Luol Deng unloads on Gar Forman and talks about his love for Thibs

[MikeDC]

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[wickywack]

Gar seems to really rub some of our players the wrong way. I recall negative comments from Butler as well.

That said. it might have been a good move for both sides. Deng dropped off quicker than expected, but he did get a massive pay day from the Lakers a few years later.

[kodo]

Interesting story. I remember when this was happening most of us assumed it was Foreman pushing up Lu's value to trade him, nobody knew it was Tom running everything through Lu to try & keep him,

But watching those games where we just padded Lu's stats really didn't help his value that much. He averaged a few more PPG but showed he clearly wasn't a shooter (27% from 3) and his game was really based around pulling up for mid range shots and he needed 38 minutes to average 19 ppg.

If that was Thib's showcase of what our offense could be if it was based around Lu, it didn't sell me on it.

[musiqsoulchild]

Lu was one of those players who would have been.way more impactful here than on another team.

He was a player BUILT for Thibs

[MrSparkle]

Interesting story. I remember when this was happening most of us assumed it was Foreman pushing up Lu's value to trade him, nobody knew it was Tom running everything through Lu to try & keep him,

But watching those games where we just padded Lu's stats really didn't help his value that much. He averaged a few more PPG but showed he clearly wasn't a shooter (27% from 3) and his game was really based around pulling up for mid range shots and he needed 38 minutes to average 19 ppg.

If that was Thib's showcase of what our offense could be if it was based around Lu, it didn't sell me on it.

Yeah. I was never high on Lu as a player after the first contract extension. I've said it before, but that Salmons trade in 09 (who basically finished out the SF minutes for the season while Deng was injured) demonstrated to me how much better our team was with a ball-handler and 3P shooter at SF.

Lu was like Kirk (though, better impact). Hit the open-shots at a decent clip and wouldn't bog your offensive system down with bad shot selection or isolating too much, but on the other hand, he also didn't really put the pressure on a defense in any meaningful way, meaning the other team could basically play neutral 1-on-1 coverage and do just fine. Of course they earned their salaries with defense and hustle, but that just never seemed to be enough in a playoff game.

That said, like I said in the NBA thread.... I miscalculated Luol's importance to the Thibs Bulls, just as a leader and two-way glue player. If I could do it, I'd overpay Luol for two-years guaranteed ($40m/2), paid the luxury, and attacked free agency with a S&T in mind (for Melo or Pau), using Boozer's expiring, FRPs and farm players (Snell, Teague), possibly 1 of Taj or Noah. Either way you look at it, Luol could've played an important role even if Jimmy and a new FA became the focal points.

Lastly, I find it strange, but I genuinely think rookie Luol was a better offensive player than he was ever again in his career. Am I wrong here? The handles seemed to stick to his hands more, he was always in the right-place at the right-time when scooping up boards/garbage-points and catching alley-oops, and his mid-range shot was butter. I felt that wrist fracture took something away, and he put weight on his frame which took away his lift and sneaky burst. I had Shawn Marion vibes, with less hops and a much better looking jump-shot. I was disappointed in his development even after his statistically strong 3rd season.

[sco]

Interesting story. I remember when this was happening most of us assumed it was Foreman pushing up Lu's value to trade him, nobody knew it was Tom running everything through Lu to try & keep him,

But watching those games where we just padded Lu's stats really didn't help his value that much. He averaged a few more PPG but showed he clearly wasn't a shooter (27% from 3) and his game was really based around pulling up for mid range shots and he needed 38 minutes to average 19 ppg.

If that was Thib's showcase of what our offense could be if it was based around Lu, it didn't sell me on it.

Yeah. I was never high on Lu as a player after the first contract extension. I've said it before, but that Salmons trade in 09 (who basically finished out the SF minutes for the season while Deng was injured) demonstrated to me how much better our team was with a ball-handler and 3P shooter at SF.

Lu was like Kirk (though, better impact). Hit the open-shots at a decent clip and wouldn't bog your offensive system down with bad shot selection or isolating too much, but on the other hand, he also didn't really put the pressure on a defense in any meaningful way, meaning the other team could basically play neutral 1-on-1 coverage and do just fine. Of course they earned their salaries with defense and hustle, but that just never seemed to be enough in a playoff game.

