The Case for Trading Eric Bledsoe

[Revived]

Bulls would send Niko and Sac pick for Knight.

Btw. Love booker. Think he's the next Klay.

I don't think your GM would.

[Chi town]

Bulls would send Niko and Sac pick for Knight.

Btw. Love booker. Think he's the next Klay.

I don't think your GM would.

Bulls are at a crossroads and need to reload. Rose sucks, Gasol is horribly inefficient and ball stopper of Hoiball, and Jimmy is trying to self promote himself to leader of the team but the vets aren't buying it. In essence we need a Rose replacement.

If we continue to play avg and not elite then the Bulls will make a small trade at the deadline like Gibson for Darren Collison. This frees up mins for Portis and Niko. They will get hem burn to up their value. In FA Bulls will go hard after Harrison Barnes as their SF Stretch PF. Him playing the 4 allows us to shop Niko for a PG. IMO Ros will be traded for an expiring this deadline (Joe Johnson although unlikely) or waived and stretched this summer. They did it to Boozer.

Niko has been high and low. Problem is he doesn't get shots. Rose Butler Gasol take all the shots. He is now coming off the bench to get more shots and get into a rhythm. He's been out of sync but has shown moments of rookie year highlights. I think he is a 18 and 8 big the can stretch the floor and take over games when he gets hot.

I think your board is too down on Knight. I think he has gotten better but can't coexist w Bledsoe and he's too expensive as a 6th man.

[Revived]

Bulls would send Niko and Sac pick for Knight.

Btw. Love booker. Think he's the next Klay.

I don't think your GM would.

Bulls are at a crossroads and need to reload. Rose sucks, Gasol is horribly inefficient and ball stopper of Hoiball, and Jimmy is trying to self promote himself to leader of the team but the vets aren't buying it. In essence we need a Rose replacement.

If we continue to play avg and not elite then the Bulls will make a small trade at the deadline like Gibson for Darren Collison. This frees up mins for Portis and Niko. They will get hem burn to up their value. In FA Bulls will go hard after Harrison Barnes as their SF Stretch PF. Him playing the 4 allows us to shop Niko for a PG. IMO Ros will be traded for an expiring this deadline (Joe Johnson although unlikely) or waived and stretched this summer. They did it to Boozer.

Niko has been high and low. Problem is he doesn't get shots. Rose Butler Gasol take all the shots. He is now coming off the bench to get more shots and get into a rhythm. He's been out of sync but has shown moments of rookie year highlights. I think he is a 18 and 8 big the can stretch the floor and take over games when he gets hot.

I think your board is too down on Knight. I think he has gotten better but can't coexist w Bledsoe and he's too expensive as a 6th man.

With Bulls apparently looking for a new wing and all, I think this is a trade that works for both sides

Knight, Kieff, Tucker for Gibson, Mirotic, McDermott, Moore and the SAC 1st rd pick.

[bwgood77]

I don't think your GM would.

Bulls are at a crossroads and need to reload. Rose sucks, Gasol is horribly inefficient and ball stopper of Hoiball, and Jimmy is trying to self promote himself to leader of the team but the vets aren't buying it. In essence we need a Rose replacement.

If we continue to play avg and not elite then the Bulls will make a small trade at the deadline like Gibson for Darren Collison. This frees up mins for Portis and Niko. They will get hem burn to up their value. In FA Bulls will go hard after Harrison Barnes as their SF Stretch PF. Him playing the 4 allows us to shop Niko for a PG. IMO Ros will be traded for an expiring this deadline (Joe Johnson although unlikely) or waived and stretched this summer. They did it to Boozer.

Niko has been high and low. Problem is he doesn't get shots. Rose Butler Gasol take all the shots. He is now coming off the bench to get more shots and get into a rhythm. He's been out of sync but has shown moments of rookie year highlights. I think he is a 18 and 8 big the can stretch the floor and take over games when he gets hot.

I think your board is too down on Knight. I think he has gotten better but can't coexist w Bledsoe and he's too expensive as a 6th man.

With Bulls apparently looking for a new wing and all, I think this is a trade that works for both sides

Knight, Kieff, Tucker for Gibson, Mirotic, McDermott, Moore and the SAC 1st rd pick.

