I think this is the big wildcard in how you project into the future for the Bulls. SST is obviously bullish on Mirotic, and it shows in the personnel moves he advocates for the team. I'm more or less ignorant, and find it hard to count on Mirotic for much of anything. And it seems unlikely that he'll be as good as Boozer or Taj his first couple of years in the league, which is why I'm not comfortable counting on him as anyone's replacement in the short term. But of course what do I know?
Mirotic's contract in Europe (Real Madrid) runs through 2015. At that point, I think it's 50-50 he comes over, vs, re-signing over there. He could well be as good as Taj, in Taj's first season. Taj put up 9/7.5, but had a 9.1 PER. He might be even better in 2015 if he comes over then. FWIW, if we knew we'd have our PF as the #1 option in the playoffs, we'd have been better off signing Amare.
I think owners avoiding the LT will be a staple of the post-lockout NBA. Beginning 2013/2014 the LT becomes tiered with increasing penalties, and those are increased even more for "repeat offenders" which are teams that have been in the LT for 4 of the last 5 seasons. The lowest possible luxury tax payment will be $1.50 for every $1.00 over the cap, as opposed to the previous $1.00/$1.00. Its going to be much more difficult to justify being over the luxury tax, even for the Mark Cuban/James Dolan's of the league. As far as where the Bulls are going. I think they've gotta waive Korver/Watson/Brewer. Even so, I think it would be wise of them to think about moving Noah. You have a decent replacement for him already in Asik who ought to come much cheaper. No one wants Boozer. Deng wouldn't get much return in the way of useful players or picks because hes just paid way too much for being essentially a great role player. Noah's injury prone-ness hurts him but teams still need C's and you could get a decent return on him IMO.
I just posted this at RealGM: As to the personnel moves that I'm advocating, I think Taj will be better in the playoffs with more minutes in the regular season, and if the team can go to him immediately in the playoffs. I think he's ready for an increased burden. I'm not taking into account the regular season when obviously Boozer-Taj should be better, at least in the first season, than Taj-Mirotic. My hopes are that Mirotic has relatively similar production to Taj's rookie year, except coming off the bench. Maybe slightly less rebounds. Euros, with the exception of Rubio, have struggled through a half season when making their transition to the NBA.
Rudy Fernandez's studliness (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, everything I've heard/read about Mirotic has been very positive. Kid's got game, but I'm always a skeptic when it comes to Euros. As I understand it, if Mirotic were to want to come over this coming season, he'd have to take the rookie scale contract (starts at a little over $1mil) and he's making more than that in Spain. If he waits another season, the Bulls can use the MLE (or MMLE) to offer him a better financial deal. This tells me that he's not coming over next season. Hell, I wouldn't. Lots of folks are talking about amnestying Boozer, but I believe that ain't happening this season. That doesn't mean that it won't happen after this coming season when he has only two seasons left on his deal...or the following season. Net, I would be very surprised to see Mirotic on the Bulls' roster next season.
