Official: DeRozan! Player of the Week p69

[PlayerUp]

DeRozan was not going to settle on less money than average 4th to 6th man options get. That's ridiculous. Maybe we slightly overpaid for him but it's a 3 year deal and he's still relatively young.

[jordanwilliams6]

Wonder if Popovich & Zach would chat about this at all? I get the feeling Pop really likes Zach and is half enamoured with him. I wonder if Zach would feel out with Pop about how to best work with Demar.

[Mk0]

Obviously we had to pay him a lot so we could match salaries when we trade him for Kawhi

Watch on YouTube

[CobyWhite0]

Read on Twitter

Zach certainly seems to be happy with the move

[Jvaughn]

Read on Twitter

Zach certainly seems to be happy with the move

And this is what I was most interested in seeing. Now go ahead and sign that extension this year Zach, so we don't have to sorry about any drama next summer.

[TyrusRose2425]

Read on Twitter

Zach certainly seems to be happy with the move

And this is what I was most interested in seeing. Now go ahead and sign that extension this year Zach, so we don't have to sorry about any drama next summer.

Since we don't have any cap space now, we will have to wait until next year for that extension.

[othawhitemeat]

Read on Twitter

Zach certainly seems to be happy with the move

And this is what I was most interested in seeing. Now go ahead and sign that extension this year Zach, so we don't have to sorry about any drama next summer.

Since we don't have any cap space now, we will have to wait until next year for that extension.

Oh, I thought if re-signing w same team you did not have cap space. Didnt realize the rules changed on that.

[TyrusRose2425]

And this is what I was most interested in seeing. Now go ahead and sign that extension this year Zach, so we don't have to sorry about any drama next summer.

Since we don't have any cap space now, we will have to wait until next year for that extension.

Oh, I thought if re-signing w same team you did not have cap space. Didnt realize the rules changed on that.

I'm not a cap expert, but since his last contract wasn't a max, we would need to change this last year on the contract to a max deal and then get 4 more years at the max. To get his current deal up to a max, we need cap space to make it happen.

[CaPiTanAK]

On The Athletic, John Hollinger claims the DeRozan trade is "the biggest head-scratcher" because the Bulls overpaid to get him and overpaid him, since there was no real competition for him that could afford to pay him and the Spurs didn't want to keep him:

"Consider this: If they had paid half as much — $14 million a year — who was outbidding them? The Clippers and Lakers only had the taxpayer midlevel exception. The Knicks quickly burned through their cap space to lock in the six seed for the next three years. The only teams with the space to make a move here were Oklahoma City, which isn’t rebuilding around a 32-year-old, and DeRozan’s own team in San Antonio, which didn’t seem to be in that big a rush to bring him back."

Who....the hell...cares what the wet blanket Hollingers thinks. He can have an opinion but I want fun, exciting basketball back at the UC.

Sometimes you have to over pay now so that you can get players for cheaper contracts tomorrow.

Dumb take. I guarantee you that Miami has a 20-25 mil/yr offer for the Spurs in a S/T with one first rounder as compensation. If we overpaid, it’s likely 3-5 mil per year. I don’t care about that diff honestly.

[logical_art]

Bulls moving towards a Reinsdorf paradise. A competitive enough team to get long suffering fans excited and sell out the building. But very little chance of being good enough to win a ring and get really expensive.

[logical_art]

Also he's 32 in 4 days, so barely 31 FWIW.

[ZOMG]

There will not be enough basketballs for this team next season.

It will be extremely difficult to play Zach, Vuc, DeRozan and Lonzo at the same time. People like to think everybody's gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but they forget how completely Zach and Vuc dominated the offense at the end of last season.

Some people are not gonna be happy once the honeymoon period is over.

[logical_art]

There will not be enough basketballs for this team next season.

It will be extremely difficult to play Zach, Vuc, DeRozan and Lonzo at the same time. People like to think everybody's gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but they forget how completely Zach and Vuc dominated the offense at the end of last season.

Some people are not gonna be happy once the honeymoon period is over.

Given that 2 of the teams best players are over 30, that's going to be quite soon. The Bulls need to land a superstar soon to win, but they have no assets left do so.

