Bulls Trade Rumors Only

[Axl Rose]

This year the excuse will be that there were too many sellers.

[GoBlue72391]

Because the Bulls aren't going to be competitive during the life of his contract and then they'll have to overpay to keep him.

He is the perfect compliment to White, he forces everyone on the team to play hard, he is one of the best defenders in the league.

What would you consider an overpay and why would the Bulls have to do that?

Don’t even bother these guys think any first round picks are = gold.

99% of NBA GMs treat 1st round picks as gold.

[jump]

It's not the inept organization that botched the team's present and future that is ruining the fan experience? It's the people calling them out on it? Well played, AK.

He isn't wrong. The Bulls have been a very good team and a fun team to watch for the last two months (a majority of the season). Ask anyone. Everyone says so.

So yeah... if they are now good and fun, then all the petulant entitled whining is kind of fun sucking. Isn't it?

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This wholeheartedly. They beat the team with the second best record in the league last night. They won despite missing roughly $65 million dollars worth of players. They're playing with a ton of heart, led by White, Caruso, and Derozan. Two of those three are the guys everybody wants to trade, and get back little in terms of current player value. If all the Bulls suck so bad, how do they keep winning? It's HARD to win in the NBA. If we had a Giannis or Embid, I might see the point, but you're not getting that caliber of guy trading Caruso or Debo. Drummond's playing well, and is cheap, let's trade him too for second round picks. News flash, we're already late in a rebuild, centered around Coby White and Pat Williams as our high draft picks, with Lavine as the young present star (he was young when we started it). Added Ball as a young player. They added a couple of vets (Debo and Vuc) to a really young team. If Debo and Drummond leave, what's the average age of our players, 25? How and why do you "blow" up a young team?

Amen, brother.

[DuckIII]

Read on Twitter

Jesus Christ.

[jnrjr79]

It's not the inept organization that botched the team's present and future that is ruining the fan experience? It's the people calling them out on it? Well played, AK.

He isn't wrong. The Bulls have been a very good team and a fun team to watch for the last two months (a majority of the season). Ask anyone. Everyone says so.

So yeah... if they are now good and fun, then all the petulant entitled whining is kind of fun sucking. Isn't it?

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This wholeheartedly. They beat the team with the second best record in the league last night. They won despite missing roughly $65 million dollars worth of players. They're playing with a ton of heart, led by White, Caruso, and Derozan. Two of those three are the guys everybody wants to trade, and get back little in terms of current player value. If all the Bulls suck so bad, how do they keep winning? It's HARD to win in the NBA. If we had a Giannis or Embid, I might see the point, but you're not getting that caliber of guy trading Caruso or Debo. Drummond's playing well, and is cheap, let's trade him too for second round picks. News flash, we're already late in a rebuild, centered around Coby White and Pat Williams as our high draft picks, with Lavine as the young present star (he was young when we started it). Added Ball as a young player. They added a couple of vets (Debo and Vuc) to a really young team. If Debo and Drummond leave, what's the average age of our players, 25? How and why do you "blow" up a young team?

The Bulls are not a young team. They are a veteran team. They are the 10th oldest team in the NBA. 20 teams are younger.

My goodness.

[Stratmaster]

No, I'm literally doing the exact opposite of that. I'm considering the recent stretch of play and the beginning of the season, because that's the actual reality of this season, not some cherry-picked subset of it.

Let's use this analogy. I go to Vegas for a week. Over the first two days, I lose $10,000. Over the rest of the trip, I win $9,000. When I get home, do I get to tell my wife that she should be happy because, despite the fact I lost a thousand bucks, I played really well during the final five days of my trip?

Ridiculous comparison. It's been accepted in sports that it is better to start slow and finish strong since the invention of sports.

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The Bulls are 5-5 in there last 10. They aren't finishing strong.

31 games left in the season. Not only is their 32 game run almost twice as long as the poor start to the season, but there is another 31 left.

Again, trades should have happened long ago. But there is no reason to make stupid ones just for the sake of making them.

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[drosestruts]

Why would you take 2 late firsts for Caruso? He impacts games at a very high level and a late first is just a lotto pick.

Because the Bulls aren't going to be competitive during the life of his contract and then they'll have to overpay to keep him.

Yep. Caruso doesn't impact games at a high-enough level that he's going to change our fortunes much. Will we be a little worse in the short-run? Yeah. But not a lot.

Why? We're a lot better placed to lose Caruso than pretty much anyone else. If he's gone, what happens? We have more Ayo, more Pat, and more Craig. All solid options.

The return we get from trading Caruso is the highest of anyone we could likely trade. And the downside, in terms of actual impact on the court, is actually pretty low, because we've got more credible options to soak up those minutes.