That said, like I said in the NBA thread.... I miscalculated Luol's importance to the Thibs Bulls, just as a leader and two-way glue player. If I could do it, I'd overpay Luol for two-years guaranteed ($40m/2), paid the luxury, and attacked free agency with a S&T in mind (for Melo or Pau), using Boozer's expiring, FRPs and farm players (Snell, Teague), possibly 1 of Taj or Noah. Either way you look at it, Luol could've played an important role even if Jimmy and a new FA became the focal points.

Lastly, I find it strange, but I genuinely think rookie Luol was a better offensive player than he was ever again in his career. Am I wrong here? The handles seemed to stick to his hands more, he was always in the right-place at the right-time when scooping up boards/garbage-points and catching alley-oops, and his mid-range shot was butter. I felt that wrist fracture took something away, and he put weight on his frame which took away his lift and sneaky burst. I had Shawn Marion vibes, with less hops and a much better looking jump-shot. I was disappointed in his development even after his statistically strong 3rd season.

really good points. totally agree that Lu was never the same after the wrist injury - he came in as an elite athlete with supposed high skill, but really made his money on the defensive end - but even there he couldn't contain LBJ (like everyone else). I do feel that he was the leader by example who helped develop Rose, Taj, Noah and Jimmy.

[dougthonus]

Title of the thread is pretty misleading. Luol didn't unload on Gar. He just described his version of events:

Luol's version:
1: Gar wanted him to take a team friendly deal.
2: Thibs wanted Luol to stay and was pushing the Bulls to make an extension
3: The Bulls offered 3/30 or told Luol they were going to trade him.
4: Luol said he wouldn't take 3/30.

Nothing was really unloading here, though he clearly was a bit annoyed by the Bulls posture.

Left unsaid is that after the season, Luol could only find 2/20 on the open market, 10m less than what the Bulls offered him. Fortunately for Luol, that made him a FA in 2016 when the cap went bananas and hten the Lakers famously gave him about 60M to play badly for about half a year.

Now I love Luol Deng, but the problem with management in this situation was that they considered paying Deng 3/30 for the next three years, not that they didn't go even higher. I totally get why Luol wanted more money and felt disrespected by the org or whatever, because it's not his job to decide his skills are degrading and he's no longer worth the money, but this was a good move by the org not a bad one, and there was probably no way it was going to be a move that made Luol happy.

[HomoSapien]

There was a lot of debate at the time that trading Deng was necessary for Butler's growth. If Thibs was truly running everything through Deng, then I think that statement about Butler's growth is pretty accurate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but had we kept Deng we wouldn't have been able to sign Pau. I'd pretty easily take Gasol over Deng, even for two years. It didn't lead us to a championship, but it gave us a better shot.

[weneeda2guard]

If gar was not prepared to pay deng market value then he should have just traded him for assets especially after rose tore his acl. Instead gar hangs around hoping a guy will allow him to low ball him then you trade him when his value is nearly gone as teams could just elect to get him in the off season.

But gar just has a lot of promises he didnt fulfil and if it resulted in a title contending team but it resulted in the bulls being a near laughing stock. Front offices make mistakes all the time but gar really mismanaged a lot of situations. Spying and back biting this, firing Ron adams, how he dealt with deng giving Jimmy this idea he was going to properly build around him then slap a core around Jimmy that was never going to work still making jimmy feel he was apart of the future plans then trading him bringing in hoiberg etc gar just did a bad job here

[HomoSapien]

For what it's worth, there are more words from Deng about Forman in the full interview:

“When I got traded, I remember I felt betrayed,” Deng told Tshabalala. “Because the guy who traded me obviously ruined the team — and I don’t mind saying that now, I would never speak about him as a person — but just the decisions that he’s made. Because it changed the whole course of what we were trying to do. When Derrick got hurt, we really felt that we were going to win a championship, but when he broke up the team, you just feel hurt because we became so close as a team. But we had a mission. And that was to wait for Derrick to get healthy and go at it again, but he decided to just break up the team.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bulls/luol-deng-opens-2014-trade-bulls-i-remember-i-felt-betrayed

[kodo]

If gar was not prepared to pay deng market value then he should have just traded him for assets especially after rose tore his acl.

Gar was willing to pay him market value. Lu was just delusional about what he was worth at the time. When he refused the Chicago deal and went into FA he got significantly less than what Gar offered.

