TheStig wrote:1. Doug, I've gone over this many times here. The owner of the Grizz came out later and said that when they actually dealt him, he tried to deal with the Bulls because they could give them the most financial relief (a ungaurnateed PJ Brown deal vs Kwame) and the Bulls were only doing deals involving Noc (a bad long deal at the time). I'm not looking it up but it came right from his mouth. He had no reason to rehash that since they did better with Gasol then they would have here.
It was directly contradicted by lots of reports at the time the trade talks were happening, and what you have quoted here doesn't exclude that they didn't want Deng/Gordon whom were both on cheap contracts.
2. I think the mental took a dive because he came there to lead the team and then couldn't big minutes or start. I think he would have had at least 2-3 good years here, especially being put in a big role here, which he would have with Rose going down.
I noted the possibility too, it could be that greater stability would have kept him more even keeled or possible that nothing was going to do that and he was just going to flame out.
3. He did cost more and was better. But in 2010 with a healthy Rose, I think he would have put us over the top. We had no 2nd option and he did that role perfectly in PHX. I think he'd be able to finish when Rose was trapped. That's what would make it worth it. Boozer while healthier was an average starter here. When Amare would go down, you still had Gibson, Asik and Noah left to soak up the front court minutes. I think the peaks would have been worth it. Where Boozer couldn't finish games or create a shot, Amare was huge in the playoffs in those moments.
Maybe, like I said, he only had one quality year under his contract. It's just a weird thing to say was a big mistake since his contract was an even bigger albatross than Boozer and overall provided even less value than Boozer. Yeah, with complete hindsight, you could say the only year that mattered was the first one due to the Rose injury, but that's kind of a silly way to evaluate the situation. Amare was known as a huge injury risk at the time of signing, and he was never healthy, so it wasn't like it was some unpredictable injury that impact this decision, he was bad for known, expected reasons.
4. I think the mistake was having Gar. That's where a lot of that turbulence came from. Pax has said he's ok with him and I think Gar amped up the tension. Removing Gar and putting in Collins, I think they get along ok. I think Thibs would have been a good coach to lead a Jimmy team and had the prestige at that time to help lure stars.
Maybe true. Hard to say what Gar was responsible for vs Pax. A lot of people seem to give a lot of blame to Gar and not to Pax, and there's some logic behind that, but I wouldn't opine too much on that myself without any first hand information. It's really just blind guesswork because Pax is more likable than Gar.
7. I think you had a star that worked hard, was a two way star and wanted to be here. I said at the time it would take us years to get a guy as good or be a playoff team. And we still aren't close. In this star recruiting team, I wanted to see him have a chance for a couple of years to see what you could do. You could always get the deal for him that you got. it was nothing special.
Minnesota got much less than us and the 76ers got less than Minnesota, so I don't think you could have dealt him later for what you got. I don't know that this ultimately mattered. As I said, we aren't in any special place now. I think to have kept Jimmy around and make it work you would have had to have undid other moves (like Harris/Nurkic and not blowing your money on Wade/Rondo).
The Wade/Rondo one, even though it was a mistake, was tough because the right thing to do was just enter the season with 45 million in cap room which would have made everyone super pissed at the time, but save the money for 17 or 18 when the league was capped out again and not everyone was overpaid by a huge amount. At the same time, of the teams that spent money, the Bulls were actually much better off than most of the league which went in for four years whereas the Bulls only went in for 2.
