....is trading Deng an option? Butler can defend near Deng's level, plus Deng is being nagged by injuries so I don't see why he isn't expendable. Not saying we should trade Deng for the sake of trading Deng, but for a few nice pieces I see no reason not to ship him.
Deng is a $14.3M expiring contract next season. After that, I suspect the Bulls would try to re-sign him, but at quite a bit less than his current salary. He will still be a younger guy (less than 30 years old), but he will also have played 10 seasons, all but 3 of those he's missed at least 10 games.
I'd like to see Lu stay, to be honest. I think we can win with him, Derrick and jo. Trade him only for big upgrade, not for a few pieces.
Butler looked great tonight against Charlotte. Had a career high. His play will let Thibs rest Hamilton and Deng for the playoffs!
The hope was that Butler would successfully replace Ronnie Brewer in the lineup. Butler's not the disruptive defender Brewer is, but he's shown that he's at least as good a positional defender and is a better scorer and rebounder. With each passing solid big-minutes effort, Butler becomes more of a real deal. The problem with trading Deng is that you'd need to get a quality backup SF from somewhere. Right now, the Bulls only have Deng and Butler with whom I'm comfortable at SF. On the other hand, when Rose returns, the Bulls will have an absolute shitload of players capable of giving you minutes at SG (Hamilton, Belinelli, Butler, Hinrich, Cook and even Robinson in spots). Net, for this season, I think Butler's emergence will more likely point towards trading one of the Bulls SG surplus, probably for another big. This offseason, who knows?
Transplant, good points. Maybe, if they play their cards right, Deng and Butler can both play for more than 40 minutes per game! Do you think there's any chance that Rip goes for a big man this season? I get the feeling they don't want to do anything until they know how Derrick is going to be, and they don't want to lose Rip's experience in the playoffs when Derrick might still be shaky. Sure would be nice to get something more out of the back up center spot, though.
Daequan Cook is perfectly capable of giving the Bulls the 6 minutes per game off the bench to rest Butler if he were our only other SF. Or the Bulls could at worst play 3 guards in some stretches. Rip is gone at the end of the season. I think they simply let him walk. The Bulls would let Robinson walk, but they actually need the insurance he provides - both as a shooter and as a PG. Think worst case - Rose misses some stretch of games. Who's your backup PG? Kirk? Then who's going to play when he rests? I don't think of Butler as a full time SG. He simply hasn't demonstrated the ball handling, outside shooting (.241 3pt), or passing skills to satisfy ME. I think when he plays SG, you are really playing a one guard offense. On defense, the positions don't matter so much - we've seen Deng guard Ben Gordon. I actually really like Belinelli. He is the best ball handler at SG we've had since Jamal Crawford. In games he started at SG for us: 6pt/3reb/1ast in 24 minutes 23/3/0 in 40 16/3/3 in 40 22/4/1 in 45 (3 steals, too) 18/7/5 in 41 (2 steals) 16/2/2 in 30 (2 steals) 19/1/3 in 38 (2 steals) 13/4/1 in 40 (2 steals) 10/1/1 in 34 22/7/1 in 45 (2 steals) 4/1/0 in 22 (1 steal) 15/1/3 in 35 That's 15 PPG, 3 RPG, 1.7 APG, and 1+ SPG Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last guys to score 15 PG for us at SG have been BG, Crawford, and Jordan. The thing about Belinelli is he is terribly inconsistent off the bench, and the Bulls seem intent on playing Kirk at SG come hell or high water. Plus he has an opt out clause in his contract, and I think he's going to end up elsewhere. Why isn't he starting? Because you are almost obligated to start Rip when he can go - and rightly so. The cynical view is they're playing Rip to maximize the chance some team would take a flier on him to save the Chairman his LT payment. So that really leaves us with Hinrich, Butler, and Cook as our starting SG candidates. My choice would be to start Belinelli, but in his absence, I would play Butler out of position at SG for 48 minutes a game.
If the Bulls could get a big who's a couple notches above Nazr for either Hamilton or Belinelli, I think they should pull that trigger.
