Bulls Offer Taj Gibson To Raptors For Patterson The Bulls have proposed a swap that would send Taj Gibson to Toronto and bring Patrick Patterson to Chicago, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com. However, the Raptors love Patterson and GM Masai Ujiri doesn’t appear to feel as strongly about any of the available power forwards who might bump Luis Scola from the starting lineup, Lowe adds in a different portion of his wide-ranging trade deadline column. Ostensibly, that signals Ujiri’s preference for Patterson over Gibson, though that’s not entirely clear. The Raptors would have a strong chance to re-sign Al Horford if they traded for him, sources tell Lowe, but it would take just about all Toronto has to give to wrest him from the Hawks, and a Horford-to-Toronto swap is unlikely, Lowe writes. Gibson is making $8.5MM this season, with $8.95MM due in 2016/17, so he’d be a more expensive option than Patterson, whose contract runs the same length of time and gives him close to $6.269MM this year and an even $6.05MM next season. The Raptors are barely above the salary cap for this season, which would give them plenty of flexibility to make such a move, though it would add to the nearly $70MM in guaranteed salary they have for 2016/17, a figure that doesn’t include a new contract for DeMar DeRozan. A swap of Gibson for Patterson straight up would conversely represent a key savings for the Bulls, who are about $4.7MM above the tax threshold. It would cleave about $3.3MM from Chicago’s projected tax bill. Read more http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2016/02/bulls-offer-taj-gibson-to-raptors-for-patterson.html
This seems like a great deal for Sacto if their objective is to shed salary. Also, it depends on the 1st and how it's protected. Bulls get a stopgap SG to play while Butler mends. Even some minutes so Butler can play 36 instead of 38. Gay fills a gaping wound at SF. He'll be chased out of town like Jalen Rose was. Sacto fans get to argue whether the team plays better with Mirotic at PF instead of Cousins.
As far as "Win Now" moves go, the Sac trade isn't too bad. Ironically enough the issue with the team becomes having too much depth on the wings and not enough up front. Gay, Jimmy and Rose don't seem like they have complimentary games at all, but Gay is vastly better than anyone else we could play at the position. You can log him heavy minutes in the playoffs. Assuming he can guard 2's, it'd be easier to play Doug in various lineups to take advantage of his shooting. If the team has decided to go all out on "Win Now" I'd be okay with the trade, even though in my heart of hearts I wouldn't expect it to move the needle as much as we need.
