Thibodeau has been asked not to play Butler at PG. Anyone other than Hinrich (a truly hard case, that one) who plays PG for Thibodeau immediately turns into a scoring machine. The Bulls are trying to extend Butler at a reasonable price and fear that an uptick in his ppg will cost them.
I don't really understand this either. My best guess is that a team's salary is the total that it, or another team (waiver wire pickups excepted), paid players on its roster at the end of the season. So by shipping Eric Murphy the franchise got rid of an entire season's worth of minimum payments. While picking up Brewer, Amundson, and James cost them very little. This could be why the Thunder have been shuffling through D-League prospects like they have. They don't get pegged with a salary unless they've paid it to someone on the team's roster at the end of the season?
The Rockets just cut Craig Smith. I don't know why he's played so little this year. But if he's healthy, he's a Taj caliber backup C and would be a DJ like signing (rotation player).
These are 10 day contracts, pro rated. The three players combined might cost the Bulls $150K, and the league covers some of that. Murphy's remaining paychecks were probably more than the $150K.
Greg Smith not Craig Smith. I think Craig Smith is the dleaguer who played a couple seasons with the T-Wolves. But yeah, I honestly had never heard of Greg Smith before you brought him up but he looks interesting. 6'10/7'3" wingspan and strong. I could see why he wouldn't get burn in Houston. It looks like he needs to operate by the basket and that's not happening if you have Asik and Howard as your centers. You need stretch fours ideally for those two guys. Maybe they can cut Amundson and sign Smith for the rest of the season.
You mentioned he was 80, he has played that way. I would rather play Fredette. I guess James knows the system a bit more, but God! His shooting is awful.
The first time Thibs played him extended minutes (like more than 4), he came up lame and was physically unable to play for days. For CBA purposes, his contract this year counts about $50K (or less) against our cap. Next year, he's a ~$450K trade chip that the recipient can simply waive. As I mentioned earlier Kirk is a Vet Minimum thru 120% x his $4M contract trade chip that the Bulls could sign and trade. He's not the only one we could S&T like that.
