ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 06:39 PM) Bynum had a pretty great opportunity here and blew it. I'm not sure that a team like the Heat is going to want a guy like him to rock the boat. I could be wrong, but why bring a total cancer to the absolute, odds-on favorite to win the title? Seems like the risk is way too high for the potential payoff of...winning again. He's been awful this year, but someone will take a chance on him because he's a big body. This is especially true since both the Heat and Clippers could really use another big.

I'll go on my other Bulls' related rant beside the failure to add a backup center the last couple of years: the Bulls' felt the need to use both their 1st round pick and their MLE on backup point guards in the 2012 off-season. They were grossly outplayed by a vet minimum guy last year (Nate) and so far have been outplayed by added mid-season off the street this year (Augustin). Poor use of assets that hasn't improved their situation at all.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 05:40 PM) And then the rest of the board will say what an awful signing it is and it'll never workout despite the fact every move the Heat have made since July, 2010 has worked out. LOL, right. They have so many amazing assets outside of the big 3.

Warriors interested in Hinrich? If you can get ANYTHING for Hinrich, do it now.

QUOTE (lord chas @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 03:35 PM) When will Mirotic realistically come to Chicago? Everything I'm hearing is saying he will stay in Spain next year as well. No one really knows. They're no longer tied to a rookie scale contract with him starting this off-season, so it's possible they can pay him enough starting this year. I don't recall seeing anyone with any real inside knowledge on his plans though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 02:38 PM) Only takes 1. Look, this is getting way beyond the point of discussing. The bottom line is there was basically no interest in acquiring him around the league and he could easily be looking at a 50% or more paycut for next year if he opts out. He's also 28 next year, so it's not like this is the last chance to try to scratch out a 4-40 type deal (if he's lucky).

