Darius Miles Davis wrote:
It's a simple message, but the money we had to offer was just too low. A four year max deal and a team of Rose/Butler/Mirotic (maybe)/Noah was an excellent balance of money going his way, along with the potential to win. I think that was the sweet spot.
If the Bulls had a trade lined up to dump Taj for capspace, do you think they would advertise it publicly? Hells no.
Do you think they would make it clear that it was in the deck to Melo's agents? Hell yeah
....
I really think you are overestimating the team left in the capspace scenario. Its really bad in that you don't have a starting PF . . . like, at all. If you openly present that situation to Melo and tell him to take $30M less to join that team, is it really going to be a positive?
Think about it as a non Bulls fan:
Rose -> Injury risk
Butler -> Meh
....
.....
Noah
With some picks and rookies to fill in at some point in the future.
Explaining the whole "dump Taj for capspace" thing in detail was not a winning hand and not a balance.
The winning hand was always the sign and trade based teams. Melo gets his money to go onto a team that can immediately contend. That's effectively what Chicago presented (to the best of my knowledge).