Bulls miserable record with young talented players. http://www.blogabull.com/2009/11/4/1114775/the-bulls-and-young-talent We've Traded/Let Go: Elton Brand Ron Artest Brad Miller Tyson Chandler Ben Gordon JR Smith Jamal Crawford Matt Bonner Chris Duhon Roger Mason Thabo Sefolosha And Got in Return: Tyson Chandler JR Smith PJ Brown Jalen Rose Aaron Gray Othella Harrington Chris Duhon Taj Gibson Which Turned Out To Be: PJ Brown Antonio Davis Aaron Gray Othella Harrington Taj Gibson Which Currently Is: Aaron Gray Taj Gibson
The first trade in the string of deals that left us with Gray and Gibson was Krause's. He dealt Brad Miller and Ron Artest to Indiana for Jalen Rose.
One interesting thing is that one of the most, if not the most, maligned moves by Krause is the trade of Elton Brand. The knock on Brand is that he gave you 20 and 10 but didn't really help you that much to win games. Certainly not a MAX level, game altering superstar. Well, as it turns out, he's fallen so far at this point that he pretty much just flat out sucks now and likely should be given a bench role so that the productive Marreese Speights can play. He's certianly terribly overpaid. Brand isn't the kind of guy you want to MAX out and certainly isn't the centerpiece of a winning team. Krause made the right call on not paying him and trying to land a star in the draft.
That is a ridiculous purge of talent BTW. How many of those guys did the Bulls dump so they didn't have to pay them / avoid the tax? Brand Artest Crawford Chandler Gordon How about for "jib" issues? Crawford Smith --- We have a pretty good squad right now, but its so predictable to see the dump the guys that have to get paid for new cheap rookies play out over and over again. OTOH, none of these guys are superstars and some are borderline all-stars at best right now. We had all these lotto picks but didn't every really hit the lotto with a superstar.
Why is that? I assumed it's just injuries that have killed his career but when healthy, he seemed like a franchise cornerstone. There was talk of him winning MVP with the clips. Is there something that I'm missing that makes you say he can't help to win games? Otherwise, I don't think it that he really sucks, his body has just broken down (to be expected from an undersized post player who is getting to the end of his career).
10 years in the league, 1 playoff appearance? He was always productive statistically, until the last couple of years. Most true stars though can at least get their teams into the playoffs.
IDK, on a different franchise he could have been borderline HOF (maybe that's a stretch, but one of the best PF of his era). I blame his team success on the Clippers. Even when they did have talent, they were a bunch of malcontents who did not mesh together. As a warrior fan, I know what that's all about
Not to mention Crawford, the active leader in games played without a playoff appearance. I guess if you want to wait around for a guy for 8-10 years, then yes, the bulls dumped him too early. And if the bulls had had Duncan to make Bonner and Mason look good, they might have kept them too. Duhon is a worse shooter than Hinrich. And Artest and Smith until about the last half season are or were just crazy and completely unreliable. Really, the only guy on that list who might have been something to build around is Miller. The rest of that list is just stupid. Bonner? Really? You're lamenting the fact that Matt Bonner got away?
Tangentially. I'm not a Jamal hater by any stretch, but it pisses me off that he's on the all-star ballot and Noah isn't.
Except that the Brand of today isn't the one the Bulls traded. *That* Brand had many productive seasons. The fact that he eventually got old isn't really a strong argument.
He put up good numbers on non-playoff teams. 1 playoff appearance in 10 years. Not really an argument... just facts. The Bulls didn't really miss out on much. An undersized power forward who put up good numbers on bad teams, made the playoffs once and now is bad. Not the kind of guy you really want to MAX out, not an elite NBA player, not a big time NBA difference maker. He made the all nba team (2nd) once. Marbury made it twice. Peja made it once. Redd made it once.
I would be a half-full kind of guy if our roster weren't determined by who's on a rookie contract. Instead of having the best players we could, even if we traded someone like Brand for a similar talent, we have the best of what's left over after letting the talent leave when their rookie contracts expired. Trade after trade, we've been getting the smelly end of the stick. There's no doubt it's held us back. Certainly from making the 2nd round of the playoffs more than once, let alone contending. From all/many accounts, we could have had Pau Gasol. Just one of many guys who'd help us out of that 1st round. The one exception has been the Eddie Curry deal that effectively landed us Noah. But even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
I think the overall problem is talent evaluation, timing and vision. You can point to various moves and say they made sense in a particular context, but that's true of the events leading up to wars and bankruptcies too. At some point you have to step back, look at the big picture, and see where things are headed. And the Bulls have misjudged talent, both their own and others, and failed to see how it fits together.
It seems to me that the Bulls were afraid to pull the trigger on bringing in a star player like Pau Gasol. We all read that interview with Reinsdorf, and how averse to making a mistake he claims to be. There truly is no way to know how a guy will come in and mesh with the existing players, and there is this utterly assanine culture thing going on with the team where there really can't be a superstar. I mean, look at the Ben Wallace headband deal and you get your first clue. We all know Wallace was one of those mistakes Reinsdorf says he is trying to avoid. In the end, Pax had a great draft when he got Gordon, Duhon, and Deng (and signed Noc), but it never panned out. And overall, we kept players we should have let walk, and let walk players we should have kept. The other clue about management is their unwillingness to say, "whatever it takes to win it all."
