And count me in with those who think Courtney Lee isn't any better than the guys we have on the bench already.
What are the chances that Thibodeau would have used McGrady? Not very likely, says I. I think you take the good with the bad with a coach like Thibodeau. He's a more intense version of Skiles, at least how Skiles coaches now -- we're talking Popovic territory.
Honestly, I think Thibs would have used him. My pet theory is that Thibs was pushing for McGrady, based on his familiarity with TMac from Houston, and that Gar and especially Pax "saved" him from that one. I think he really liked McGrady for his passing ability. But, of course, just a hypothetical, now. Orlando was a bitch for matching JJ Reddick's offer.
This is exactly my thinking too, though I might go a bit further in what I'd give up now (Asik?). The reasons being: 1. I'm growing on (and reading other folks posts) the idea that we've got a real shot this year. Celts are old, Magic dysfunctional, and Heat are probably not peaking yet. So this might be the best shot we've got. 2. The odds of a trade for a marquee guy next year are quite low in any case. The Bulls need to shoot for it, and keep their options open, but my argument is that Lee is the best option that probably threads the needle between keeping that option open and giving us some chance of success in the (likely) event it doesn't pan out. I think there's a real tension between doing this (FA) and keeping open hope for a big trade. I don't think the Bulls can credibly do both. If we drop our MLE on JRich, I think it puts a lot of financial heft behind not making a trade for another highly paid guy (like Iggy, KMart, etc). It'll be very easy to say "Hey, we're doing well now with our big signing, JRich, let's not rock the boat". Giving up, say, JJ and pick 25 to get Lee, on the other hand, keeps our salary obligations quite a bit lower, and if we get into next year thinking "Gee, Lee's not quite good enough", he's probably still going to be good enough to be considered a bit of a trade asset. As a 40% 3 point shooter playing next to Rose and Boozer, he'll get lots of looks, and will be a valuable chip to send out himself. In contrast, let's say the Bulls don't pull a trade for a guy like that. Then they're almost gonna "have" to go out and drop their MLE on a player this summer, which means overpaying him and hurting our chances of a bigger trade later. I tend to think Orlando wouldn't dare let a good player walk before Howard commits. Afflalo... Well, I'd re-sign him too if I'm the Nuggets, because unless the offer he gets is totally outlandish, they can probably lock in a solid player at a good price and still have plenty of cap space and picks to rebuild. And if the offer he gets is totally outlandish... well that just feeds into the problem above. We're stuck with the guy on a crazy deal that's not a trade asset. That's why I think Battier is a non-starter. Lee's a guy who could potentially give us 25-30mpg (of improved quality minutes) by giving up 0mpg. With Battier his salary is high enough that we are literally forced, by the trade rules, to include significant guys, and take valuable minutes out of our rotation in order to get him. In a way. But if we're going to frame it, I'd frame it as saying we're giving Rose and Boozer 18-20 minutes of another credible weapon that limits how teams double him. I think, ironically, the statistical improvement we'd see from swapping Bogans for Lee would show up in better opportunities for Rose and Boozer, not in Lee suddenly tearing it up. Which gets to the idea that... ... it seems that way, but the way I see it, what really needs to happen is the Bulls need to reach a critical mass. In isolation, Lee might not be that much better than Bogans, but by virtue of the fact that he's good enough to not be ignored, it opens up a lot of room for improvement across the board. To put it another way, the fact that Bogans starts and plays is evidence of how important those small differences can be. Bogans is inferior if you judge him overall to Korver or Brewer, but he starts because he's got the right combination of skills. Well, Lee also has the right combination of skills, but in better form.
Stackhouse is better than Bogans. At what price?? Count me in the camp that does not want t0 give up assets to get Lee.