That's pretty interesting. You should try that on the trade board. I'd probably leave out the pick because it is too much. But Mirotic is really not playing well AT ALL as Athe415 pointed out....whether or not he can ever improve on shooting I am not sure about. McDermott might be the most interesting piece we'd get. I don't really want to start Taj, but off the bench maybe, though I'd rather get a better PF than that, because I'd still rather start Leuer than him.

[Chi town]

Bulls are at a crossroads and need to reload. Rose sucks, Gasol is horribly inefficient and ball stopper of Hoiball, and Jimmy is trying to self promote himself to leader of the team but the vets aren't buying it. In essence we need a Rose replacement.

If we continue to play avg and not elite then the Bulls will make a small trade at the deadline like Gibson for Darren Collison. This frees up mins for Portis and Niko. They will get hem burn to up their value. In FA Bulls will go hard after Harrison Barnes as their SF Stretch PF. Him playing the 4 allows us to shop Niko for a PG. IMO Ros will be traded for an expiring this deadline (Joe Johnson although unlikely) or waived and stretched this summer. They did it to Boozer.

Niko has been high and low. Problem is he doesn't get shots. Rose Butler Gasol take all the shots. He is now coming off the bench to get more shots and get into a rhythm. He's been out of sync but has shown moments of rookie year highlights. I think he is a 18 and 8 big the can stretch the floor and take over games when he gets hot.

I think your board is too down on Knight. I think he has gotten better but can't coexist w Bledsoe and he's too expensive as a 6th man.

With Bulls apparently looking for a new wing and all, I think this is a trade that works for both sides

Knight, Kieff, Tucker for Gibson, Mirotic, McDermott, Moore and the SAC 1st rd pick.

That's pretty interesting. You should try that on the trade board. I'd probably leave out the pick because it is too much. But Mirotic is really not playing well AT ALL as Athe415 pointed out....whether or not he can ever improve on shooting I am not sure about. McDermott might be the most interesting piece we'd get. I don't really want to start Taj, but off the bench maybe, though I'd rather get a better PF than that, because I'd still rather start Leuer than him.

Dougie is off limits. Knight>Niko now but Nikos ceiling is as high or higher as a big. Taking on Morris contract is a negative. Sac pick is a wild card. Maybe just outside top ten or could be two 2nds. Bulls fans think we get it next draft as new stadium is opening n sac and their owner will pay for a winner.

[Revived]

Bulls are at a crossroads and need to reload. Rose sucks, Gasol is horribly inefficient and ball stopper of Hoiball, and Jimmy is trying to self promote himself to leader of the team but the vets aren't buying it. In essence we need a Rose replacement.

If we continue to play avg and not elite then the Bulls will make a small trade at the deadline like Gibson for Darren Collison. This frees up mins for Portis and Niko. They will get hem burn to up their value. In FA Bulls will go hard after Harrison Barnes as their SF Stretch PF. Him playing the 4 allows us to shop Niko for a PG. IMO Ros will be traded for an expiring this deadline (Joe Johnson although unlikely) or waived and stretched this summer. They did it to Boozer.

Niko has been high and low. Problem is he doesn't get shots. Rose Butler Gasol take all the shots. He is now coming off the bench to get more shots and get into a rhythm. He's been out of sync but has shown moments of rookie year highlights. I think he is a 18 and 8 big the can stretch the floor and take over games when he gets hot.

I think your board is too down on Knight. I think he has gotten better but can't coexist w Bledsoe and he's too expensive as a 6th man.

With Bulls apparently looking for a new wing and all, I think this is a trade that works for both sides

Knight, Kieff, Tucker for Gibson, Mirotic, McDermott, Moore and the SAC 1st rd pick.

That's pretty interesting. You should try that on the trade board. I'd probably leave out the pick because it is too much. But Mirotic is really not playing well AT ALL as Athe415 pointed out....whether or not he can ever improve on shooting I am not sure about. McDermott might be the most interesting piece we'd get. I don't really want to start Taj, but off the bench maybe, though I'd rather get a better PF than that, because I'd still rather start Leuer than him.

Mirotic has cooled off but I think that has to do more so with him not being a good fit for their new coach. Many Bulls players are having trouble offensively under Hoiberg. I know he didn't shot the 3 ball that well under Thibs either but I think he would be good in the right system.

I like Taj more than Leuer for defensive purposes. He's an efficient scorer too, has a decent mid range game.