Ultimately he got paid well by LAL, so as a person I'm happy that it worked out for Lu, but I'm glad we weren't the ones that had to give him his big payday to ride the bench for years.

[MrFortune3]

Title of the thread is pretty misleading. Luol didn't unload on Gar. He just described his version of events:

Luol's version:
1: Gar wanted him to take a team friendly deal.
2: Thibs wanted Luol to stay and was pushing the Bulls to make an extension
3: The Bulls offered 3/30 or told Luol they were going to trade him.
4: Luol said he wouldn't take 3/30.

Nothing was really unloading here, though he clearly was a bit annoyed by the Bulls posture.

Left unsaid is that after the season, Luol could only find 2/20 on the open market, 10m less than what the Bulls offered him. Fortunately for Luol, that made him a FA in 2016 when the cap went bananas and hten the Lakers famously gave him about 60M to play badly for about half a year.

Now I love Luol Deng, but the problem with management in this situation was that they considered paying Deng 3/30 for the next three years, not that they didn't go even higher. I totally get why Luol wanted more money and felt disrespected by the org or whatever, because it's not his job to decide his skills are degrading and he's no longer worth the money, but this was a good move by the org not a bad one, and there was probably no way it was going to be a move that made Luol happy.

That's one of the reasons I hate seeing teams give out terrible contracts. It never ends well.

[dumbell78]

Title of the thread is pretty misleading. Luol didn't unload on Gar. He just described his version of events:

Luol's version:
1: Gar wanted him to take a team friendly deal.
2: Thibs wanted Luol to stay and was pushing the Bulls to make an extension
3: The Bulls offered 3/30 or told Luol they were going to trade him.
4: Luol said he wouldn't take 3/30.

Nothing was really unloading here, though he clearly was a bit annoyed by the Bulls posture.

Left unsaid is that after the season, Luol could only find 2/20 on the open market, 10m less than what the Bulls offered him. Fortunately for Luol, that made him a FA in 2016 when the cap went bananas and hten the Lakers famously gave him about 60M to play badly for about half a year.

Now I love Luol Deng, but the problem with management in this situation was that they considered paying Deng 3/30 for the next three years, not that they didn't go even higher. I totally get why Luol wanted more money and felt disrespected by the org or whatever, because it's not his job to decide his skills are degrading and he's no longer worth the money, but this was a good move by the org not a bad one, and there was probably no way it was going to be a move that made Luol happy.

Like Homo said after your post, there was indeed more to what Deng said than summarized above. Saying Gar basically ruined the team would be interrupted as unloading by a good amount of ppl. He makes it clear that Gar was in issue to ppl within the team. I'm sure Deng could say a ton more but wont, he doesn't strike me as that kind guy.

[dougthonus]

Like Homo said after your post, there was indeed more to what Deng said than summarized above. Saying Gar basically ruined the team would be interrupted as unloading by a good amount of ppl. He makes it clear that Gar was in issue to ppl within the team. I'm sure Deng could say a ton more but wont, he doesn't strike me as that kind guy.

I didn't catch that, must not have been paying close enough attention.

Either way, rest of my point still stands, Deng's view of his own value is hilarious here, especially since with hindsight, he clearly wasn't worth the 3/30 and couldn't get anyone else to pay him that at the time either.

I completely get why Deng felt marginalized and bad about how this all went down, but with hindsight, as I said, the bigger problem was we were willing to give him 3/30 and not that we were mean to Deng for not paying him even more.

The problem was Deng's view of his own abilities, like many aging players, was vastly distorted, and he vastly overvalued himself and wanted to be paid for what he did not what he would do in the future.

[League Circles]

I'll always love Luol Deng, but he's he's kind of full of **** here.

"I was averaging 20 a game at the time I was traded, so everyone wanted to pay me more money "

Reality:

He was averaging 19 a game (18 per 36) for a mere 23 games while having less than league average efficiency and us having the 28th worst offense in the league. He then was offered substantially less than we offered him.

"He wanted me to take ANOTHER team discount"

Reality: There is no logical reason to refer to Deng's 6 year contract that he was finishing as a team discount contract. If anything it was overpayment for most of that 6 years. Also, all early extensions should theoretically be team discounts. The player trades max earning potential for early security.