[StunnerKO]

Don’t we hear that every time high usage players team up? If you are a basketball player and good at your job you can make it work . These guys are not dumb or that selfish especially someone like Zach who just wants to win at any cost right now and get to the playoffs. Derozan and now Zach have played competitively for team USA so they do know the positives of help from other star players . Yes it’s gonna take time to gel but it def can work

[sco]

There will not be enough basketballs for this team next season.

It will be extremely difficult to play Zach, Vuc, DeRozan and Lonzo at the same time. People like to think everybody's gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but they forget how completely Zach and Vuc dominated the offense at the end of last season.

Some people are not gonna be happy once the honeymoon period is over.

ZOMG, I'm feelin' generous with you this morning pal. One of our biggest problems was how to handle resting Zach/Vuc. When one went out, teams could make us much less efficient by focusing on the other guy. Like the Nets do, we can/should stagger their minutes to keep 2 of them on the floor while the 3rd rests. Not to mention, all 3 guys are willing passers (have you watched Zach in the Olympics?). Ball isn't a shot-needy guy, and his 3pt shooting will come in handy.

If this notion is hard to grasp, replace my "Zach" text with "Lauri" and it will make more sense.

[gobullschi]

There will not be enough basketballs for this team next season.

It will be extremely difficult to play Zach, Vuc, DeRozan and Lonzo at the same time. People like to think everybody's gonna hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but they forget how completely Zach and Vuc dominated the offense at the end of last season.

Some people are not gonna be happy once the honeymoon period is over.

They ALL just got paid. It’s not like they’re fighting to put up numbers to get a new contract.

Plus, these guys will get staggered in line ups.

Your searching for something to complain about when there is nothing there. This team is stacked. Enjoy it.

[MrSparkle]

Don’t we hear that every time high usage players team up? If you are a basketball player and good at your job you can make it work . These guys are not dumb or that selfish especially someone like Zach who just wants to win at any cost right now and get to the playoffs. Derozan and now Zach have played competitively for team USA so they do know the positives of help from other star players . Yes it’s gonna take time to gel but it def can work

Yep. It’s a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. The Bulls cheapness scar is strong amongst fans; there is legitimate worry about the Reinsdorf family’s finances. “Overpaid for Lonzo and Derozan.”

Truth is, Who cares? There are no long term deals beyond 24, and we were already close to having no cap space after one FA signing.

It is costing more for them to field a team of respectable players. The alternative was continuing to field a YMCA roster and paying cap space to guys like Arci.

There is one problem Donovan will have: figuring out how to distribute minutes to about 10 players who belong in the NBA. Good problem to have, as opposed to looking at Mokoka for perimeter defense and a 35yo journeyman Temple handling shutdown defense and playmaking duties.

If it doesn’t work out - oh well. Don’t we still get a lotto pick in that unlikely scenario? The life-blood of Bulls fans?

DeRozan played his best ball with LMA, Dejounte, White, Rudy and an emerging Keldon. Multiple high usage scorers and playmakers. Played for Popovich, where nobody exceed 28% usage. Murray tore an ACL and LMA declined into early medical retirement, and the Spurs had no depth chart so they became a fringe 9-10 seed. Otherwise it’s interesting: DD is better now than ever.

The one legit concern is whether Zach can “do his thing” on lower usage. If you’ve been watching his energy and enthusiasm being a 5th option on team USA, then that concern should be slightly alleviated.

And of course starter defense. We’ll have a bench mob, but there are gonna be new holes to exploit with Vuc and Demar.

[Andi Obst]

I don't love the process that lead to this - and that's probably a stretch - but I also can't wait to see how the team looks next season. There are arguments for and against DeRozan, I understand 100%, but I believe that he does make a lot of sense for the Bulls and I'm happy to have him. For now, I'm interested in seeing the follow-up moves because we have a lot of roster spots to fill and Lauri's free agency to deal with.

[D_GoLow]

Who hurt some of you?

GarPax was a very abusive father.

AKME is the cool step father that treats our mom and us really well but every time they come in for a hug I still flinch.

[Wingy]

I’ve been on vaca, so no opinions registered, but this FA has made for fun reading. One thought I had -

We went from the guy that got eviscerated by Frank Nitty...to the guy who could only laugh on the sideline at the sight of Frank’s repeated brutality.