• Lose Caruso, and we can fill in with Ayo, Pat, Craig, etc. Not as good, but still good enough to win games.
• Lose Drummond, and we fill in with ??? Nobody else on the team can do that. Maybe we can go out and get a guy for cheapish though.
• Lose DeRozan, and and we fill in with ??? Again... we have nobody else who actually does what he does at anything close to the same level. Guys like that aren't available. Doesn't mean we shouldn't consider trading him (we should) but the point I'm making is that Caruso is much more expendable.

In his first two seasons with the Bulls Caruso's on/off differential put him in the 90th and 94th percentile. What do you mean he doesn't impact games enough?

How much more impact could someone want?

[jnrjr79]

Ridiculous comparison. It's been accepted in sports that it is better to start slow and finish strong since the invention of sports.

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The Bulls are 5-5 in there last 10. They aren't finishing strong.

31 games left in the season. Not only is their 32 game run almost twice as long as the poor start to the season, but there is another 31 left.

Again, trades should have happened long ago. But there is no reason to make stupid ones just for the sake of making them.

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In terms of their fate in the playoffs, what do you think the best case, realistic outcome is for the Bulls this year?

[DuckIII]

Half of you guys are arguing that a team can't improve during the course of the season. Do you realize that? It's an absurd assertion.

No one is arguing that. We’ve all seen this very team improve this season. The issue is what can it improve into.

[Guy]

This year the excuse will be that there were too many sellers.

Friendly reminder that the Bulls have not made any trades since 2021

[ChiefILL53]

It's not confusing. The Bulls are looking for moves that improve the team. Not tear it down. The moves aren't there, so they aren't making them.

DDR should have been gone a year ago. Vuc probably as well, although they likely couldn't improve the team by trading him.

They have been trying to trade Lavine for a year. I personally think that was the wrong guy, but they put him out there because they thought they could improve the team. He plays a position of depth for them and could have possibly gotten them an actual PF and a pick. Didn't happen.

AKME screwed the pooch a long time ago. But making the team worse now for the sake of saying "we did something" is just plain stupid.

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This is why in the AKME thread I said I should have given them an F. Their refusal to admit this isnt working is the most frustrating thing about their tenure. They should value development and getting complimentary pieces over trying to be "competitive" for the play-in.

[jnrjr79]

Because the Bulls aren't going to be competitive during the life of his contract and then they'll have to overpay to keep him.

Yep. Caruso doesn't impact games at a high-enough level that he's going to change our fortunes much. Will we be a little worse in the short-run? Yeah. But not a lot.

Why? We're a lot better placed to lose Caruso than pretty much anyone else. If he's gone, what happens? We have more Ayo, more Pat, and more Craig. All solid options.

The return we get from trading Caruso is the highest of anyone we could likely trade. And the downside, in terms of actual impact on the court, is actually pretty low, because we've got more credible options to soak up those minutes.

• Lose Caruso, and we can fill in with Ayo, Pat, Craig, etc. Not as good, but still good enough to win games.
• Lose Drummond, and we fill in with ??? Nobody else on the team can do that. Maybe we can go out and get a guy for cheapish though.
• Lose DeRozan, and and we fill in with ??? Again... we have nobody else who actually does what he does at anything close to the same level. Guys like that aren't available. Doesn't mean we shouldn't consider trading him (we should) but the point I'm making is that Caruso is much more expendable.

In his first two seasons with the Bulls Caruso's on/off differential put him in the 90th and 94th percentile. What do you mean he doesn't impact games enough?

How much more impact could someone want?

This. The Bulls are going to be a lot, lot worse if they unload their most impactful player. (Which is fine since they're not going anywhere this year - perhaps even desirable to improve the draft pick).

I never roll my eyes harder than when people say that Caruso is easily replaced by others on the roster who do the same stuff. Nobody does the same stuff, yet you see this argument all the time.

[MikeDC]

Because the Bulls aren't going to be competitive during the life of his contract and then they'll have to overpay to keep him.

Yep. Caruso doesn't impact games at a high-enough level that he's going to change our fortunes much. Will we be a little worse in the short-run? Yeah. But not a lot.

This is only correct if you never watch games when we are playing defense.

LOL. I watch all the games. And it's evident that Caruso is the most replaceable guy we can trade. Ayo, Pat, and Craig can all play more and approximate his production.

[burlydee]

It's not confusing. The Bulls are looking for moves that improve the team. Not tear it down. The moves aren't there, so they aren't making them.

DDR should have been gone a year ago. Vuc probably as well, although they likely couldn't improve the team by trading him.

They have been trying to trade Lavine for a year. I personally think that was the wrong guy, but they put him out there because they thought they could improve the team. He plays a position of depth for them and could have possibly gotten them an actual PF and a pick. Didn't happen.