All this said I still think we should not have traded him because I think having even the option to re sign him in the summer with bird rights or do a sign and trade with him or whatever was better than what we got. Also I think that even though pao Gasol was a better player Deng was probably more important because we had less at the small forward position then we had at the for and the 5. We probably could have had this lineup:

5: Noah, Taj
4: Niko, Taj
3: Deng, Dunleavy
2: Butler, Snell
1: Rose, Kirk

That's actually a really well balanced team. Niko would have thrived much more IMO.

[Jimako10]

I'll always love Luol Deng, but he's he's kind of full of **** here.

"I was averaging 20 a game at the time I was traded, so everyone wanted to pay me more money "

Reality:

He was averaging 19 a game (18 per 36) for a mere 23 games while having less than league average efficiency and us having the 28th worst offense in the league. He then was offered substantially less than we offered him.

"He wanted me to take ANOTHER team discount"

Reality: There is no logical reason to refer to Deng's 6 year contract that he was finishing as a team discount contract. If anything it was overpayment for most of that 6 years. Also, all early extensions should theoretically be team discounts. The player trades max earning potential for early security.

All this said I still think we should not have traded him because I think having even the option to re sign him in the summer with bird rights or do a sign and trade with him or whatever was better than what we got. Also I think that even though pao Gasol was a better player Deng was probably more important because we had less at the small forward position then we had at the for and the 5. We probably could have had this lineup:

5: Noah, Taj
4: Niko, Taj
3: Deng, Dunleavy
2: Butler, Snell
1: Rose, Kirk

That's actually a really well balanced team. Niko would have thrived much more IMO.

I would've have preferred that team as well. Niko would've provided more spacing, energy and defense than Pau easily. While Pau's contract was a bargain, I think Mirotic could've had the same impact on wins, if not better, because of fit with the rest of the team and Deng being a significant upgrade over Dunleavy.

[dougthonus]

5: Noah, Taj
4: Niko, Taj
3: Deng, Dunleavy
2: Butler, Snell
1: Rose, Kirk

That's actually a really well balanced team. Niko would have thrived much more IMO.

Gasol was a much better player than Deng IMO. Deng's lack of ability to shoot also really hurt you as a wing player. I think that team is worse than what they rolled out, I also think Deng would have limited Bulter's growth longer.

[MrSparkle]

5: Noah, Taj
4: Niko, Taj
3: Deng, Dunleavy
2: Butler, Snell
1: Rose, Kirk

That's actually a really well balanced team. Niko would have thrived much more IMO.

Gasol was a much better player than Deng IMO. Deng's lack of ability to shoot also really hurt you as a wing player. I think that team is worse than what they rolled out, I also think Deng would have limited Bulter's growth longer.

Pau was an excellent pickup. Him and Deng would’ve been the ideal situation IMO in hindsight. At the expense of paying luxury tax, trading one of Boozer’s expiring, Noah or Taj.

30/3 for Deng was good value. He was very solid in Miami. Finally slid into PF use. The Lakers contract was the head-scratcher.

[dougthonus]

30/3 for Deng was good value. He was very solid in Miami. Finally slid into PF use. The Lakers contract was the head-scratcher.

Miami only had to pay him 2/20 which was a much better deal, so 3/30 wouldn't have been a good deal. I agree the Lakers deal was the really atrocious deal, that was due to the massive cap spike and teams just figuring out how to spend money.

[MrSparkle]

30/3 for Deng was good value. He was very solid in Miami. Finally slid into PF use. The Lakers contract was the head-scratcher.

Miami only had to pay him 2/20 which was a much better deal, so 3/30 wouldn't have been a good deal. I agree the Lakers deal was the really atrocious deal, that was due to the massive cap spike and teams just figuring out how to spend money.

Well, 16/17 he was still a productive player for LAL. Mediocre, but $10m expiring for a defensive tweener wing in a newly bloated cap economy. It was the next year where he strangely became, incapable of playing? I’ve literally never seen an over-night drop like Luol’s. I felt like it was more Magic Johnson’s decision to just give the coach a reason to fully develop Ingram.

Would’ve probably been a player option for year 3 if it was the Bulls. Miami was also 3yr option, he just wisely opted for the most lucrative FA market of all-time.