Bulls trade Alex Caruso to OKC for Josh Giddey

[DropStep]

For what little it's worth, last November this board discussed a video about a possible Zach for Giddey + others trade. Who knows how real that was, but it adds a little more smoke to the idea that AK has had his eye on Giddey for quite a while.

I think this was a long negotiation process that ended here, and AK just wasn't going to be able to wrangle anything else out of it, regrettably.

[Infinity2152]

Giddey being benched in the playoffs is SOOOO overstated. The guy started 80 games in the season, the entire first round, and most of the second. He was benched for TWO games when they were playing the most electric scoring backcourt in the NBA, Doncic and Irving. The guy who replaced him, Isiah Joe, is OKC's offensive cheat code, they scored 131 pts per 100 possessions with him in the line-up with the starters last year. And they lost both games with Giddey on the bench. They won 2/4, or half, the games against the Mavs when he started. His best asset, playmaking, is also somewhat minimized starting with SGA, who is the undisputed lead guard. His playmaking will be much more useful to the Bulls.

[chitownsports4ever]

I'm glad we got Giddey as a talent to take a look at, but a little concerned that we may have him penciled in for a starting role that he might not deserve, because it's now been made clear through reporting that he basically asked for a trade cause he was sent to the bench.

I'm not saying I'm against him starting. It may very well be the right move. I'm saying I'm against him having it as an entitlement. It's still plausible that him starting MIGHT not be best even of Demar walks, because it's very hard to justify benching either Zach or Coby and with those two, Patrick's defense might be more important than Giddey's playmaking. Might.

He started every game for a 57-win team. I think saying he’s not good enough to start for us is a bit of a stretch.

Starters need to be chosen based on what's best for the team, which usually means the best 5 man unit. Giddey might be one of our 5 best players while not necessarily being in our best 5 man unit.

He was also benched on that 57 win team and was going to remain on the bench this coming season which is why he expressed an interest in being traded.

Shai is about as ball dominant as they come so and Giddey duplicates a lot of what he does so they sat Giddey so they could put another defender on the floor at wing and prevent Shai from having to guard Kyrie and/or Luka all the time while still needing to get 30 per game.

Giddey right now is probably the only guy on the roster who has consisntely and effectively played the style of play that Billy wants.

[League Circles]

He started every game for a 57-win team. I think saying he’s not good enough to start for us is a bit of a stretch.

Starters need to be chosen based on what's best for the team, which usually means the best 5 man unit. Giddey might be one of our 5 best players while not necessarily being in our best 5 man unit.

He was also benched on that 57 win team and was going to remain on the bench this coming season which is why he expressed an interest in being traded.

Shai is about as ball dominant as they come so and Giddey duplicates a lot of what he does so they sat Giddey so they could put another defender on the floor at wing and prevent Shai from having to guard Kyrie and/or Luka all the time while still needing to get 30 per game.

Giddey right now is probably the only guy on the roster who has consisntely and effectively played the style of play that Billy wants.

I hear you. And I'm not opposed to Giddey starting in a vacuum. But I never, ever care what a coach wants to do. His job is to do what's best with the roster he has. And if the roster he has includes both Demar and Giddey, and it very well might, Demar deserves to continue starting, which means Giddey would help us much more off the bench. He can overlap with Demar a bit and still play nearly starters minutes. But even though I concede that Demar dominating the ball might not be what's best, IF he comes back, you simply have to continue with him and Coby doing most of the ball handling with the starting unit.

Giddey is a really nice prospect to have, and I want to give him a good shot, but it's entirely plausible that he's gone in a year if he can't find a way to improve as a shooter and/or defensively. Demar is our locker room leader and is a MUCH better scorer and turns the ball over much less than Giddey.

So just to be clear, I'm not saying Giddey isn't "good enough" to start for us. I'm saying that depending on the final roster, it might not be best for us short term or long term if he is starting next season. Cause keeping him on the bench will likely help keep his next contract (if it's with us) more reasonable.

[drosestruts]

wow you go on vacation and the Bulls make the first move of the summer and quite a big one - being gone for a week or so has allowed me the benefit of thinking about this trade without sharing initial reactions and in summary - this is simply a win/win for both sides.

Everyone wants there to be a winner or a loser is in a trade (or really anything in the year 2024) - but really this just seems mutually beneficial.