AKME screwed the pooch a long time ago. But making the team worse now for the sake of saying "we did something" is just plain stupid.

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The moves will never be there. There is no way to make the current version of the team competitive with their assets. That is why sports media is confused. The Bulls goals make no sense given the team and their assets.

Nobody is arguing for making the team worse to just do something. People want the team to recoup assets to start building for the future. You can disagree, but don't create a strawman to argue with. The current Bulls have no future. Let's plan for what's next.

I'm confused. What strawman argument do you think i am making?

I'm a firm believer you build a contending team through incremental improvement. I don't believe in trading for draft assets unless those assets are almost certain to be better in the short term than what you traded away.



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You can't continue to incrementally improve when you have major players on the downside of their career. Do you think Vuc and DeRozan are going to get better? The team hasn't improved in 3 years. Lol.

[burlydee]

Ridiculous comparison. It's been accepted in sports that it is better to start slow and finish strong since the invention of sports.

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The Bulls are 5-5 in there last 10. They aren't finishing strong.

31 games left in the season. Not only is their 32 game run almost twice as long as the poor start to the season, but there is another 31 left.

Again, trades should have happened long ago. But there is no reason to make stupid ones just for the sake of making them.

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I'm done with this convo.

[Stratmaster]

Because the Bulls aren't going to be competitive during the life of his contract and then they'll have to overpay to keep him.

Yep. Caruso doesn't impact games at a high-enough level that he's going to change our fortunes much. Will we be a little worse in the short-run? Yeah. But not a lot.

Why? We're a lot better placed to lose Caruso than pretty much anyone else. If he's gone, what happens? We have more Ayo, more Pat, and more Craig. All solid options.

The return we get from trading Caruso is the highest of anyone we could likely trade. And the downside, in terms of actual impact on the court, is actually pretty low, because we've got more credible options to soak up those minutes.

• Lose Caruso, and we can fill in with Ayo, Pat, Craig, etc. Not as good, but still good enough to win games.
• Lose Drummond, and we fill in with ??? Nobody else on the team can do that. Maybe we can go out and get a guy for cheapish though.
• Lose DeRozan, and and we fill in with ??? Again... we have nobody else who actually does what he does at anything close to the same level. Guys like that aren't available. Doesn't mean we shouldn't consider trading him (we should) but the point I'm making is that Caruso is much more expendable.

In his first two seasons with the Bulls Caruso's on/off differential put him in the 90th and 94th percentile. What do you mean he doesn't impact games enough?

How much more impact could someone want?

Yeah. I stopped reading his post at that point.

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[drosestruts]

The Bulls are 5-5 in there last 10. They aren't finishing strong.

31 games left in the season. Not only is their 32 game run almost twice as long as the poor start to the season, but there is another 31 left.

Again, trades should have happened long ago. But there is no reason to make stupid ones just for the sake of making them.

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In terms of their fate in the playoffs, what do you think the best case, realistic outcome is for the Bulls this year?

Best case scenario to me is the 6th seed which would involve pulling ahead of Orlando, Miami, and Philly abosultley collapsing without Embiid, which I do think is possible.

Realistic outcome - we're in the play-in and make the actual playoffs.

From there who we get matched with matters a lot. Teams I least want to see in order:

Boston - too good
Cleveland - seem to have our number
Knicks - think we could play them good, probably a loss in 6
Bucks - this is not the same Bucks team. They're vulnerable

[Stratmaster]

The Bulls are 5-5 in there last 10. They aren't finishing strong.

31 games left in the season. Not only is their 32 game run almost twice as long as the poor start to the season, but there is another 31 left.

Again, trades should have happened long ago. But there is no reason to make stupid ones just for the sake of making them.

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In terms of their fate in the playoffs, what do you think the best case, realistic outcome is for the Bulls this year?

Best case? Win a playoff series. Prediction? Lose a playoff series. Worst case? Lose in the play in.

But it doesn't matter. The trades available are either good and help the team, or they aren't.

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[Stratmaster]

Yep. Caruso doesn't impact games at a high-enough level that he's going to change our fortunes much. Will we be a little worse in the short-run? Yeah. But not a lot.

This is only correct if you never watch games when we are playing defense.

LOL. I watch all the games. And it's evident that Caruso is the most replaceable guy we can trade. Ayo, Pat, and Craig can all play more and approximate his production.

Ayo and Pat? Replace Caruso. Stop it.

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[AshyLarrysDiaper]

If/when this deadline comes and goes without a move, it either means AK’s pathologically committed to his trash vision - or there are hidden stakes. I’m ready to go full tin foil hat. Are they propping up viewership in advance of a new tv deal/launching their own streaming service? Pinching pennies for a White Sox park? This crap defies reasonable explanation.