The Bulls are going through a "retool" right now, and the current chatter is that they're positioning themselves to make a big splash in 2017 FA, with an eye on signing 2 max FA's that offseason. So with that in mind I went ahead and made a spreadsheet with the team's salaries this year and next which can be seen (and edited) here: https://1drv.ms/x/s!Ah41ahsA_ffFkhpBfbu8ziAqIo0p Here's the condensed version: Right now the Bulls have (roughly) 70 million in committed salaries and 24 million in cap space. If they make no additional signings they ought to have enough room for 2 Max FA's with less than 7 years experience. Ie, rookies coming off their first contract. So basically, if they want to blow their entire wad next offseason the roster is basically finished. If they wanted they could get up to 46 million this offseason by dumping Calderon, Taj, Dunleavy and Snell. However, with the exception of Dunleavy these moves will have no effect on 2017 cap space because they all expire after this season anyways. In the case of Calderon it'll decrease space because stretching him would create a 2.5 million cap hold in 2017. If the Bulls wanted to sign a guy like Harrison Barnes or Mike Conley to a contract starting at 24 million they'd still have close to 40 million in cap space next year, which is enough to sign a 6 year guy and still have 13 million leftover to fill out the roster. In fact, with the cap going up so steeply next year it's not that hard to spend a decent amount this offseason and still have enough room to sign a max guy with change to spare in 2017. After looking at the numbers it's actually changed my mind about how to go about spending this year. Ie, if you think you can get a valuable guy that's going to really fill a role going forward it's wise to sign him, even if it seems expensive right now. For example, if the Bulls wanted to wanted to make sure they stayed competitive this year they could go all out for Harrison Barnes and sign him to a 24 million/year contract, re-sign E'Twaun starting at 6 million, and still go into next offseason with enough money to sign someone for the max. (This is assuming we dump Snell and Dunleavy and/or Taj + Calderonn to maximize our cap space). I think strategically there are two big take home points: 1). Is it best to try and get a good draft pick this year + get max capspace next year, or is it best to maintain the appearance of being competitive in order to make yourself attractive to the players you want to sign in the future? 2). It's probably inevitable that one of Niko or Taj is not going to be with the team next year. There's no way there's going to be enough salary to sign both of them. It's probably best to choose now which one you want going forward and deal the other one. 3). Also, I'm a big fan of doing something with Calderon. He has no future on the team IMO and the presence of Valentine makes him even less useful to us, since it adds to the problem of having too many unathletic 1-way players. His salary gets in the way of other moves we can make this offseason which would have a more durable impact on the team. I'd love to trade him for a 2nd round pick and resign E'Twaun, who's game meshes much better with Jimmy and the rest of the roster.
Thanks for the useful sheet and good post. How bad do you think this current roster is, as-is? Bad enough to get enough lotto balls for a legit shot at a top 5 pick? If the trade off is the #12 pick vs the #16 pick I don't see it as enough of a different to enter into the decision making. This current roster could be bottom 5 in the league, especially with a Butler injury or just more dysfunction. Its hard to me to really guess, given the unknowns of Hoiberg's coaching and just what this assemblage of players can do. Also, if the team is the #8 seed in the East vs a lotto team, I don't think that is going to be a huge factor in a younger player looking for his first big contract. The Bulls have struck out getting super impact players in FA when they have been bad and when they have been good. The lone time I think being good helped was landing Gasol, but the Bulls are not going to be title contender good no matter what, so a guy like that / contract like that is probably off the table. If they are committing to keeping Butler, Lopez, Niko and the team isn't bottom 5 bad, they should sign a MAX level, impact FA whenever they can, this off-season or next. The Bulls can't afford to be picky if a guy is willing to come here, given its been so hard to get a guy to come here in the past. Given his age and the new team style, I think Taj would be the guy to go. I have no use for Calderon either. Perhaps that 7 mil expiring is a decent trade chip over the course of the season? Moore is likely a better option at this point, I agree. Bulls need to be willing to just let some FAs go though, rather than spend on bad contracts. I'm not sure at all about Barnes at 24 mil. I know that's the going rate, but I just fear he really isn't that good. I'm a Conley fan. You are signing him as he's likely going to start trending downward though. If you have Conley / Butler / McDermott / Niko / Robin you still need that other MAX FA next year. Is that a contender? What's the endgame here?
My main issue is that I don't have a strong feeling on how bad this team can be this season. We replaced Rose, Noah and Gasol with Calderon and Lopez. Rose was probably a slight value-add on the court once his vision issues were taken care of. Noah didn't play much last season. Gasol was an all-star caliber player who gave you 21+ PER production. I feel that Calderon is a fairly large step back from a good vision Rose and Lopez will be a step back from the Gasol we had last year. So one would think that the team may be worse. But perhaps overall they are better since the Rose / Butler thing is sorted about and perhaps Lopez is more a Hoiball style 5? I don't have a strong opinion on this. Perhaps one of the youngish players does step up this season? If the Bulls could be bottom 5 bad, then I'm OK with tanking for a season and getting a high pick. I don't think it impacts FA much one way or another, given this teams history.
Great OP. The Bulls will try to put a competitive team on the floor this season. From the owner's perspective, they owe this to their customers. Whether they succeed or not remains to be seen. If well-coached (this not only requires good coaching, but that the players respond to coaching), they can be a playoff team. It's hard for me to imagine that they can be a contender. While they will not tank, it's possible, as rosenthall suggests, that their strategy will be not to make any moves this offseason that prevents them from executing a strategy that centers on the 2017 offseason. In other words, while I don't see them adopting a K4E-type (pure) "win later" strategy, they may have their sites on future seasons. If you hate this approach, it's fair to blame Jerry Reinsdorf. He won't allow a strategy that could place them in a similar position to the one they lived through post-dynasty. While the Bulls value all their fans, they most highly value the corporate customers who lease the skyboxes and premium seating. During the post-dynasty debacle, these customers (primarily vendor/suppliers) were told by their clients that they'd just as soon not be entertained by a Bulls game. I know this because I was one of those clients at the time. The Bulls have rebounded well from this period, but they don't want to revisit it. They'll do their best to put a quality entertainment product on the floor. For the first time in a long time, I have no idea what kind of season the Bulls will have in 2016-17. Hoiberg's ability, and how the players respond to him is certainly a key, but the roster itself has a lot of issues right now. As a fan, I sure hope that they get this thing figured out.
If they want to land 2 big free agents in 2017 they need to do more then tanking... https://thechicagochronicle.com/2016/07/01/bulls-watch-nba-free-agency-from-the-bench/
I'd guess our current roster is probably good for 30-35 wins with a 10-20% chance to be significantly better or worse depending on how things break. Basically agree. Younger guys are probably after dollars, usage and bling, so the chance to be "The Man" and getting paid will be enough to bring them in, even if our record sucks. The Super Max guys get their pick of the litter and can afford to choose best fit. To be honest, I don't see the Bulls getting one of the Big Four next year anyways. We're probably going to have to settle for a Gordon Hayward type. Given the way FA has played out thus far, this is basically tantamount to not doing anything at all since it doesn't look like any of the big guys have an interest in coming here. Well, so far so good. 24 hours down and not a single elephantine contract to a mediocre player. Here's hoping they can keep their nose out of the powder for the next two weeks.
No matter what they say, the Bulls aren't aiming high this season. Set your expectations accordingly.
A long drop from firing the coach in part because he could not defeat Lebron and get to the NBA Finals. Keep getting dem checks GarPax.