Doug Thonus wrote an interesting article. http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-b...ill-the-bulls-pay-the-luxury-tax-next-season/ Will the Bulls pay the luxury tax next season? Jerry Reinsdorf said he'd pay the tax for a winner. The penalty for paying the tax has changed considerably since he made that statement, and this team wasn't a winner this season. There are a few new reasons why the Bulls may suddenly get squeamish about paying the luxury tax beyond their history of never having actually paid it (not once) despite a repeated mantra of being willing to pay it for a winner. There are new basketball reasons to avoid the tax. Teams over the tax apron (4 million over the tax limit) can no longer do sign and trades or use the MLE and have tighter salary matching rules in which to operate. Effectively, it becomes much more difficult to add additional salary once over the tax outside of extending your own players. Even that becomes a tiny bit more difficult with the Gilbert Arenas exception not covering teams over the tax apron because those teams can't match a first year salary at the MLE. There's also a new revenue sharing number based on team revenues where every team puts in a percentage of its revenue into the pot and then each team pulls out the league average. You can read more about the plan here. The Bulls are obviously going to be hit considerably by the revenue sharing system and will drop profits considerably because of it. There is protection in the plan, so that they can't lose more than half their profit to revenue sharing, but that's likely not a whole lot of protection from their perspective if their profits are cut in half. Revenue sharing is great for the league, but let's be honest, it's terrible for the Chicago Bulls and is designed so a team like the Bulls cannot outspend other teams. Something which they haven't done historically anyway, but fans expected them to do so for the first time over the next few seasons. If they do, they will no longer be sacrificing the deep end of their swimming pool of cash, but could sacrifice the whole pool. The new plan doesn't fully phase in until the 2013-14 season, and I haven't found details on the specifics of the impact next season. In addition to the Bulls losing money to revenue sharing and player acquisition limits due to the tax, the tax has simply become much more punitive. This will be the last season the tax is a dollar per dollar for teams that are over, but that doesn't give the Bulls much of a free pass, because if they pay the tax in three of the next four years they'll get hit by a repeat offender penalty. A team that's 15 million over the tax for example would owe 28.75 million if they weren't a repeat offender and 43.75 million if they were compared to 15 million in the current system. Even if the Bulls were to stay five million into the tax (the lowest level) for the next four years, they would owe 12.5 million in tax in the final year for being a repeat offender and 7.5 million in the other years. That means for that MLE type player (your Kyle Korver or Ronnie Brewer), you're effectively paying him 12.5-17.5 million depending if you are a repeat offender [5 million to his salary + 7.5 to 12.5 million in tax]. The price goes up to 13.75 to 18.75 for the second extra MLE guy you add, and then jumps to an absurdly high 17.5 to 22.5 million for the third guy. In short, the Bulls aren't likely to pay that much for those guys. If the Bulls were scared of the dollar per dollar tax without revenue sharing, how do you think they feel about becoming repeat tax offenders now? I'd say that there's no way in hell they let that happen, and that the Bulls will live only in the first tax threshold and only so much that they never achieve repeat offender status. What that means for Chicago is that while some tax may still be paid, the Bulls aren't going to dig deep or often into it. The cost to dig deep went up by a factor of three to four while the teams revenues are about to get rocked by revenue sharing. Finally, with the Bulls abbreviated playoff run and a lockout shortened season this year likely cut profits to 50% or less of what they were last season. The numbers for the 2010-11 campaign aren't out by Forbes yet (the 2011 article use 2009-10 numbers for operating income/revenue), but my estimate is the Bulls made about 70-75 million with the ECF playoff run. With eight less regular season home games, three less preseason games (season ticket holders are forced to buy em), and six to ten less ultra high revenue playoff games than expected combined with some post lockout fan apathy, Chicago's profits likely fell to around 35 million this season. Throw all of these things together, and I feel a bit more sympathy towards Chicago ownership for not paying the tax if they choose to avoid it. Jerry Reinsdorf still has fiduciary responsibility to the owners of the Bulls (he doesn't own them outright even if we pretend he does for ease of use in writing), and the Bulls are already going to lose a ton of profit under this new system. The benefits of paying the tax to enhance your odds of winning and making even more money no longer apply. The benefit is simply too small for any rationale that paying the tax would increase long term profits by bringing titles to Chicago because the incremental odds of winning through spending are so much lower now. When you combine all these changes with the new Derrick Rose rule which enhanced Rose's salary by an additional three to four million per season, the Bulls franchise got absolutely rocked by this new CBA for the third time in a row [new FA rules allowing home teams to offer more an a max salary likely stopped the Bulls from landing Duncan in 99, the one and done rule stopped them from landing durant in 2005, and the new tax rules strangle their flexibility in 2011]. New team has had the new CBA directly destroy their interests more often than Chicago. In short, under the previous CBA, paying the tax was likely a good business decision for Chicago. Under this CBA its not. I would suspect Bulls ownership would give up some profit for a title, but with the ante being upped so much its much harder to justify. The Bulls won't pay the tax next year. At least that's my prediction. Forget about signing big name guys or bringing in an eight figure salary. Forget about trading Korver/Brewer/Watson for a big name player. The Bulls will be shedding salary this season and their 10 deep roster will look more like a seven deep one with some ring chasers next year.