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 02:27 PM) At least he can be considered efficient now. I really doubt that the GM's that told Zach Lowe they wouldn't sign him to the MLE would be convinced by 12 games of decent play.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 01:56 PM) If I was the 1st overall pick of the draft or the second overall pick in the draft I probably would not accept the 5 10 and 11 picks. I doubt most teams would, and the people running several of these bad teams (mostly thinking of Philly, Orlando and Phoenix) look competent. I know I wouldn't. There's 4 or 5 guys that look great (I honestly have no idea which tier Exum is in) and you are at the mercy of the teams ahead of you with that pick. I also feel like there's another drop-off in the 8-10 range depending on people unexpectedly staying in school, how guys finish the year and how the picks fall.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 01:42 PM) Rudy Gay's actually played really well for the Kings. Eh, it'd be hard to be worse than he was in Toronto. He's still only putting up a 17.5 PER and they're still awful. I'll put it this way: he's not going to get another $15 million a year contract if he opts out.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 01:19 PM) Cousins, Thomas, and a top 5 pick could be pretty nasty. How does their cap situation look? Gay a FA next year? If so, sans Cousins, who are they paying big money too? Thomas-Mclemore-Wiggins/Parker-Cousins-? or Thomas-Mclemore-?-Cousins-Embiid or Thomas-Mclemore-?-Randle-Cousins all look scary id they got the $$ to add a good piece into those question marks. As for this year, ya, they're not getting that pick. As I just posted, cap space next year is highly unlikely. The year after, they're still at $30 million already just for Cousins, Landry, Thompson and McLemore. A top-5 pick would add another $3-6 million. Can they either keep Thomas and add someone major or add two capable players with the remaining space? Probably, but it'd be more likely to be Josh Smith/Al Jefferson types than a true stud. Obviously the picks are the big wildcard, but even Durant/Rose/Davis caliber rookies don't typically add 10 wins in their first year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) Assuming that Gay picks up his nearly $20 million player option (he might not) they'll be at about $61 million once they offer a Q.O. to cousins. If Gay doesn't pick up his option then they'll probably have $10 million or so to play with. The year after that they have around $20 million committed, probably closer to $25 counting this year's draft pick. They could up that to just over $40 million by offering Cousins a Max deal and be in a position still to sign a max level FA that year. Um, they already signed Cousins to an extension. He's on the books for $13.7 mil next year. Gay would also have to be incredibly stupid to not pick up that option. Given the general disdain for his game at the moment, that might be 3 seasons worth of pay on his next contract. They've also still got quite a bit of money tied up in guys like Marcus Thornton, Carl Landry, Jason Thompson and Derrick Williams if they decide to keep him around ($21 million to the first 3 plus another $6.3 million if they choose to keep Williams). In other words, not really any space to work with.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 12:32 PM) Sacto is a team that has a ton of talent and potential, but no basketball IQ at all. I wouldn't even say they have A TON of talent. Who's their 4th best player? Derrick Williams? Do Jason Thompson and Marcus Thornton worry you at all? What about McLemore and his 37% shooting? It's not like their big-3 is anything close championship-caliber either.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 11:25 AM) the thing is , they dont have to be a playoff team, and its not just the next couple years. they need to fall out of the bottom 10. Picks 11-14 is still a lottery pick. and its through 2017. They have a decent core with cousins, thomas, gay and mclemore. Those guys can get significantly better. This year is a long shot, but they are only 3 games from falling out of the top 10. I will guess it does not happen this year, but 3 more shots? I don't know how anyone can assume it will be a 2nd. I also like their dedicated owner, seems like he is more than willing to make moves to win now. basically we are rolling the dice on boogie cousins and considering he is 23 years old, with the 5th best PER in the league, I like our odds. You can say... but they are still the sacramento kings.... true... but they have not had a player at Cousins level since early 2000s Webber. All we need from the kings is to win about 30-33 games, 1 time, within the next 4 seasons. As long as cousins keeps his head on straight, then we will be getting a 1st rd pick sometime in the next few years. I wouldn't assume either way, but I'm not exactly warm and fuzzy about the Kings' chances. They're the 4th worst team in the league in a year where a lot of teams are trying to lose (or at least not actively trying to win). They're not much better with Gay either, they're only 6-12 in games that he's played. They look good as a fantasy team, but not so much as an actual team. They're a horrible defensive team, 29th in the league in defensive efficiency. You have to have a top-5 type offense to compensate for that kind of ineptitude, and they don't. They really only have three useful players, maybe 4 with McLemore eventually developing. It also doesn't help that they're in the West, which is a much tougher conference. They have to be quite a bit better to get over 30 wins than if they were in the East. Since they lost the last of their solid roster in 08, they haven't had a WPT above .341. Basically, it's going to depend on what they get in the draft. If they hit a homer or two doubles between now and then, the Bulls probably get a pick. If they do what they normally do, it's going to come down to the wire.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 10:49 AM) So what does standing pat accomplish? It is the one way that is 100% guaranteed to not result in a title. So you can absolutely guarantee that Mirotic and two likely lottery picks don't turn into legit pieces? I would say the odds of that are better than not only getting Melo, but building a contender around him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) How are "Melo and Lebron" not realistic targets when Melo has already dropped the Bulls name personally? Yeah it could just be leverage, yeah they could strike out and have to sign someone lesser like Luol Deng, but both Gibson and Noah are perfect fits for any team wanting to win now and a poor fit for a team that needs to see what happens in the draft first. How is having productive players on reasonable deals (slightly less so for Taj, though he's probably going to be starting soon) a poor fit for a team that's still trying to win? The odds of finding big men better than those two around pick #10 aren't terribly high, especially over the first couple of years of their career.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 09:47 AM) If the Bulls were to, hypothetically, add Mirotic and trade one of Gibson and Noah, then have 2 picks somewhere around #10 which could plausibly both be spent on big men (that's right in the range where Vonleh would be projected if he came out), and add Melo, and again hire Jesus as their athletic trainer, they could be sporting a lineup of Butler/Rose/NoahorGibsonplusdraftpicks/Melo/Mirotic with decent depth at several positions counting guys like Snell and a little bit of excess money to go after backups. That team could darn well be a crown waiting to happen. Unless Mirotic is Dirk basically right away, it's going to be several years before that team is any kind of threat. Trading Noah and/or Gibson seriously hurts the defense, which is reason 1 or 1A why this team has been good of late. It also usually takes draft picks at least a couple of years to be real impact players, especially big men outside the top-5. Finally, the depth isn't exactly stellar. You'd basically have Snell and two draft picks as your role players, with one of them potentially having to start. You wouldn't have the MLE the first year in this scenario since you used cap space to get Melo. Even this year's team had 8 decent options before injuries hit. They're not in a horrible spot right now, depending on Rose's health of course. They have a championship level defense, a top Euro prospect and potentially two relatively high draft picks coming. If they do nothing, they could have an Indiana-type roster even if they miss on a pick or signing. That margain for error disappears if they start dumping their few productive players. It'd be one thing if they could get someone like Love or Durant in a few years that's excellent and still fairly young. But Melo isn't quite on that tier and is about to turn 30. He'll also cost significantly more.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 12:29 AM) As we are learning with the Charlotte pick, even a terrible franchise tends to get a pick outside the top 10 over the course of several years Charlotte has the 12th worst record in the league right now, not exactly a lock to finish outside of the top-10. The Kings are nearly as inept as a franchise.

