Rumor: Bulls Interested in RJ Barrett (UPDATE OP POST)

[Indomitable]

You don't think RJ Barrett is worth a late lotto pick in the middle 3rd of the first? At his age?

Absolutely not. He's a known commodity making $30 million per year and is not a needle mover. Low efficiency, poor defense, no further upside. Plus we should not be trying to artificially inflate short term wins with guys like this. That's how we ended up in this nightmare in the first place.

But, again, this is absolutely the type of thing AK would do and actively looks to do.

This is not going to lead us anywhere.

[nomorezorro]

has it been noted that there's no indication the twitter account that "reported" this is a real person?

[nomorezorro]

https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoraptors/comments/1kvh4i7/cris_davis_is_not_a_reporter_please_stop_citing/

[HomoSapien]

Patrick Williams + Jevon Carter for Barrett works without anyone else. That's the most reasonable RJ Barrett trade IMO. Raptors would have to believe Pat can be worth his contract with some new scenery and time.

Look, I don't think Barrett is very good either, but this would be a terrible trade for Toronto. What would be the incentive for Toronto even be to do that trade? The only small argument for it is that Williams' contract by itself is more manageable, but it's two years longer.

[MGB8]

Not particularly concerned given context. For SG and SF, per statmuse the league average TS% was right around 57%. RJ was an admittedly poor 55%. But you know who else was at 54-56%? Banchero at 55. Klay at 55. CJ McCullom at 55. Vassell at 55.. Franz Wagner at 56. Fox at 56. Bam at 56 (and a big). Maxey at 56. Morant at 56. Jaylen Brown at 56. Jalen Green and Paul George and Brandon Miller at 54. Scottie Barnes at 52. Nembhard at 55 (just below RJ).

Great lead scorers like Donovan Mitchell and James Harden at 58. Cade Cunningham at (rounding all way up) 57.

So, no, 55 given situation in TO doesn't worry me particularly. The low FT% that contributed a good chunk to the low TS actually worries me a touch more - why has he been a 63% FT shooter in TO when was over 70% and trending up in NY?

An interesting set of data points, and I appreciate you going through and finding them. When I look through them I generally come up with the idea the problem is all those other guys are either guys I wouldn't want at Barrett's price or guys that offer a lot of other things that Barrett doesn't.

So I guess, I will amend my thoughts to, a guy like Barrett strikes me as homeless man's Zach LaVine. He's a scorer that doesn't feel like he helps me in other ways, except he also isn't a super efficient one like Zach but is known to have a lot of the same other flaws from my understanding (poor decision maker / poor clutch guy / poor defender / easy to stop dude when it matters / non winner). You can argue how many of those things have merit of course, and as someone who admittedly hasn't seen a ton of him, I don't have strong thoughts, but I'm still at a point where I'd lean towards bad contract, no better than Coby, and not a guy I'd give up a draft pick for.

I just looked up a bunch of Barrett highlights from the past couple and…. Like the idea less now. Mind you, if it was Pat, Ayo and 12 and KJ and a couple others weren’t there, I still wouldn’t hate it. But the highlights I saw showed a guy who hasn’t really developed at all since he was drafted. He is a freight train of a 2/3 with an iffy shot, ok but not good handle (very LaVine), better on D than advertised but probably a lot like LaVine in terms of unshown bonehead defense plays, has some really nice cuts and very strong in transition.

I’m just hoping that somehow Demin goes high and KJ falls to the Bulls - he is the guy in the draft that I really like that could slide to 12 and IMO become really good - the hedge on Coby that I want to see the Bulls draft.

[greenwing]

Read on Twitter

Per Raptors Reddit fans, Davis reported the Brandon Ingram rumors before the trade happened.

I've always been lukewarm on Barrett. He's young and puts up numbers, but for whatever reason, he just doesn't feel like a true impact player. Not sure what Toronto would want for him, but Patrick Williams and Ayo (or Carter) get us there salary wise. If the "sweetener" is the Blazer's pick, I could talk myself into it. If it's this year's first round pick, I probably pass... then again, if Barrett were in this draft, he would be going higher than 12.

Patrick Williams + Jevon Carter for Barrett works without anyone else. That's the most reasonable RJ Barrett trade IMO. Raptors would have to believe Pat can be worth his contract with some new scenery and time.

This is the way. Salaries match and Patrick Williams could use a change of scenery. Depending on what the Bulls do with Coby in the offseason, Barrett would be an immediate upgrade at the 3 and would effectively make William's and Carter's cap hits into positive value in Barrett's contract. I'd rather have Barrett as your fourth or fifth scoring option than Williams. This kind of move potentially would make sense for Toronto as Ingram is a better fit with Williams than the type of players we have in Chicago.

[Indomitable]

He hasn’t traded a 1st rounder since DDR trade 4 years ago.