[saintEscaton]

What a pathetic showing. His body language suggests that he could care less about the direction of the team. He's not the kind of role model that will lead by example for the youngins to take after. But we need ship Queef outta town first. If a decent offer presents itself for Bled I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. Gotta gauge the market and be patient and strike while the iron is hot before he drives down his value too much

[TeamTragic]

What a pathetic showing. His body language suggests that he could care less about the direction of the team. He's not the kind of role model that will lead by example for the youngins to take after. But we need ship Queef outta town first. If a decent offer presents itself for Bled I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. Gotta gauge the market and be patient and strike while the iron is hot before he drives down his value too much

He started the season as the leader and then obviously something happened. Maybe Sarver is taking control? Who knows with this franchise.

[Revived]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ScottHoward42/status/679863364969836545[/tweet]

[SunsFanSSOL]

Gotta be disheartening when you're the only player who showed any improvement from last season, yet there are players like Markieff who aren't even trying, there is terrible coaching where we lose on a buzzer beater nearly every night, and the opposing team gets more cheers in the stadium than the Suns.

[Revived]

Suns haven't done squat in the last 5 years to earn any cheers.

The last time I heard the Suns arena loud was in Nash's last game when he subbed out and everyone went crazy and there were "We want Steve" chants and stuff.

[bigfoot]

Hmmm ... so another subpar game by our glorious point guard Bledsoe. Now he's called out by the coach for poor defense. So we have two point guards who turn the ball over, can't run the offense, and play poor defense. Media are pointing to Bledsoe for his lack of interest.

Where are all these Bledose istn't the problem folks right now? We should trade him while his value is still somewhat high. I'm ready to see this lineup

Price
Knight
Tucker
Leuer
Len

[AtheJ415]

What a pathetic showing. His body language suggests that he could care less about the direction of the team. He's not the kind of role model that will lead by example for the youngins to take after. But we need ship Queef outta town first. If a decent offer presents itself for Bled I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. Gotta gauge the market and be patient and strike while the iron is hot before he drives down his value too much

He started the season as the leader and then obviously something happened. Maybe Sarver is taking control? Who knows with this franchise.

He's not motivated. Fairly obvious to me. Reminds me of work scenarios where I get placed with people I either can't work with or cannot respect. It becomes literally difficult to work/play as hard as when you are in a good situation. This is a cultural issue. I see it with a lot of our players, including vets who have never been that way before (Tyson Chandler). I think everything would be different if we didn't have so little success. Players expected more than what has happened this year, and they're clearly disappointed.

I think people need to reset their expectations. Eric Bledsoe is not a #1 guy. He never has been. Putting the responsibility of leading this team on him is unreasonable when he has never pretended to be a leader. What he is is an elite #2. He shouldn't be looked at as some failure just because we, like all but 5 or 6 teams in the league, don't have a #1. We are rebuilding by accumulating talent so that we could sell the supporting cast as ideal to a #1 in FA. Bledsoe is a useful piece who is well worth his salary even if he never becomes a leader.

[letsgosuns]

There is one player in NBA history that I believed had generational talent but never led his teams anywhere because of his penchant for taking games off and that was Vince Carter. He could have been one of the greats but there were so many times he did not show up to play. He even did it on the Suns. I vividly remember a game in 2011 he played in Madison Square Garden and played fantastic. He had 29 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 assists on 11-20 fg in 39 minutes. The following game in Cleveland he had 3 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists on 1-6 fg in 35 minutes. So he takes 20 shots in MSG and only 6 shots in Cleveland. He showed up to play in MSG because he wanted to impress people and the next game he did not care.

Bledsoe reminds me of that kind of mentality. How many times have we seen Bledsoe have great games against Westbrook, Paul, or Curry and then not show up against far lesser competition. After Dragic and Thomas were traded last year, the first game was against the Timberwolves. I expected Bledsoe to have a monster game and say hey everybody, this is why they chose me instead of Thomas and Dragic. But no. He came out with a sub-par performance of 12 points, 7 rbs, 6 ast, 4 to, 0 stl, and 0 blk, on 4-11 fg in 36 minutes and the Suns lost to a bad Timberwolves team. Right then I remember thinking what the hell is this. Maybe he is not the guy. This is not good.

So yes, I am on the bandwagon of trading him. This is his sixth year in the league and he still has the same motivation problems. Like Hornacek said last night, it is like he got is contract and now he does not care.