The Direction of the Bulls
I think the biggest thing from this trade is that it's an early indicator of the direction the Bulls will be moving towards - to me I see it as a move to more "live or die" with a younger core

The Mid-3
In a way I guess it always made sense for Caruso to be the first domino to fall. Once we start moving vets, teams know we're open to moving our vets, and we risk a depreciated value (granted for some I'm not sure how much worse it can get). To touch on each individually:

Vuc - doesn't fit this team or any team really, not sure what our options are here.

DeRozan - loved DeRozan here, but this has to bring on the end of his time in Chicago. Ideally we can sign and trade him while gaining an assett, at worst he just walks, but I'm just not sure where he fits moving forward now.

LaVine - you know what, with his seemingly depreciated value the Giddey trade kind of makes me want to hold onto Zach more than ever. Dare I say that Giddey will be the best half-court playmaker Zach has ever played with? Zach has already proven to be an elite scorer without a good playmaker, is there perhaps additional improvements that can already be made to an area Zach excels in?

People will be quick to say "what about Coby or Ayo" - yes, both those players made big trades last year, but still none were close to producing at the level Zach has in the past. We have Zach under contract and our half-court playmaking just improved. Also all three can play together so I see plenty of opportunities/minutes for Zach/Coby/Ayo and I see no need to sell low on LaVine.


Picks vs Players
This is just something I've learned to accept despite my disagreements with it, but many people seem to prefer the unknown of a pick over an actual current NBA player. To borrow an old saying I'm a "bird in hand is better than two in the bush guy", in basketball terms - give me a 21 year old Giddey over two future draft picks.

Giddey Himself
I like Giddey and am excited to see him here in Chicago. Plenty of people over the past weeks have pulled stats like his numbers over the last two years without SGA in the lineups - 17 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in 32 games without SGA in the lineups (per Statmuse - https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=josh+giddey+without+shai+gilgeous-alexander)

I also saw a reddit post where a user filtered by players with:

20+ games played
4+ assists/game
4+ rebounds/game
positive offensive BPM
positive defensive BPM
assist percentage >25%

The results returned - SGA, Harden, Doncic, Dovoan Mitchell, Scotte Barnes, Fox, and Giddey

Very specific filter but it highlights to me that we're adding a player with a very unique playmaking ability - even better he's 6'8"

I really like the young group of Coby/Ayo/Williams/Giddey - I like that group even more with Zach


Moving Forward
Would love to get something of value in a sign and trade for DeRozan. Again loved DeRozan here, was a huge brightspot in an awkward three years for the Bulls, but he just doesn't fit moving forward.

Vuc - I don't see how we move him and I hope we don't give him entitlement minutes - if we have $20mm on our bench barely playing so be it, it's honestly nothing new for us.

Ball - one year left, if he can play cool, if not, it's nothing new. We'll survive.

Vertical spacing - Andre Drummond led our team in dunks with 65 dunks which rates 54th in the entire NBA. Vuc is next with 31 which ranks 116th. Our vertical spacing is garbage. If we want to set up Giddey and the rest of the team for success we need vertical spacing in addition the 3-point spacing. Javonte Green had 11 dunks and played in 9 games - we should re-sign him. How else can we get more vertical spacing???

The draft - I haven't fully decided if this trade alters my thinking on the draft at all. It does make me slightly more interested in Yves Misi whom I already ranked pretty highly . He's very athletic and mobile and can provide the vertical spacing/finishing we're looking for and in much need of. It's also hard to go wrong with BPA, but if Misi hit he'd be an incredible fit alongside what we have going on.

[sco]

I do wonder about the timing of this trade, coming before the draft. One could argue that the Bulls wanted to know they had their PG/lead playmaker before they drafted.

[KissedByaRose1]

If we use Giddey as anything other than the primary ball hander this year/highest usage rate on the team then we misused him and didn't take advantage of evaluating him fully in the last year of his rookie contract. Give him the keys to the Offense and lets start running.

A bad young lineup of

White
Ayo
Giddey
P-Will
Draft pick Center

Will be soooooooooooo much more enjoyable to watch than the crapshow we've had to tune into lately. If Giddey sucks then we keep our high lottery pick and if he's awesome and we're frisky then we finally have a core piece worth building around and the trade was a slam dunk. I think Sam Presti is the best executive in pro sports but our best path to relevance again is praying he made the Harden trade mistake 2.0. Obviously Giddey's ceiling isn't as high as Harden but it's not impossible to imagine him going like 22/8/8 this season and everyone on the team gets better because we finally have some fluidity in our Offense

[yifsuibfe1]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

[drosestruts]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

Giddey > #13

and it's not particularly close in my eyes

[DuckIII]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

I hate to bring this back up again, but it just shows how badly Giddey’s rep as a player was tarnished by nothing having to do with him as a player. A year ago OKC would have laughed at trading Giddey for a frequently injured 30 year old defensive specialist with one year on his deal.

