The Kevin Love Thread: Update PG. 67, 78

[waffle]

I still think the odds of Love becoming a bull are WAY shorter than those for Melo.

[GOBULLS]

Interesting read...check it out!
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/06/05/report-bulls-have-made-better-trade-offer-than-celtics-for-kevin-love/

On the merits, the Celtics can make pretty intriguing offers – more on that later – but they might have to come substantially stronger than other teams, because Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and president/coach Flip Saunders don’t jive with Boston.

MacMullan:

Taylor still hasn’t recovered from the last seismic Minnesota-Boston transaction, which led to a Celtics championship. In fact, sources in Minnesota say, the thought of conducting another major transaction with Boston gives Taylor great pause.

Some of McHale’s friends, including Ainge, felt Saunders undermined McHale, his former college teammate, during his final days in Minnesota.

When Doc Rivers hired Saunders as a “postseason consultant” for the Celtics during the 2012 playoffs, the interaction between Flip and Ainge was minimal and noticeably cool.

If indeed true, looks like a good situation to be in for the Bulls.

[dougthonus]

Thats close to 27 million in salary going out - I wonder who we'd be getting back with Love in that proposal.

What makes sense for the Bulls is if Kevin Martin is one of the pieces coming back. Love + Martin is pretty close to Gibson + Boozer.

Martin would certainly be my choice - but Minny also has the less than desirable contracts of Chase Budinger or Corey Brewer they could be looking to ship out with Love.

If thats the case I'd look for an either or situation - either cap relief in the form of Boozer (and we take bad contracts), or they keep their bad contracts and we send picks. I don't want to take bad contracts and lose picks though.

I think you ultimately do what you can to get Love. I'd like to force Minny's hand, but there are likely multiple suitors, so you take the best deal that gets it done.

Budinger/Brewer have similar length as Martin at less total money, they're also worse players, but Martin's a guy who wouldn't fit in all that well to their rebuilding effort if they make a trade either, so I suspect they'd be fine unloading him too.

[DanTown8587]

Why not add the non-guranteed deals and take back Brewer AND Martin?

Rose/Kirk (vet min)
Brewer/Martin
Dunleavy/Snell
Love/Jordan Hill (MLE)
Noah/Smith

[HomoSapien]

i guarantee Gibson is not involved in trade talks for Love. Bulls would rather give up picks Butler, Mirotic and taking back a contract that runs after next year. Gibson only goes if we go cap space route with Melo.

I guarantee your guarantee is worthless.

-------------

Just a rumor but on the score, Gibson/Boozer/Mirotic/Butler and not sure about pick(s) for Love.

Supposedly Bulls in the mix. However this quoting a source. Making an actual offer for Love before knowing about Melo seems odd.

Why? Love is available before Melo will be.

[Tetlak]

Well ESPN radio is saying it is apparently Taj, Butler, Boozer, and draft picks. If that's the case, we are left with a pretty nice trade asset in Mirotic which we would finally have a reason to move for a wing. Afflalo or Matthews perhaps?

Part of me thinks that this is just a leak to get Boston to up their offer a bit. Once again, Chicago being used for leverage.

[SteelerSpartan]

Why not add the non-guranteed deals and take back Brewer AND Martin?

Rose/Kirk (vet min)
Brewer/Martin
Dunleavy/Snell
Love/Jordan Hill (MLE)
Noah/Smith

wade and lebron would have about 50 points in the paint between the two of them

[ZUDAMAGIC]

Dont want love, getting him would demolish our squad, id much rather have melo

Our squad? Aren't you a Raptor fan?

Man, i explained myself already lol Ive been a bulls fan, raptors hometown im a fan of them too

[TheSuzerain]

Would be terrible asset management to keep Taj if we had Love and Noah to man the 4 and 5.

[Magilla_Gorilla]

Well ESPN radio is saying it is apparently Taj, Butler, Boozer, and draft picks. If that's the case, we are left with a pretty nice trade asset in Mirotic which we would finally have a reason to move for a wing. Afflalo or Matthews perhaps?

As much as I'd hate to see him go - if we had Love at PF we really don't need Mirotic and so you're right (and others who have pointed it out) that we'd need to trade him for a wing.

I could see Affalo, Mirotic would fit nicely next to Vucevic.