[Damkac]

He lose his motivation when he realized that Suns won't make the playoffs. Same with Chandler.

[bwgood77]

What a pathetic showing. His body language suggests that he could care less about the direction of the team. He's not the kind of role model that will lead by example for the youngins to take after. But we need ship Queef outta town first. If a decent offer presents itself for Bled I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. Gotta gauge the market and be patient and strike while the iron is hot before he drives down his value too much

He started the season as the leader and then obviously something happened. Maybe Sarver is taking control? Who knows with this franchise.

He's not motivated. Fairly obvious to me. Reminds me of work scenarios where I get placed with people I either can't work with or cannot respect. It becomes literally difficult to work/play as hard as when you are in a good situation. This is a cultural issue. I see it with a lot of our players, including vets who have never been that way before (Tyson Chandler). I think everything would be different if we didn't have so little success. Players expected more than what has happened this year, and they're clearly disappointed.

I think people need to reset their expectations. Eric Bledsoe is not a #1 guy. He never has been. Putting the responsibility of leading this team on him is unreasonable when he has never pretended to be a leader. What he is is an elite #2. He shouldn't be looked at as some failure just because we, like all but 5 or 6 teams in the league, don't have a #1. We are rebuilding by accumulating talent so that we could sell the supporting cast as ideal to a #1 in FA. Bledsoe is a useful piece who is well worth his salary even if he never becomes a leader.

Chandler becomes disinterested often. He certainly was with the Knicks.

[AtheJ415]

He started the season as the leader and then obviously something happened. Maybe Sarver is taking control? Who knows with this franchise.

He's not motivated. Fairly obvious to me. Reminds me of work scenarios where I get placed with people I either can't work with or cannot respect. It becomes literally difficult to work/play as hard as when you are in a good situation. This is a cultural issue. I see it with a lot of our players, including vets who have never been that way before (Tyson Chandler). I think everything would be different if we didn't have so little success. Players expected more than what has happened this year, and they're clearly disappointed.

I think people need to reset their expectations. Eric Bledsoe is not a #1 guy. He never has been. Putting the responsibility of leading this team on him is unreasonable when he has never pretended to be a leader. What he is is an elite #2. He shouldn't be looked at as some failure just because we, like all but 5 or 6 teams in the league, don't have a #1. We are rebuilding by accumulating talent so that we could sell the supporting cast as ideal to a #1 in FA. Bledsoe is a useful piece who is well worth his salary even if he never becomes a leader.

Chandler becomes disinterested often. He certainly was with the Knicks.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point. The Knicks culture at that time sucked. He was traded to Dal and suddenly was like he's been for most of his career.

[bwgood77]

He's not motivated. Fairly obvious to me. Reminds me of work scenarios where I get placed with people I either can't work with or cannot respect. It becomes literally difficult to work/play as hard as when you are in a good situation. This is a cultural issue. I see it with a lot of our players, including vets who have never been that way before (Tyson Chandler). I think everything would be different if we didn't have so little success. Players expected more than what has happened this year, and they're clearly disappointed.

I think people need to reset their expectations. Eric Bledsoe is not a #1 guy. He never has been. Putting the responsibility of leading this team on him is unreasonable when he has never pretended to be a leader. What he is is an elite #2. He shouldn't be looked at as some failure just because we, like all but 5 or 6 teams in the league, don't have a #1. We are rebuilding by accumulating talent so that we could sell the supporting cast as ideal to a #1 in FA. Bledsoe is a useful piece who is well worth his salary even if he never becomes a leader.

Chandler becomes disinterested often. He certainly was with the Knicks.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point. The Knicks culture at that time sucked. He was traded to Dal and suddenly was like he's been for most of his career.

So lets say Knight doesn't turn it over when we had the lead or a tie game with seemingly the last possession and beat Detroit and Memphis, and then Bledsoe doesn't turn it over on the last couple of possessions against Milwaukee, and we win that (probably could have won at least three more too) but just those three, going 4-2 on road trip beating Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and Toronto (all playoff caliber teams), and are 15-16 and sitting in the 8th seed, do you think Chandler gives up then?