Okay, so apparently that first report wasn't totally accurate... 1) The Bulls are actually getting THREE picks. Two of them are second rounders owed to Cleveland from Portland. 2) They can also swap first rounders with Cleveland in 2015 if the Cavs' pick is outside the lottery. 3) Most importantly, the Kings' pick is significantly less sexy than I originally thought. From RealGM: So basically if the Kings aren't outside the top-10 in any of the next 3 years (outside the top-12 this year isn't happening), they get a second round pick and it's possible they get jack-s***.

Wow, love getting the King's pick in that. There's a good chance that's unprotected in 2 years, the Kings are a mess. Obviously JR is happy saving the massive amounts of money too.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 5, 2014 -> 09:18 PM) Where is that number after the amnesty of Boozer? Without Boozer, Deng or any picks, they'd be at about $48 million. Salary cap is likely low-60's, luxury tax likely low-70's.

Sobolewski seems to be getting worse. He was capable as a freshman, okay considering he was carrying too big a role last year, and god-awful this year. He was never an athletic marvel, but he can't even make open shots anymore.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 5, 2014 -> 08:43 PM) Isn't Mirotic supposed to be the MLE? Yes, but you have to stay under the tax line when signing the player to have the full MLE available. That means they have to stay in the $65-66 mil range on the rest of your players, which is difficult with 4 guys making $60 mil-ish and without counting any picks.

The Bulls couldn't sign him outright, so it's kind of moot. They'd have to work some kind of sign-and-trade with a ton of money going out, which NY may not be interested in because they'd prefer cap space. If they could get a deal with Deng or Boozer and filler (ie Dunleavy+Teague instead of Taj) I'd certainly do it. You need as much D as possible on a roster with Melo though, so keeping Taj would be important. One other caveat: I'm not 100% sure they'd still be able to bring over Mirotic since Melo+Rose+Noah+Taj is already close to $60 million.

MCW needs to work on a lot of things on offense. Take a look at his shotchart. That's an awful lot of low percentages. Note that he's shooting under 48% in the basket area, which is fairly low (I'm still getting used to how NBA.com defines "basket area". Average was in the low-60's on my old site, NBA.com seems to be more like 55%). I think he could be an All-Star down the road, but he's not playing nearly as well as his counting numbers would suggest.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 3, 2014 -> 09:55 AM) Kwame Brown and Olawacandi at least made way more sense. Also they don't care at your mocking since they made probably close to 60 mill between em. Kwame alone has actually made $64 million in his career. Somehow he's still getting checks. It's scary how much money you can make if you're 6'10" or taller even if you have little talent. Fun list of career earnings for bust big men... Kwame Brown- $63.99 mil Michael Olowokandi- $37.9 mil DeSagana Diop- $47 mil Darko Milicic- $52.3 mil Stromile Swift- $43.2 mil Tyrus Thomas- $37.2 mil Joel Przybilla- $44.7 mil Etan Thomas- $44.7 mil Jared Jeffries- $40.5 mil Obviously there are other examples, but I picked those guys because they still got sizeable second contracts even though they were pretty awful.