The last sentence is key. "The Bulls will be shedding salary this season and their 10 deep roster will look more like a seven deep one with some ring chasers next year." The thing is, though, maybe Brewer and Korver and Watson are easier to replace with ring chasers and D-Leaguers than you might think. They're really not core pieces to a championship, but they are core to being 10 deep. Watson is the one guy I'd like to see us keep, because he's not really that expensive at $3.2M, he's proven he can help us win games as starting PG, and there really is nobody else out there I can see coming to the Bulls to replace him adequately. We're talking about the starting PG position, not a bench role like the other two basically played for us. That is, assuming that Rip and Butler can handle the SG position for 48 minutes.
Sam Smith writes, http://blogs.bulls.com/2012/05/an-early-look-at-the-bulls-without-derrick-rose/ An early look at the Bulls without Derrick Rose And nooowwwwwwwwww, the starting lineup for your Chicago Bulls: At forward from Duke, 6-9, No. 5, Carlos Boozer! A 6-8 forward from Mt. Zion Christian Academy, No. 6, Tracy McGrady! The man in the middle from Florida, 6-11, No. 13, Joakim Noah! At guard, 6-7 from Connecticut, No. 32, Richard Hamilton! From Chicago, a 6-2 guard, No. 2… Jannero Pargo? And off the bench, Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Omer Asik, Mike Bibby and Sasha Pavlovic? Perhaps at least until Derrick Rose and Luol Deng come back from injuries, Rose from his ACL tear and Deng assuming he has surgery on his left wrist. ... It then comes to payroll, which ranks now among the highest in the NBA. I know the fan poll suggests using amnesty on Carlos Boozer. It’s not happening because it only would hurt the team, for one thing. The Bulls payroll with cap holds if they want to try to resign Omer Asik and offer an extension to Taj Gibson and room for a No. 1 draft pick is around the $70 million luxury tax figure. If they let go of Boozer — they’d still have to pay him — they’d go down to just below the cap and have maybe $2 million or $3 million to sign one player. And you don’t get much for that. Think of your Eduardo Najera. And then how do you replace Boozer’s scoring? I would assume there’s no way the Bulls are even thinking of this. Because it would be stupid. Boozer will be crucial next season without Rose and perhaps Deng early. The Bulls have few options other than waiting out the summer and seeing what veterans cannot get deals and are willing to take a chance on a minimum deal and maybe even get a starting spot for a while to show their worth and then get a bigger deal in a year.
Looking at Sam's roster, I wouldn't be upset with it in the least. If you consider Rip a key starter, we end up starting 3/5 of our starting lineup until Deng gets back and then we have 4/5. We have our defensive 2nd unit with Omer and Taj. When Rose comes back, we have our starting 5 and Omer and Taj, plus a couple of draft picks who might pan out. After next season, which is probably a lost one (no chance to really contend), we have one more season of Boozer before he becomes a nice big expiring contract. TMac is not horrible, and he's the best we're going to get off the scrap heap. Once Deng is back, and as long as we're playing an older SG, I could see Rip and TMac manning the SG position in shifts. The only downside is it is going to suck watching Pargo be a full-time player.
If Jannero Pargo is the starting point guard the Bulls are not going to be a playoff team and I will poke my eyes out. We're in agreement: The Bulls need to re-up CJ or it's going to be a brutal next year, unless they somehow manage to land an upgrade. I don't see how all of these beat writers are so convinced that the Bulls will resign Asik and let CJ go. I don't see how that off season plan makes any sense.
It makes sense because the Bulls are better off with a lotto pick after next season and $15M in LT room and Rose back as the full time PG and someone like Lucas III or Mike James getting 6 minutes a half in reserve.