We've only had 2. Because he traded the other ones. And he traded this year's too. We just were able to get it back in a horribly inefficient Lavine trade. That's 3 of our last 5 first rounders that he traded for "cheap vet stars to help us win now." Its a very real risk he does it again.

That is like congratulating the town drunk for not drinking when there were no booze available. He had no draft picks to waste because he traded most of them away.

AK massively overpaid for Nikola and I question his judgement. I expect incompetence.

[HomoSapien]

Read on Twitter

Per Raptors Reddit fans, Davis reported the Brandon Ingram rumors before the trade happened.

I've always been lukewarm on Barrett. He's young and puts up numbers, but for whatever reason, he just doesn't feel like a true impact player. Not sure what Toronto would want for him, but Patrick Williams and Ayo (or Carter) get us there salary wise. If the "sweetener" is the Blazer's pick, I could talk myself into it. If it's this year's first round pick, I probably pass... then again, if Barrett were in this draft, he would be going higher than 12.

Patrick Williams + Jevon Carter for Barrett works without anyone else. That's the most reasonable RJ Barrett trade IMO. Raptors would have to believe Pat can be worth his contract with some new scenery and time.

This is the way. Salaries match and Patrick Williams could use a change of scenery. Depending on what the Bulls do with Coby in the offseason, Barrett would be an immediate upgrade at the 3 and would effectively make William's and Carter's cap hits into positive value in Barrett's contract. I'd rather have Barrett as your fourth or fifth scoring option than Williams. This kind of move potentially would make sense for Toronto as Ingram is a better fit with Williams than the type of players we have in Chicago.

Guys, Patrick Williams is an awful basketball player with a sizable long contract. I'm really failing to see how he somehow basically brings back RJ straight up in a trade.

[kulaz3000]

If the Raptors were stupid enough to take on Williams at as the primary piece, and NO draft pick, I could convince myself to like this trade. However, I just under no scenario see the Raptors accepting such a deal. But just say they did, I would still not want to make that deal, because then you're putting Matas in a position to get most of his minutes at power forward, and I would much rather groom him to play the three, or at least try him at that position first before playing him mostly at the 4.

[MrSparkle]

So help us all if our new Mid-3 in July is Giddey/RJ/Sabonis.

[dougthonus]

Patrick Williams + Jevon Carter for Barrett works without anyone else. That's the most reasonable RJ Barrett trade IMO. Raptors would have to believe Pat can be worth his contract with some new scenery and time.

Look, I don't think Barrett is very good either, but this would be a terrible trade for Toronto. What would be the incentive for Toronto even be to do that trade? The only small argument for it is that Williams' contract by itself is more manageable, but it's two years longer.

The argument for Toronto would simply be they believe in Pat being a good complementary piece that could be worth his contract. They probably don't believe that, but that would be the argument.

Barrett is a bad contract IMO, and the Bulls would be making a similar bet at more money per year, and 2 fewer years.

[dougthonus]

Guys, Patrick Williams is an awful basketball player with a sizable long contract. I'm really failing to see how he somehow basically brings back RJ straight up in a trade.

RJ is also a terrible basketball player with a sizeable contract. It's structure is different. RJ has to make more unlikely leaps to be worth his contract than Pat does IMO. Granted, this opinion can vary depending what you think of Barrett or Pat.

FWIW, I don't think Toronto probably does my trade. I just don't see any reason to do your trade and give up assets for a bad contract based on where the Bulls are presently, and especially given that Barrett's specific skills are not things we need, so if we were going to take a shot an overpaid, flawed player, Barrett isn't the type of overpaid flawed player we should want.

[TheJordanRule]

You don't think RJ Barrett is worth a late lotto pick in the middle 3rd of the first? At his age?

Absolutely not. He's a known commodity making $30 million per year and is not a needle mover. Low efficiency, poor defense, no further upside. Plus we should not be trying to artificially inflate short term wins with guys like this. That's how we ended up in this nightmare in the first place.

But, again, this is absolutely the type of thing AK would do and actively looks to do.

This is not going to lead us anywhere.

Just thinking about how RJ was such a hot property on Draft Night seven years ago gives me the creeps and shows what a crapshoot it is. What's are WE getting out of this? His deal is more inflated than PWill's, the upside is gone, and he never became a quality starter. Put me down FOR HELL NO!

[HomoSapien]

Guys, Patrick Williams is an awful basketball player with a sizable long contract. I'm really failing to see how he somehow basically brings back RJ straight up in a trade.

RJ is also a terrible basketball player with a sizeable contract. It's structure is different. RJ has to make more unlikely leaps to be worth his contract than Pat does IMO. Granted, this opinion can vary depending what you think of Barrett or Pat.

FWIW, I don't think Toronto probably does my trade. I just don't see any reason to do your trade and give up assets for a bad contract based on where the Bulls are presently, and especially given that Barrett's specific skills are not things we need, so if we were going to take a shot an overpaid, flawed player, Barrett isn't the type of overpaid flawed player we should want.

