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

[StunnerKO]

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.

We possibly could have got Gasol with Deng at the cost of MDJ 14 million and we did give Taj 4 for 38 in nov 2012 if I remember which was more than they offered Deng keep in mind Taj and Deng are the same age

[StunnerKO]

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.

But Gasol came the Bulls defense dropped after being in the top 5 consistently. That’s the counter of Pau having those numbers on offense. Deng could have played the 4 and Jimmy would have excelled still Because of Thibs and I just think Jimmy game would have been too loud to ignore . Deng wouldn’t have had a problem scaling back he never was that I need my shots guy and him and Jimmy are tight

[StunnerKO]

Even when Deng came back that night in Chicago to retire a Bull and old teammates were there they didn’t interact with Gar while they were in the skybox suite he wasn’t really liked

[MadGrinch]

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.

in a vacuum obviously the bulls were right to not overpay , but in hindsight the move proved very costly to their on court product as they didn't have a good small forward after they dealt Deng, if they had kept him with Butler , they would have had one of the better wing combos in the league with Butler emerging the way he did .But even with Butler's improvement , if the bulls had a better team , it would have meant fewer touches for Jimmy thus lowering the amount of money he could have garnered the following offseason.

in addition they spent draft capital on Deng's supposed replacement Doug Mcdermott , who did not work out at all.That could have been used fortify other positions .

with Butler on a less expensive contract the bulls could have gotten an even better trade package when they dealt him .

[StunnerKO]

Also the picks they got back for Deng were major duds , those years waiting on that lottery kings pick

[wickywack]

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.

But Gasol came the Bulls defense dropped after being in the top 5 consistently. That’s the counter of Pau having those numbers on offense. Deng could have played the 4 and Jimmy would have excelled still Because of Thibs and I just think Jimmy game would have been too loud to ignore . Deng wouldn’t have had a problem scaling back he never was that I need my shots guy and him and Jimmy are tight

The problem with the above team is that Noah and Deng had started dropping off by the time Niko arrived (14-15) and Rose recovered enough to play The planets just never aligned with those guys.

[ATRAIN53]

Wow nice find.

Not sure I was looking for am 1:30 interview with Luol Deng but I will check this out.
This is how I want to hear about this stuff - right from the horses mouth.

The lack of ESPN or some corporate logo means he probably dished pretty good and unfiltered here.

this is probably pretty raw and open/honest stuff.
I'm sure a lot more than just about Bulls here. This will probably make me like the guy finally.


GREAT Find (Even like I said If I wasn't looking for 90 min of Luol Deng speak....)