Sam Smith has a cool job. He gets paid for doing what people like us do for free in places like this. Nothing wrong with his speculation and all the new roster names he mentioned are FAs and vet minimum players, so I give him credit for doing some homework. I much prefer this sort of educated speculation to the "experts" on the radio who keep throwing out names of players who aren't available and trades that take no account of the NBA's salary-matching requirements. McGrady's a good name to throw out there...high recognition factor. He also has the reputation of being a scorer, which the Bulls will need while Rose, and maybe Deng, are on the mend. The problem there is that, when last seen, McGrady wasn't scoring at a very high rate...a bit lower than Joakim Noah, who few consider a "scorer." Pargo's another good name, we all know him (a mixed blessing) and unlike McGrady is coming off a pretty good season. I think I'd rather have Pargo on the vet minimum than Lucas at say, $1.5mil. Better still would be to retain Watson. Mike Bibby? Nah...give me Mike James. James is bigger, which is important if Pargo or Lucas is your other PG, and runs an offense better. Sasha Pavlovic? He's a swingman and he's cheap...that's about all he has going for him. Hell, I don't know what Bulls' management is going to do. Sam Smith and all the rest of us poster-bloggers have this in common. I hope they sign Asik, retain Watson, make Gibson a reasonable extension offer (and he signs it) and use their MLE (or MMLE) for a player who can help them over the next 3+ seasons. They say that Rose's injury won't change their approach to continuing to try to build this team and these are the kinds of moves that would be consistent with their professed long-range thinking.
I understand that you don't believe the disclaimer, but I do...mostly because since Smith joined bulls.com, I've been unable to find any predictive relationship between Smith's speculation and subsequent events.
I don't suggest there's any relationship like that. But I do think if he wrote something the Bulls didn't like, it wouldn't be allowed to be posted.
I kind of see the issue like this: 1). The bulls do not have a realistic shot at the title next year 2). They don't have a realistic way to tank and get a high draft pick without completely dismantling the team (which is not a good idea) 3). Paying the luxury tax for Korver, Brewer, Watson, et. al is not worth it for a team that does not have a realistic shot at the title If you combine those three points, I think the logical course of action is to do a Mavs style "re-tool" and churn through part of the roster with the idea of having the same type of team we have now in 2014, plus 1 additional dynamic player. The easiest way to do this would be to scoop up cheap vets and take flyers on draft picks and young unproven guys with the hope that one of them blossoms into a Wes Matthews/Taj Gibson type player that can readily contribute when 2014 comes around. Maybe take a gamble on Jonny Flynn, or maybe go Kevin Pritchard and start buying up draft picks. That puts us more or less in a similar situation to where our team is now, just with a more appropriate time horizon. The second way would be to combine two of Boozer/Deng/Noah for a better player.
Rosenthall for the win. I predict we keep CJ for precisely this reason. His injury makes him lower priced, with a possibility of a high return.
I disagree with your first point and the comparison the Mavs. The Mavs were too old to compete last season, up until the point they were hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy. The reason they were in a position to win was that Cuban kept spending to retool the team even when it looked like their chances were slim. That's what I take away from the Mavs: it's that there is more chance involved in these playoffs than you would suspect and you have to look for reasons for why you're competitive, not for reasons that you won't be. If the Bulls are going to refuse to spend because they are not the favorite to win a championship, then they'll never be champions.
For the Bulls to be in position to win a title next season, they'd need to: 1) keep the entire team together 2) manage to win games in Rose's (and likely Deng's) absence 3) Rose needs to make a miraculous recovery and be MVP form by playoff time 4) Bulls need to add a true second scoring option As for the Mavs' strategy, they rode one MVP caliber player who is less stoppable than Rose. They filled the roster with aging vets who still had enough game to provide better play and depth than we have had. And more importantly, they spent $21M over the LT threshold so they could afford to have Tyson Chandler and Caron Butler on the team. Both are gone. Their salaries combined was $22M (go figure). I'm not seeing that teams will go $21M over the LT threshold much anymore, but the strategy of having that caliber of player (Kidd, Marion, Peja) on the roster instead of Butler and Lucas caliber players.
