I keep seeing talk about Joe Johnson and it's pretty much crystallized for me what the Bulls ought to be trying to accomplish next summer. Short of Lebron, Wade or Bosh (and I'm even a little on the fence about Wade and Bosh) I really think they need to target a couple younger, cheaper guys and think long-term. The first problem is if they pay a guy the max like Johnson, they're not going to be in a position to capitalize on it. Ben Wallace did improve the team his first year. The Bulls big problem was not trying to capitalize on that (short) window of opportunity. They absolutely should have spent more. Or, alternatively, they should absolutely not have spent the money on Wallace. By making the moves they made, they put one foot in the boat and kept another on the pier. They ended up falling in the river. I see people say we could "contend" or do “real damage” with Joe Johnson. That sounds like a euphemism for “fuck all in the grand scheme of things”. The Bulls team with Wallace, I guess, also did “real damage”. It doesn’t help anything in the long run, except to fuck up our cap and end up leading to the departure of young talent while we paid off the remainder of contractual shells like Jerome James and Tim Thomas. 3. The Celtics team that one the title (and most teams that win titles), in fact, had quite a useful set of depth guys when they actually won the title. Posey, Brown, Cassell, Powe, and House all played important minutes for them in the playoffs. So lets examine that difference 1- Rondo, Cassell 2- Allen, House 3- Pierce, Posey 4- Garnett, Powe 5- Perkins, Brown That team played 10 deep in the playoffs, and has three, possibly four hall of fame players in the starting lineup. And recall it didn’t have an easy ride through the playoffs. They played two seven game series. How do the Bulls stack up there? 1- Rose, Hinrich 2- Johnson, 3- Deng, JJ 4- Gibson 5- Noah OK, this team is starting Taj Gibson. Now, I think it might be fair to roughly equate Joe Johnson and Rose to Pierce and Allen if Rose develops and Johnson doesn’t drop off. So that puts us on par with the Celtics if, I guess, you put Deng somewhere in the same zip code as KG. But I don’t. And while I put Noah in the same vicinity as Perkins and Hinrich in the same vicinity as Posey, it’s pretty laughable to say Gibson is anything remotely close to the kind of player Rondo is. And we’ve got nobody after that, whereas the Celts could bring in tested guys like Cassell and Brown for short stings. I point all this out to show just how far we are from the Celtics’ “model” of how they one. They are, in fact, a good template for how to put together a team. But this team is nowhere close, and blowing our load on Joe Johnson will still leave us nowhere close, while using up all our appreciable means of closing the gap. In short, it’s fool’s gold. Really, it's even more so when you think about the finances. We’ll be laughably shallow in the sense of teams like the Celtics, but I don’t think our team has the cache to add useful players for next to nothing like Cassell and PJ Brown went to the Celts. So that means we add Joe Johnson at the max and probably don’t get to 50 wins. Then, the year after, Noah’s extension (he’ll be getting one, right?) will be kicking in as well, so add another $10M or so to the $45M we have wrapped up in JJ, Deng, Hinrich, Rose, and we’re at $55M for those 5 guys. Rose will be negotiating an extension for the following year, at which point he’ll sop up all of the “savings” of Kirk’s contract expiring. So maybe we sign up a guy for the MLE then, but it’ll be a one year rumble, and I don’t see it getting anywhere. After that, barring trades, we’re at $65M+ for those four guys + one MLE level player (who is, potentially, re-signed Kirk). Not gonna work. I think the plan has to be to evaluate soundly and understand our budget Just as a thought experiment, is it better to spend $96M on Joe Johnson for 5 years (Age 29-33) or $96M on Rudy Gay and David Lee (Ages 24-28 and 27-31)? If you think about it, it’s really a no brainer to go with the two younger guys. 1. Guys like this are lower risk. They’re young, seem healthy, and project to be productive throughout their contracts. In this sense, they’re sort of no-brainers in the sense that Gordon and Deng (if he had an insurable back) were. With Johnson, the likelihood is you’ve got significant drop off in the latter years of his deal, this hurts whether you’ve still got him on the team or whether you try to trade him ,because you find you can’t get crap for him. 2. You’re getting two for the price of one. And the Bulls have two obvious holes to fill. Johnson is a much riskier proposition in the since that the Bulls have to be that much better at evaluating talent to plug the other big hole (at PF). If you go with Johnson, you have to strike gold in the draft or free agency or trade to fill the PF spot. In addition to the rest of your roster. That’s a lot to ask of any team, but really a lot to ask of the Bulls. With Lee and Gay (for example), in many ways you’ve got a much higher floor. You know you’re going to get solid production from all five positions. You’ve got more eggs in more baskets. You’ve got more possibilities to make a reasonable trade down the road and still have enough left to get somewhere. You’re less reliant on luck. In short, the Bulls shouldn’t delude themselves and as fans we shouldn’t. We’re not a player away. We’re probably not even two players away, but two players gets us closer than one at twice the price unless that guy is just absurdly good. And Johnson is not that guy. He’s closer, in terms of the kind of player he is, to a healthy Deng or Gordon, than to Lebron or Wade or, maybe, Bosh.