Giddey memes, SGA and Dallas’ unique backcourt blended together to do us a major solid here.

[kulaz3000]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

Giddey > #13

and it's not particularly close in my eyes

Agreed. Giddy would have gone top 3, possibly top 2 in this draft. Getting Giddy over the number 13 pick is an easy decision in my books.

[drosestruts]

to touch on the OKC side of the deal.

I largely felt they lost to the Mavs due to their inability to handle Dallas's size. 4 Dallas players had 10+ offensive rebounds in the series, as a team Dallas had 73 offensive rebounds to OKC's 57

3 games were decided by 5 points or less

Dallas over the course of the series had 16 additional opportunities due to OREB and also shot 20 more free-throws in the series

Lively and Gafford combined for 53 FTA's - they just kept fouling the Dallas bigs (Chet 19 FTA in comparison)

Does Caruso fix any of those short-comings?

Caruso is really really good. OKC is likely not done making moves, I'm just saying I don't think this trade fixes what got them eliminated.

[nomorezorro]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

Giddey > #13

and it's not particularly close in my eyes

Agreed. Giddy would have gone top 3, possibly top 2 in this draft. Getting Giddy over the number 13 pick is an easy decision in my books.

i mean, there is a not-dissimilar player to giddey in the draft who isn't at all a lock to go in the lottery

[Jcool0]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

I would of hung up on that.

[nomorezorro]

I hate to bring this back up again, but it just shows how badly Giddey’s rep as a player was tarnished by nothing having to do with him as a player. A year ago OKC would have laughed at trading Giddey for a frequently injured 30 year old defensive specialist with one year on his deal.

Giddey memes, SGA and Dallas’ unique backcourt blended together to do us a major solid here.

and i mean. some of this stuff feels like it has a lot to do with him as a player? "unclear if he's playable in the playoffs next to a ball-dominant player" is a pretty huge red flag for a prospect

it's easy to go "oh he just had the misfortune of being on the same roster as shai" but how many meaningfully good rosters don't have a player who you'd rather play on-ball than josh giddey?

[bueller]

Other folks have mentioned it, but in Summer 2023, would OKC have traded Giddey straight up for Caruso?

[cubd8]

The Athletic saying the Kings offered #13 (possibly more but it doesn’t say) for Caruso and league sources were surprised the Bulls opted for the Giddey deal.

Giddey > #13

and it's not particularly close in my eyes

Agreed. Giddy would have gone top 3, possibly top 2 in this draft. Getting Giddy over the number 13 pick is an easy decision in my books.

Yeah, pick #13 doesn't seem valuable this season given that most analysts think this draft is bad.

I get that Giddey regressed, has some questions on his shooting...

[drosestruts]

I hate to bring this back up again, but it just shows how badly Giddey’s rep as a player was tarnished by nothing having to do with him as a player. A year ago OKC would have laughed at trading Giddey for a frequently injured 30 year old defensive specialist with one year on his deal.

Giddey memes, SGA and Dallas’ unique backcourt blended together to do us a major solid here.

and i mean. some of this stuff feels like it has a lot to do with him as a player? "unclear if he's playable in the playoffs next to a ball-dominant player" is a pretty huge red flag for a prospect

it's easy to go "oh he just had the misfortune of being on the same roster as shai" but how many meaningfully good rosters don't have a player who you'd rather play on-ball than josh giddey?

OKC vs Dallas in the 4 games Giddey started: 2-2

OKC vs Dallas in the 2 games after they benched Giddey: 0-2

Conclusion: Giddey is the problem

[drosestruts]

OKC using the media to push the narrative that Giddey was their issue in these playoffs is such a Chicago Bulls thing to do, like how as soon as we trade anyone we see articles trashing them.

Giddey shot 50% from three in the series vs New Orleans

He, and several other players, played worse vs Dallas.

If OKC wants to make Giddey their scapegoat for their playoff loss let them, but scapegoating Giddey doesn't solve your ability to rebound better or contain Dallas' big men or improve your ability to defend without fouling

[pipfan]

Honestly, I like the idea of the #13 better, due to the cheap contract and possibility of a high upside player

I am neutral on Giddy-want to watch him closer but he seems really slow to me