Well... I probably keep negotiating right up to the deadline. I think folks underestimate Lee. He's not a scrub at all. Very good defender, very good shooter, and he's got what I'd call a true SG handle. Meaning, he's not the sort of guy you'd play at PG, but he's a guy you can help break a double team with (something the Bulls have not shown much ability for lately). So I think he would be a real upgrade, and I think the reality is that holding out for a "star" is likely a pipe dream. So to reiterate, I want Lee. Asik... well I mostly said my piece in the other thread. I actually think he could and should be playing more, and last night is a good example why. He came in and did what Kurt Thomas couldn't do. He's not an unready 18 or 19 year old kid with no experience. He's a guy who just needs experience in the NBA game, and now seems the obvious time to get it to him. If we don't, I think he'll be unready to help us later, so it lowers his value at a time we could and should be looking to win. There's a track record of similar players that shows they can contribute in their first seasons if you let them get their feet wet. But try as I might, I can't see him frequently playing a big role for us. I can see Lee playing 30mpg for the next 5 years. The likely course of action with Asik is he continues to play spot minutes this year and next, then, as we sign Derrick to a max contract, some other team offers him whatever the equivalent of the MLE is gonna be, and we don't match. Let's think about this for a second. Taj will be locked in at $2M for 2012. Asik will be an FA. I think the odds of matching a competitive offer for Asik, when we've got Boozer and Noah locked in as expensive starters and Taj locked in as an expensive backup, are relatively slim. So if push comes to shove, yeah, I guess I pull the trigger. I think we'll loose him one way or another. If management ownership is telling me otherwise, I'd probably try very hard to avoid it. I might consider somehow trying to expand the deal too. If they're really in love with Asik, maybe we could get one of their bigs back? How do we feel about Brad after he up and left? Bulls trade Asik, JJ, Bogans Rockets trade Lee, Miller Do draft picks or other players thrown in either direction help things? I'm not sure what the Rockets are looking for long-term. I mean, I can see why they want a young center. Yao is probably done, but he's such an important marketing vehicle that I can't imagine they trade him (as has been rumored). So right now, they've got PF- Scola (good), Patrick Patterson (good looking rookie), Jordan Hill (iffy 2nd year guy) C- Yao (hurt), Chuck Hayes (short, but a real ass-kicker), Miller (signed for 3 years, not playing that much) They also have Aaron Brooks, last year's MIP, who just got suspended for being a douche and leaving the bench after he was sent there. No way we'd keep him around, but as a one year rental, he's a rich man's CJ Watson. Way better scorer, way better PG. Best case scenario trade (involving Asik)... add CJ going out and Brooks coming in. Like I said, I couldn't picture us re-signing brooks, but we head into the playoffs with several major additions 1. A real SG 2. A real bench sparkplug 3. A very battle tested big man in place of one that's too inexperienced to play much for this coach. Truth be told, I'd settle for one or two of those upgrades and be pretty happy.
Mike: Paxson's interests are not necessarily aligned with the franchise's. Asik is John Paxson's Dalibor Bagaric. He is the guy that Paxson rescued from the frozen tundra of Turkey's B league (yes, I realize that Turkey isn't frozen tundra) for his speed and size. Asik is the player that could cement John Paxson's legacy as a GM in a way that Rose never could. Drafting Rose was luck; Asik, skill. I don't see Paxson trading Asik unless it's for a universally-recognized player. I use the phrase universally-recognized because I mean high profile, not necessarily good at basketball. Asik is John Paxson's pet project and that makes him even more difficult to move than a high franchise draft selection like Thomas. I am not familiar with Lee's game, to be honest, but it certainly sounds like something the team should consider.
Strongly disagree with this. There isn't a much more damning criticism you can make of a FO executive than to say that he puts his own petty ego-driven concerns above the best interests of the team. IMO, this comes from out of nowhere and is terribly unfair. As for Lee, if Mike's assessment is accurate (long-term SG answer), you make the deal. Trouble is, I haven't heard many other folks view Lee as positively as Mike. I just haven't seen enough of Lee to have a real strong opinion either way.
I feel like Mike and I have had this conversation before and are basically in agreement, so perhaps I was a little bit short in my explanation. I think this is a structural issue with every company, and it's worse for publicly traded companies. General managers and corporate presidents are more concerned with their own job security than they are with the health of their organizations. You see it in every industry -- automotive, oil, financial services, and on and on and on. I'm not singling out Paxson -- I think he's probably better than most GMs but have no empirical evidence for this. I make this assessment because Reinsdorf has shown a great deal of loyalty to all of his general managers, which allows them to feel more secure in their roles. Ryan Russillo was talking about this on his podcast the other day (which is usually pretty great by the way.) His perception from closely following the league is that agents are primarily responsible for orchestrating trades; and that after an agent works out a trade with an opposing team's general manager, they bring it back to their client's general manager. General managers are by nature conservative because the more moves they make, the more of a track record they create, and the easier it is to evaluate their job performance and decide whether they are performing well.
