Thank God. I was so afraid that every game thread this season would be nothing but chirping crickets. Edit: speculation appears to be that the Bulls will sign Hinrich with their "room" MLE which maxes at $2.732mil. Edit 2: Please God, let us be able to use him as intended...off the bench...short minutes...Amen.
Kirk Hinrich is pretty much a Bull for life. It would surprise noone if there is a front office position waiting for him upon retirement. I would imagine assistant general manager.
Wow. Room MLE money? Overpaid him for a 2nd time. Are they renouncing his rights and signing him as a UFA or something?
Sam: The moves don’t necessarily put an end to the Bulls potential deals for this summer as the team is believed to remain in pursuit of a shooting guard. With the deals for Hinrich under the so-called $2.7 million annual “room exception,” Mirotic and Gasol, the latter estimated at about $18 million to $20 million for three years, the Bulls have exhausted the salary cap space they would have after an amnesty for Carlos Boozer. That would have to be done this week. But a trade remains possible.
I love that Kirk Hinrich has a player option for his second year. Kirk Hinrich and Lebron James, man. What happens if KH regains his prior MVP form and starts dropping 30 and 10? We should probably start the speculation about where he'll be next season right now. I wonder if management just started laughing when KH's agent asked for it.
When Hinrich's The Announcement special broadcast live on ESPN I was sure he was taking his talents to Salt Lake.
As to the acquisition as a whole, it's overpaying but it's not outlandish, given the amount of money available this off season. I think it does create a clash of priorities, though. I have to imagine that DJ would have been available for the room exception. He signed a two year 6M contract with the Pistons, but it wasn't announced till after the Hinrich deal. As I mentioned in the other thread, either the regular season matters or it doesn't. Mirotic, Gasol and McBuckets are supposed to be offensive upgrades but the Bulls were dead last in offense last season. I don't see how you let DJ go under these circumstances. You can't make decisions on how DJ fared against John Wall. That guy is big and strong and fast and a unique talent in the NBA. There's no other point guard that's going to bring that type of heat, especially off of the bench.
Two ways to interpret this signing: 1). The Bulls are bullish on Rose's health. You choose Kirk over DJ if you want someone to play with Rose. You choose DJ if you want someone to be his replacement in case he gets injured. 2). It really was a money thing, and the Bulls couldn't afford DJ. It makes perfect sense for DJ to get every cent he can get this FA. It looks like the Bulls had to blow their FA wad on Mirotic and Gasol, leaving them with only the room MLE and veteran's minimum for Kirk and DJ. So they couldn't offer DJ a 2 year/6 million contract even if they wanted to, and the extra dollars and sense were a big deal for him. Detroit's also in a better position to offer him more minutes, especially if Brandon Jennings gets traded. I wouldn't be surprised if this signing isn't indicative of a true preference for Kirk over DJ even though it might seem that way.
I feel strongly that it's this, and I'm not sure they even want to think about another injury-marred season from Rose (I know I don't). Though I think Thibodeau is cool with playing Rose some off ball on offense, he's not so keen on having him defend most SGs. This will get Hinrich an extra 5-6 minutes a game. Also, as I look at a likely second unit of Hinrich, Snell, McDermott, Mirotic and Gibson, you've got yourself some shooters there. Scoring wouldn't seem like it's high on the second unit PG's list of priorities.
It's funny, because I was going to guess the second option was the biggest consideration. Even if you think Rose is going to come back strong, I think you have to allot a certain amount of time for him not being able to play. Without DJ we were playing like a bottom 7 team. But we only had the room MLE to play with so we couldn't sign both.