[BobsBurger]

Well ESPN radio is saying it is apparently Taj, Butler, Boozer, and draft picks. If that's the case, we are left with a pretty nice trade asset in Mirotic which we would finally have a reason to move for a wing. Afflalo or Matthews perhaps?

Part of me thinks that this is just a leak to get Boston to up their offer a bit. Once again, Chicago being used for leverage.

Also a very high possibility, if we do make that trade I don't know how good we can be defensively even with Thibs at the helm.

[aaqubed]

I guarantee your guarantee is worthless.

-------------

Just a rumor but on the score, Gibson/Boozer/Mirotic/Butler and not sure about pick(s) for Love.

Supposedly Bulls in the mix. However this quoting a source. Making an actual offer for Love before knowing about Melo seems odd.

Thats close to 27 million in salary going out - I wonder who we'd be getting back with Love in that proposal.

It was on sports radio so they may not have felt bound by the salary cap. ;p

dmk08 - You are correct. Bad assumption on my part. Love can't be extended (giggety) now so that's a ton to give up for a rental, Melo would be under contract.

I believe he can agree to an extension as part of the trade. Or if he doesn't want to extend now (since he can get an extra year if he re-signs in free agency), he can agree to waive his opt out as a show of good faith -- ie what CP3 did when he was dealt to the Clippers.

[PMONSTER]

Dont want love, getting him would demolish our squad, id much rather have melo

Our squad? Aren't you a Raptor fan?

Man, i explained myself already lol Ive been a bulls fan, raptors hometown im a fan of them too

You're a Bulls fan with that avatar?

On second thought, you just might be a Bulls fan as this board is concerned.

[GOBULLS]

Why not add the non-guranteed deals and take back Brewer AND Martin?

Rose/Kirk (vet min)
Brewer/Martin
Dunleavy/Snell
Love/Jordan Hill (MLE)
Noah/Smith

wade and lebron would have about 50 points in the paint between the two of them

While I'm not as confident in GarPax to reel in a Superstar caliber player via trade or free agency, I believe Thibs can get more out of a player on defense. Carlos Boozer flat out didn't try hard on defense or just incapable of being half-way decent on defense, but Love can be much better with Thibs as coach and a DPOY behind him.

[Tetlak]

Would be terrible asset management to keep Taj if we had Love and Noah to man the 4 and 5.

I both agree and disagree with you, if that is possible. It would be pretty similar to when we had Omer, it was a luxury...but once we got rid of him, we realized how much we needed him.

If we did keep Taj it would give us the best and most all around big man trio in the league. We would obviously be thin on the wings, with only having Snell (and perhaps MDJ), but we would have around 10 million in cap space (before cap holds of course). Then there are are always factors like if we somehow got back Kevin Martin and his 6 and a half million a year for our unguaranteeds, if we were able to keep Mirotic and trade him for a wing, who we got in F/A, etc.

If it was up to me, I'd probably trade Taj in that situation, but there are ways to make it work.

[ZUDAMAGIC]

Our squad? Aren't you a Raptor fan?

Man, i explained myself already lol Ive been a bulls fan, raptors hometown im a fan of them too

You're a Bulls fan with that avatar?

On second thought, you just might be a Bulls fan as this board is concerned.

My avi is drose lol, and i chose raptors cause you can only have one .. plus 75% are on this board for a while now #TeamRapsNdBulls

[patryk7754]

in case it hasn't been posted the bulls offered, butler, taj and boozer

[Magilla_Gorilla]

in case it hasn't been posted the bulls offered, butler, taj and boozer

If Minny is looking to get to the playoffs - those are some nice veterans to compliment what they already have.

[coldfish]

Great news! Glad to see Chicago being aggressive with Melo. Apparently the leaks by guys like Sam Smith that the Bulls were not interested were completely untrue.

I assume the Bulls would only make this trade with Love signing a 4 year extension. If so, the resulting team would have a lot of time to put together a winner. Year 1 wouldn't be pretty but the roster should stabilize by year 3.

Assume trade = Taj, Butler, Mirotic, two 2014 picks

Year 1:
Rose
Dunleavey
MLE / Snell
Love / Boozer
Noah
+ biannual and vet mins

Year 2:
Rose
$8M cap signing
2014 MLE
love
Noah
+ biannual, pick and vet mins

[ZUDAMAGIC]

in case it hasn't been posted the bulls offered, butler, taj and boozer

Link?