General rule is you dont trade big for small. However, look at it this way, when Noah comes back Asik wont play. I know he wont play in the playoffs. Lee would. Asik might play if we played Shaq or Dwight. Need him for fouls, but we could have anyone give those fouls as well. Now is lee such an upgrade that the bulls team would have a real chance of coming out of the East? Maybe. He can defend. Adds more scoring. At times that is exactly what we needed! And he can spread the floor. Last but not least he can defend a little. Averages just 7 pts a game in 18 minutes. Would that expand to 14-15 in 36 minutes for us? Dont know. Better than Bogans. I would try and expand the trade if it were me. Houston wants a center so Miller would not be coming back, I'm sure. Bring us back a pf with lee in the trade, let's say a Jordan Hill.
The guy who shouldn't play is Thomas. The guy we have who's the same age as Lee, and IMO, a better player, is Brewer.
I'm guess that happens for the next twenty games or so. After that, I'm not sure. It only took Thomas like five games to get his legs back and now he's looking worn down. I think Thibodeau will give him spot minutes for the next twenty games and then try to reintegrate him into the lineup shortly before the playoffs.
OK, I'm going to qualify some of my past statements I think we're in agreement generally (GMs sometimes have divergent interests from team/ownership interests), but I don't think that principle is at play here. Most obviously, I think winning a title would cement everyone's legacy as better than what it is now. So while I do think there's some interest in holding on to your own guys, I think Pax would ultimately prefer to win. Also, Paxson doesn't strike me as a guy angling for another job with another team in the NBA. That's not quite how I'd say my assessment. I think he's the best possible long-term SG answer we can realistically get. He might not turn out, but he's the best guy by process of elimination. 1. He probably doesn't preclude the chance of a big, blockbuster SG deal down the pike, but he's insurance in the much more likely event it doesn't happen. 2. Compared to other guys who we could get, given our monetary and asset restraints, he looks like the best fit (good D, good shooting, smart player), both now and down the road. He'll be cheaper than guys like Afflalo and JRich who we might get with the MLE, and he'll be better than guys like Rush or a mid-20s draft pick which is overwhelmingly likely be of no use now or later. Apparently Doug Thonus is a big Lee fan as well. My own sales job on Lee, as a player himself, is that as a rookie, he did a heck of a job on a very good team. With the Nets and Rockets, his numbers haven't taken off, but I think the fundamental numbers (his distance shooting, +/-, etc, are relatively solid) point to a guy who was fundamentally good, but not going to tear it up on a horrible team (the Nets) or get on the court behind a guy who does all the same stuff (KMart on the Rockets), but better. If you want a good indication of what he can accomplish, go back and look at his run through the playoffs with the Magic. In the first round, he was absolutely huge, guarding Andre Iguodala on D and scoring well until Dwight Howard unintentionally broke his face early in game 5. The initial reports were that he was going to be out for the rest of the playoffs. In fact, he came back and played in the very next game, and every game afterwards. His offensive production definitely dropped, but he still played good D on Ray Allen and Kobe. Not sure who he guarded vs. the Cavs... for some reasons I don't have much memory of that series. But you get the idea... dude was playing with a broken face, and wearing a mask. And still played well on a team that continued to win.
Good post, Mike...both ends of it. GarPax may or may not agree to the proposed Asik-Lee trade, but if they don't, I just can't buy that the reason would be Paxson's self-justifying attachment to Asik. Paxson's made a whole lot of picks in his 7+ seasons and the only ones who are still on the team are either key players (Deng and Noah) or have been with the team less than 2 seasons. I think I get what you're saying about Lee. You're not saying that he's an above average starting SG, but that he's a legit starter. Doug T. makes an interesting point in essentially positioning it as a "win now" move that he estimates would improve the Bulls' chances of winning the championship this season from 10% to 15% (note: these are "off the top of head" %s). As Doug points out, assuming that there's still a MLE after this season, the Bulls could solve the SG problem fairly easily for next season. So the cost to up your odds to 15% this season is Asik. Doug would do it. Accepting Doug's analysis, I come to the opposite conclusion, but I like the way he laid it out. Guess I just value young talented bigs more and/or value a jump to 15% less.
