) Bulls from last year are: Rose 20 Tyrus 22 Noah 23 Deng 23 Hinrich 28 Salmons 29 Miller 32 So the Bulls have three key guys that will need to be replaced sooner rather than later, and they've got Tyrus, who they apparently want to be rid of. So the Bulls young core basically boils down to Rose, Noah and Deng. Three guys, who may or may not be as good as the equivalent guys on the Jazz. Would we rather have Rose or DWill? Noah or Millsap? Deng or AK-47 or Brewer? And the Jazz have other positions filled. Boozer, is 27 and a 2 time all-star..
If the Bulls had signed Gordon, going over the cap to do so, and traded for Boozer... We'd have 4x ~20 PPG scorers in the lineup and one coming off the bench. And yeah, I think they all could get 20 in the same night. Our starting lineup would have been: Rose Gordon Noah Boozer Salmons Deng being the potential other 20 point scorer. That team may well contend, depending on how Rose blooms (pun intended). If we had made the Deng for Gasol trade, just wow.
I think you are overrating Utah. They get a lot of mileage from their great coaching. Aside from Deron Williams, they are pretty pedestrian. AK is a very old 27. Korver is another one trick pony, and there's nothing special about Brewer. They just play well together because they are well coached. And if Millsap is so great, why didn't Dumars spend the extra $2 mil per year to get him instead of noted underacheiver Villaneuva? Millsap is a solid guy, but I think Noah will be in a similar spot if he stays serious and I like Deng (when healthy) over everybody but Deron. In fact, if you swap VDN and Sloan, I think the bulls would be the better team. Miller as a bull had a higher PER than Okur did last year. And the bulls beat them in Utah on a Larry Hughes jumper...