I think Chandler gives up when the guards don't get him involved. He even came out and said they need to get the centers involved, and after that they immediately got Len involved for like one game. But after that they regressed and got back to their old ways. I think they just get back to their career tendencies, which is likely why Knight has been traded twice and possibly why Bledsoe was traded. Because they don't listen and/or have low bbiq. My hope is that they are just young and snap out of it because our best bet is hanging onto them and them improving with age, but I just don't think it is necessarily just because of the current coaching staff.

The other vets respond well to the coaches (P.J. and Price given their respective talent), and Dragic, Frye and countless others have as well.

I just think it is more a result of roster make up.

[AtheJ415]

Chandler becomes disinterested often. He certainly was with the Knicks.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point. The Knicks culture at that time sucked. He was traded to Dal and suddenly was like he's been for most of his career.

So lets say Knight doesn't turn it over when we had the lead or a tie game with seemingly the last possession and beat Detroit and Memphis, and then Bledsoe doesn't turn it over on the last couple of possessions against Milwaukee, and we win that (probably could have won at least three more too) but just those three, going 4-2 on road trip beating Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and Toronto (all playoff caliber teams), and are 15-16 and sitting in the 8th seed, do you think Chandler gives up then?

I think Chandler gives up when the guards don't get him involved. He even came out and said they need to get the centers involved, and after that they immediately got Len involved for like one game. But after that they regressed and got back to their old ways. I think they just get back to their career tendencies, which is likely why Knight has been traded twice and possibly why Bledsoe was traded. Because they don't listen and/or have low bbiq. My hope is that they are just young and snap out of it because our best bet is hanging onto them and them improving with age, but I just don't think it is necessarily just because of the current coaching staff.

The other vets respond well to the coaches (P.J. and Price given their respective talent), and Dragic, Frye and countless others have as well.

I just think it is more a result of roster make up.

I'm not sure 15-16 is really enough. For instance, I don't think the bigs were involved much when we were 7-5, but they still played hard. Len plays hard all the time in my opinion regardless of whether he gets the ball. I think not being involved offensively is a part of it for sure, but when Len has started he has scored much more than Tyson. I don't think we as a team, schematically use Tyson as well as other teams have in the past to get him those dunk looks, but Tyson's game offensively is very limited. He's aware of it and doesn't force anything, but when your game is mostly based on dunks, it's hard to complain that you aren't used enough on offense such that it somehow falls on the guards (see Deandre in LAC). I think part of it is Tyson wants to contend at this point in his career, and has no patience for dealing with this stuff, which is why he shouldn't have signed here imo. But I also think Tyson has failed to do his major job on this team to an extent as well. We brought him in primarily to be the leader and defend, not for offensive reasons, and he had to know that, and probably in part because we recognized Bledsoe was not ready to be that leader. He hasn't lead us to any improvement from what I've seen, and I for one fully expected him to hold people accountable on defense and teach the youngsters how to defend as a team. I just haven't seen any of that from him.

I don't see how PJ and Price have responded well to coaching with their performance this year. Yes, they say it's not on the coaches to the media and Hornacek likes them clearly given their PT despite having worse numbers across the board, but I've seen them play this year, and they don't play like well-coached players. PJ still gets techs right after we take the lead, and our coach shrugs it off as it being good he's emotional. PJ was part of the problem last year where we technicalled ourselves out of contention. Our coach showed no ability to stop it, and while that's mostly on the players, they clearly don't respect him enough to stop. Goran for all of last year was pouting. I'd debate that he was responding well to coaching under Jeff when he threw in the towel once we added another PG despite being on pace to win more than the previous year. Why did he pout? Because his individual numbers suffered, upon which he demanded to be traded to some of the worst teams in basketball where he would get the ball a ton. Well coached guys don't have those types of priorities imo.

I just don't buy that PJ and Price play smart basketball. They have their strengths, but PJ offensively plays stupid ball, with his own turnover issues and bad shots given his usage, and gets inopportune techs while running into off the court issues right after signing contract extensions.

This isn't a disciplined team, and maybe we somehow do have the most uncoachable team ever, but even Sacramento this season hasn't technicalled themselves out of contention in 1 year, followed by the constant crap we see this year. It seems really apparent to me that nobody respects Hornacek. Again, I go back to culture, because we've underperformed now for 2 years in a row. George Karl has dealt with as much crap with Sacramento this season, between all the insane egos on that team, his star cussing him out in front of the team, and the very public trade demands and offseason failings, but he's handled it so much better than Hornacek.