They are not the same level of terrible though. One averages 21, 6, and 5 while not really understanding the game --- but has at least shown some progression over his career. The other plays like he’s in a group project called “NBA Career” and he’s just here to put his name on it.

RJ is really low on my list of young players I'd like to take a chance on, but despite the salary difference, he's in a different universe than Pat.

[ShouldaPaidBG]

thank god we're on the same page as the Kings and the Hawks

[dougthonus]

They are not the same level of terrible though. One averages 21, 6, and 5 while not really understanding the game --- but has at least shown some progression over his career. The other plays like he’s in a group project called “NBA Career” and he’s just here to put his name on it.

Sure, but Barrett also makes another 10M+ more per year, and he seems to be an empty stat scorer that doesn't defend or play team ball well, and that isn't a hole we should be trying to fill. Pat isn't statistically significant, but nor does he demand shots. Pat needs to play solid D and have his shooting regress to his career average, both would seem to be within reasonable reaches for him, in order for him to be a reasonable bench player for any team, even if overpaid.

What does Barrett have to do to add value to a good team? I couldn't even begin to know, but it would start with either becoming radically more efficient, learning how to shoot, or learning how to defend. All three of those things have extremely low odds of panning out.

RJ is really low on my list of young players I'd like to take a chance on, but despite the salary difference, he's in a different universe than Pat.

In his value to a winning team, I think there is very little difference at all. If we need a guy to kill the team every night while putting up stats we could just keep feeding Vuc in the post some more.

That said, again, I agree that Toronto probably doesn't do my trade, I just see absolutely no reason to give up something positive for Barrett. We have absolutely zero need for him. We need the exact opposite type of player, we need someone who can defend the point of attack and shoot the three. Pat has a greater chance than Barrett of doing that, however small those odds are.

It's a question of do you want someone that needs a big role but is really lousy at it and makes a ton of money, or someone who might be fine in a small role, but makes too much money for it? Neither are good options really. If Pat's contract wasn't longer, I wouldn't even do this trade, but it hedges the chance that Pat just sucks for four more years.

[TheJordanRule]

Guys, Patrick Williams is an awful basketball player with a sizable long contract. I'm really failing to see how he somehow basically brings back RJ straight up in a trade.

RJ is also a terrible basketball player with a sizeable contract. It's structure is different. RJ has to make more unlikely leaps to be worth his contract than Pat does IMO. Granted, this opinion can vary depending what you think of Barrett or Pat.

FWIW, I don't think Toronto probably does my trade. I just don't see any reason to do your trade and give up assets for a bad contract based on where the Bulls are presently, and especially given that Barrett's specific skills are not things we need, so if we were going to take a shot an overpaid, flawed player, Barrett isn't the type of overpaid flawed player we should want.

They are not the same level of terrible though. One averages 21, 6, and 5 while not really understanding the game --- but has at least shown some progression over his career. The other plays like he’s in a group project called “NBA Career” and he’s just here to put his name on it.

RJ is really low on my list of young players I'd like to take a chance on, but despite the salary difference, he's in a different universe than Pat.

It's a red flag that the team that wants to dump him right after his greatest statistical season ever as a 21 6 & 5 guy. The scoring looks like empty calories, since it's in such low efficiency. He volume scored his way into being a 21 ppg guy, and probably overly handled the ball, which is why his assist numbers are up. He won't get to do that with us. How is he in a different universe than Pat?

[ShouldaPaidBG]

This is actually great respect shown to Barrett by AKME. It's rare for a 24 year old to be anointed as the most Mid player in the league, but the high priests are interested in handing him the Mid Mantle, the flaming torch at risk of being dropped depending on what happens to Vuc this offseason. This is actually a signal towards Vuc's departure. They've found the next long term shephard of Mid to replace Zach and make sure we never finish higher than the play in. Players like Demar and Vuc have sailed the Mid Ship to perfection these past few years, but we always knew their end was on the horizon. With 24 year old Barrett, we're going to be mid until I'm able to cash out my 401k penalty free.

All hail Avatar RJ.

[ShouldaPaidBG]

63% free throws

[ChettheJet]

Despite the extensive scouting so many here have obviously done on every NBA player and conclusions that RJ Barrett is no good, awful, wouldn't trade a near all star like Ayo for him

No he's not a star, in case you haven't noticed, the Bulls don't have any stars. I like him because he's left handed which throws a lot of defenders off, he does shoot well, maybe not enough from three but several Bulls players do much better in Billy's offense. Will be shoot better from 3 with Josh Giddey getting him the ball? He's no good on defense, say the people who ignored Zach Lavine Josh Giddey, Coby White's 's defense, everybody can't be Alex Caruso and a scorer too.