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Absolutely trade AC. I called for it earlier in the year that hes injury prone and gonna miss more time. I love what AC has done with the team, but its time to sell high. Getting back picks or 1 pick and a good starter is what I'd look for. However I honestly dont expect AKME to do anything if we're being honest.

ChiefILL53 wrote:Absolutely trade AC. I called for it earlier in the year that hes injury prone and gonna miss more time. I love what AC has done with the team, but its time to sell high. Getting back picks or 1 pick and a good starter is what I'd look for. However I honestly dont expect AKME to do anything if we're being honest.

I don't think Caruso's return would be good enough, I hope they don't do a dump trade.

Jcool0 wrote:

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Helluva player. Love having him, but he's wasting his considerable skills on our roster, which is going nowhere fast. How he made it past the deadline is beyond me. Either other FOs are blind and don't see how valuable he could be for a contender, or our FO is obsessed with extracting maximum value for AC, to the point where they're unrealistic.

Well deserved. Hope he repeats on one of the All-NBA teams, but our lack of success and huge drop in defense might hurt that.

Help him out by bringing in dawgs to compete defensively. The center rotations is the biggest weakness.

Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

Trade Caruso to the Sixers for picks 16, 41, and a 2027 second. We gotta cash out on Caruso. The Bulls can't be the team that signs him to his next contract. The Sixers technically don't even have to send back a player.

I think Caruso is blatantly obvious as a key trade chip this summer, but for anyone who wants to keep him, I just think they've GOT TO explain how keeping sich extensive perimeter depth while being so weak at the 4/5 positions.

At the 1/2/3 we have, at minimum, Coby, Zach, and Ayo. Then we very likely have Demar, many of us would like to keep Patrick which shouldn't be too hard/expensive because he hasn't done a lot and is injured, and then there is also the fact that we have Ball, Carter, Terry and probably Bitim under contract at the 1/2/3.

So, we have an extreme relative overabundance of depth at the 1/2/3 spots, with two re-sign or lose SFs in Demar and Patrick, with out best two young pieces (Coby and Ayo) at those spots, and Caruso is probably our only bona fide positive trade asset along with Coby and Ayo, and he's older and has only a year left til we probably would need to decide to overpay him long term or lose for nothing.

The writing couldn't be clearer IMO. Trade Caruso as part of a package for a better balanced team, whether that means helping to shed contracts of guys like Vuc, Carter or Zach, bring in a solid pick (unlikely IMO), or just get more talent at the 4/5. Ayo is really supposed to be our Caruso replacement which I said when we re-signed him.

My preferred place to start is trying to use Caruso as sweetener to move Vuc. We could do a lot worse than Draymond Green.

When AC makes the 1st team all defensive squad, combined with his expiring contract, played more games 71 than any season, scored 10.1 PPG highest of his career, his value could never be higher. I'm still selling for the most attractive offer. For me it still comes down to him not being a scoring threat that the defense needs to pay attention to despite improving his 3 point shot %, and the Bulls can't continue the small ball losing record with AC and Javonte at the PF.

What a homerun of a signing. Too bad our other moves have been less stellar.

Regardless of what we do we need veteran leadership. Why trade him? Kind of feels like a 2K move.


Sent from somewhere you’ve never been.

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

Exactly what I’ve been saying.

I could see a Magic trade with Caruso and Vuc.

Don’t see AK trading with the Magic though after being destroyed in the first Vuc trade.

I think AK would ship Caruso to a WC team.

Chi town wrote:

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

Exactly what I’ve been saying.

I could see a Magic trade with Caruso and Vuc.

Don’t see AK trading with the Magic though after being destroyed in the first Vuc trade.

I think AK would ship Caruso to a WC team.

I'd love a trade based around Vuc for Jonathan Isaac, but not sure what else might be needed from either side. Not sure I'd send Caruso and Vuc for him.

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

You're much better off trading Caruso for a long term asset than to unload 1 year of 20M in salary.

dougthonus wrote:

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

You're much better off trading Caruso for a long term asset than to unload 1 year of 20M in salary.

It’s 2 years and Vuc dictates how we play on both ends.

You dump him with Caruso and still land a 1st. The money saved can be used to take on a bad contract and another pick.

what the hell is the hustle award? I'm very surprised this 'award' doesn't have corporate branding.

Chi town wrote:

dougthonus wrote:

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

You're much better off trading Caruso for a long term asset than to unload 1 year of 20M in salary.

It’s 2 years and Vuc dictates how we play on both ends.

You dump him with Caruso and still land a 1st. The money saved can be used to take on a bad contract and another pick.

You will only save money on the 2nd year, because this year you will match salary.

If you resign DeMar and Pat, then you also won't be able to spend the money next year anyway, you'll just have more room under the tax, but you'll be capped out at using the MLE, and you'd already be able to use the full MLE anyway with Lonzo coming off the books, so with what looks like our current plan, it also doesn't save you any useable money next year.

No one is giving you a 1st and taking on Vuc just for Caruso, but if his value was that high, you are better off just getting two 1sts instead, because again, you won't be able to meaningfully utilize the space you get back from Vuc.

If you don't resign DeMar and Pat, then you are tanking anyway, and this would still further enforce the idea of getting more draft assets rather than trying to free up cap space.

If you do free up Vuc in an attempt to make the team better now by getting a better center and upgrading, then you won't do it this year (Because you don't have any room to sign anyone) so this year is still dead in the water, and next year, you could bring in the center but only with the MLE. Maybe you can upgrade Vuc that money, maybe not.

However a better plan is just to play Vuc/Drummond equal minutes today, and to reduce Vuc's shots to 8 a game so he isn't destroying you on offense at least. It's unlikely you're going to find an upgrade with our assets even if you get him off the roster. The best solution with Vuc is to start limiting his touches and his role IMO.

Vuc is a crap situation, and I am equally frustrated as you are with him playing on both ends, but using an asset to dump him doesn't replace him with something better, add any meaningful flexibility, or help us in any meaningful way whether we are trying to win now or build towards something in a couple years. It removes an eyesore from the team, but it's not going to be any more fun watching an Drummond / Sanogo front court.

dougthonus wrote:

League Circles wrote:Good for Caruso, he deserves it.

Now use him to move Vuc!

You're much better off trading Caruso for a long term asset than to unload 1 year of 20M in salary.

As always, it depends on specifics. Caruso + Vuc is 30ish million outgoing. I know by long term asset you mean a draft pick, but IMO any pick we can get in return for one year of Alex is probably never, ever going to be a good player, just based on the odds, so I don't consider that a long term asset.

League Circles wrote:As always, it depends on specifics. Caruso + Vuc is 30ish million outgoing. I know by long term asset you mean a draft pick, but IMO any pick we can get in return for one year of Alex is probably never, ever going to be a good player, just based on the odds, so I don't consider that a long term asset.

Sure, but your view on that runs against every successful team in the NBA.

In 2 years, Caruso will have no value to the Bulls because he won't be here. In 2 years, moving Vuc earlier at the cost of giving up an asset will have negative value to the Bulls.

In 2 years, having draft picks will have value to the Bulls, either because it is the most likely way you will get good, long term talent or because if you want to acquire talent via trade, the best asset to send is draft picks. The majority of teams get their stars via the draft, the rest trade many 1sts for their stars. In either case, more picks is better and dumping Vuc to not have any flexibility to use his money and having Caruso improve our team by 4 wins to finish 11th and give our pick to SA instead of 8th where we keep it isn't helping us either.