It's going to cost $20+ mil per year to get Gay and Lee, probably closer to $25 mil. Gay is a SF so you'd have to move Deng, which is fine, but you still need a better 2 and a post up presence. Gibson is a lot like Lee already. And while they are projected to be productive, they haven't played a meaningful game between them yet in their careers, so it's definitely a risk. If Gay were a 2 I'd be a lot more inclined to agree. You might be right about Johnson, but I think a 123 of Rose, Johnson and Deng with Noah, Gibson, and another solid big (Asik if the rumors are true) and Hinrich coming off of the bench is enough to be in the contender conversation. But it also might be short. I'd rather they go for Johnson if he is the best they can get because dropping BG only makes sense if the goal is to replace him with somebody better quickly. Otherwise, you are correct that they are just trying to sell tickets and make money.
I think JJ is a fine player, just a tad on the old side unless you're adding him to a couple of similar vets to try and contend overnight. The downside of going after JJ is that he's going to be given the Jalen Rose treatment sooner than later. Meaning we'd still not be good enough and someone other than management hast to take the blame.
Why? I don't see a totally huge market out there for either guy. Supposedly Gay wanted 5/$50M this fall, so that would put his starting salary at $8.7M for next year. Let’s call it $9M to him or $17M to Joe Johnson. That'd leave $8M left over to offer someone else. Does Lee sign for $8M to start (that’s 5yrs and $47M IIRC). Maybe not, but it at least seems feasible to me. We could keep our eye on that Tyrus Thomas guy too. As a general principle, I do think it’s basically a two for one deal. At the very least, it’ll be Gay for quite a bit less and give us a lot left over. If he signaled some willingness to sign for $50M last year, and he plays for the Grizzlies, I think we’ve got a shot. In what respect would Gay have difficulty playing the 2? Can he shoot well? Yep. Can he score? Yep. Adequate handle? Yep. Athletic enough to defend the position? Hell Yep. Also, Stephen Hawking is a lot like Jim Thorpe already. What makes Gay a "3" and Johnson a "2"? Do you think they're not trying to sell tickets and make money? Of course they're trying to do that. But it can't be about swapping BG, who at this point is a sunk cost, for Johnson, because Johnson imposes other costs. If you really boil it down, the bolded part you're saying here amounts to saying we have to react based on our past move. Over-compensating for past decisions is not a good way to go.
Gay is getting killed everywhere I read about him and is apparently a blackhole on offense. And let's not forget that Salmons was a 3 who I thought could slide into the 2 easily. Johnson is a 2 because he's been a 2 for the last 9 seasons. He's a legitimate 2, not a Salmons. Gay hasn't been a 2 since Mayo has been there. I haven't seen much of Gay, but I'd bet he'd be a lot like Iguduola at the 2, always better when they go small and Iggy gets matched up against slower 3's. It's a little ironic that you're telling me that he could just move over and play the 2, isn't it... They're definitely trying to sell tickets and make money, but that's been easy for the last 25 years. I think they are trying to build a championship contender, too. And Lee has been a really nice player, but I think Gibson could be very similar soon. I don't see Lee bringing anything new to the table. My point is that Joe Johnson could be the kind of difference maker the bulls have lacked since Jordan retired. I don't see Gay being that guy. I certainly don't see Lee being that kind of guy either. Gay and Lee are a younger, and in some ways better, Salmons and Miller. But they aren't difference makers. So why fill out the roster with more Hinrich's? They've got plenty already.
How many games did they win? How many allstar games did he go to? He averaged 20 his second season, so he must be a star, right?
