Infinity2152 wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:Infinity2152 wrote:Cap space means flexibility to me. Particularly important with a team like the Bulls, who are VERY cap conscious. Not looking for us to do anything big this summer, but I would also like them to re-sign Jones. That probably doesn't happen with the Smart trade. Continuity and chemistry is important imo, especially dealing with young players. Any player on the Bulls could be traded, but I'd like to avoid wholesale team swapping. Agree with Sco and Chi on what they'd like to see this summer. Bulls players have to be nervous asl, only players reasonably sure to be on this team more than a year, or even this season, are Matas and Giddey. Can't be good for chemistry, even for Matas and Giddey.
Believe it's not just sentimental reason to think that Ball/Smart trade is not a no-brainer. They received expirings and 2 seconds for that deal, I refuse to believe they would accept less from us without proof. Doesn't make sense. 2 seconds going their way makes the deal impractical. You actually have a better total chance of drafting a star or solid player with two high seconds than the 18th pick. And I believe Ball is good for this team right now, more than just his play. That's not sentimental, he could easily be the only vet left with a Vuc trade and he seems like a calm, steadying guy. I'd invest $10 mill in a steadying vet for this young team with no problems, call it an investment in their development. Very few other guys in the league I'd prefer to mentor Josh Giddey. Definitely not Smart. I've seen him ejected from a game he wasn't even playing in, in street clothes, lmao!
You keep making reference to "cap space" when discussing a potential trade that would not have an impact on cap space, which I think is the source of the confusion here.
You're also making the wrong point that the Bulls are cap conscious. They are not and never have been. They are tax conscious, but taking on Smart for one year would not have an impact on luxury tax, given where the Bulls are with their contracts.
I'm fine with the Bulls retaining Ball and am happy they have him on a very tradeable, team-friendly deal. The fact that the Smart trade that actually happened required two 2nds coming back diminishes the appeal of that hypothetical option that may have existed. So, I don't have any quibble with defending the Bulls not doing it, but the reasons you seem most focused on (cap space) is just inapplicable. The Bulls right now look like they'd be in worse shape if they opened up some cap space, because the amount they would project to open wouldn't be worth losing the full MLE.
I specifically said cap space means flexibility to me. i don't know how to argue that a team with $14 mill less on the books has more flexibility than a team that has an extra $14 mill.
That's easy. Cap space makes you less flexible if you don't have much of it, by depriving you of the full MLE. And fewer contracts on the books mean fewer things to use in trades for salary-matching purposes. It's just incorrect to say cap space = flexibility as a general matter.Like if the Bulls are trading for a max player, and that trade would put us $5 mill into the tax with the Smart contract on the books. Or we could have simply not re-signed Ball. There's a salary cap. We try to stay under it. Having two less players on the roster (Smart 18) and $24 mill less in guaranteed salaries gives us more flexibility to do trades and stay under the cap. Having two players like Ball at $10 mill and Tre Jones at $10 mill gives us more flexibility than Smart at $21 mill and a rookie we're not going to trade for four years, no matter how bad he is, imo.
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This isn't really true either. Two $10M contracts gives you separate pieces to trade, which could increase flexibility, but if both were traded together, it is in some sense less flexible b/c the receiving team now needs two roster spots rather than one. And in any event, I just have no idea why you are obsessed with the salaries caps when the aprons are the real flexibility impediment.
Yeah, as I noted, I'm not taking any real position on whether the Bulls should have done the Smart deal - I'm just noting that cap space is not a factor one way or the other, given their current salary landscape. Taking in some other player with money owed beyond 2025-2026 would be a different story, because that's how the Bulls have aligned contracts in terms of when they might actually have meaningful cap room in the future.
