More from that article: Did this leak come from the Love camp to try and push Love to Chicago and not Golden State or Houston? The Bulls have that better package, but have been quietly absent from most rumors about the potential trade of the Wolves star, while most of the attention has been centered around the Bulls' pursuit of Carmelo Anthony. One way or the other, the trends definitely indicate the Bulls could pick up a major star this summer, something that hasn't happened a lot in franchise history.
Well I'd be happy with either, that's for sure. When it comes to assets I don't see the Bulls as having a lot of bullets in their holster. It seems like they're offering Taj Gibson and some middling first round picks. I'd think a true blue chipper like Klay Thompson or a high lotto pick would be much more appealing. The biggest thing the Bulls probably have going for them is that Love is friends with Rose. Seems like any deal will be contingent on him wanting to re-sign there when his contract is up.
I say forget about this building a contending team thing and focus on the important stuff like paying the luxury tax no matter what.
Worst: 28. Chicago White Sox Power Rank: 21* Payroll Rank: 5 ($127.8 million)* Playing sub- .500 ball in MLB's weakest division, the White Sox have seen little return on the big contracts they’ve lavished on Adam Dunn, Mark Buehrle and Jake Peavy.* orbes: Best And Worst Baseball Teams For The Buck
White Sox finished 30 games behind last season. They're 7.5 out today. It's better to try and fail than to not try and fail.
Jerry has brought the Sox to a couple of rings-- nowhere near the Bulls' run but more recent. Jerry has tanked the White Flax Sox. He's thrown money about in the wild west spending of MLB. Sometimes it pays off sometimes not. The Bulls have had their share of really bad years. They've lost FA's when the wallet was wide open. They have had injury fiascos. Some bonehead drafts. They have built a damn solid team and have the ability to improve and contend in a current market where few teams do. Will there be star takers? I don't know. I do know that building a championship team is the point and sulking over profit is silly since paying LT isn't some magic ring maker. As I have pointed out ask the Knicks how that's working out for them the lat 40 years or so.
He's trying to win with the sox. The Sox aren't running $55M profits - the team is losing money. No "I'll pay for a winner" attitude there.
I do believe the closed wallet dusty phone thing was true in the first seceral years of the century. Horrible drafts. No free agents wanted to touch us with a 10 foot pole. Lousy coaches. I don't believe that lack of effort or lack of commitment remains a fair charge.
Luol Deng. Lack of commitment. It's not always about cap space and signing free agents. It's about pulling the trigger on a Kobe or Gasol deal. How did Boston get KG? We were supposedly in the hunt for those guys, but the Chairman said he didn't want to have to surround those guys with good enough other talent. Let's see who our starters are next season. What free agents come within 10 feet of us.
"Paying" again isn't the point. The Bulls are so "not trying" that they have got maybe their 2nd best coach ever, a league MVP, a DPOY, the ability and apparent willingness to deal other teams currently lack and have been stymied mostly in the past few years due to their franchise player having a playoff run cut short by injury and back to back early season ending injuries. That doesn't seem to translate to me to lax effort to put a quality team on the floor.
http://bullsbythehorns.com/jerry-reinsdorf-answers-questions/ The Bulls did not want Pau Gasol:“Gasol, we didn’t move slowly, we said, ‘No.’ We were prepared to give [Memphis] players. What they wanted to do was to basically dump stuff on us and we’d be immobilized; we wouldn’t have been able to improve our team. Gasol made sense for the Lakers because he is their third-best player, probably. He would have been, at that time, our best player. It would have been a wrong role for him. John and Gar decided they didn’t want Gasol under those circumstances, where he would have been the last piece and we would have been immobilized because of the [salary] cap.” He’s not a miserly old cheapskate…seriously: “I don’t mind [paying] the tax if it’s an intelligent expenditure. I don’t care what the tax would be; if we had a guy who was going to put us over the top and put us in the Finals, I’d pay the tax. I wouldn’t hesitate.” (Duh, you add a Gasol, pay the tax to add more players).
I agree with the comments in that article. If Gasol is your franchise player exactly how are you going to build a championship team LT spending or not?
You make Gasol your 3rd best player by acquiring more players. If Hinrich is your franchise player, you have no chance. And he was our franchise player for about a decade. His face plastered on billboards all over the city (I saw it with my own eyes). If you're not willing to add excellent talent to your team, you may as well give up.
Lovely idea. Sounds a bit "works on Trade Machine" analysis but you know I suppose there must be some rainbow and butterfly scenarios of deals, free agents lining up and draft steals that would have landed that "minimum 8 peat" by making Pau the 3rd best player behind 2 superstars and a supporting cast.
