NBA FA Signings / Available players

[League Circles]

JR Smith was a knucklehead that would not have fit with the roster/coach. He wasn't a "Paxson guy" (you know what I mean), but I always thought it was a mistake to tell him to not get off the plane and salary dump him for nothing.

A few year later, I really wanted JR when we were DESPERATE for a SG to pair with Rose.

Talent > Attitude

You need to find a fine balance and as a coach and front office, make it work.

Shaq and Kobe had crappy attitudes and couldn’t act like adults. LAL kept them together for 3 chips.

Rodman had a crappy attitude. He almost ruined Pippen and Jordan’s careers with dangerous fouls as a Piston. They made it work as Bulls. There’s no way Rodman would’ve been available to Chicago had he not been exiled by the league for being a nutcase.

Iverson had crap attitude. He took a team of scrubs to the finals.

More than anything these guys need somebody to let them be them off-the-court and nurture their strengths on the court.

I realize it’s not easy, but Pax’s approach of avoiding these guys at all costs could very well be the difference between a 2nd round and ECFs team. Not to mention the message it sends to free agents.

Odom wasn’t an angel but Riley took him in and got his career on track. He did the same with some other bad seeds.

Thing that bugs me is Pax kind of blamed Krause’s players as part of the problem. Reality is Chandler, Crawford, Miller and Artest ended up being better talents and winning more games than anybody Pax drafted until Rose. Plain fact.

I’ve seen multiple versions of the “try-hard good attitude” team fail miserably in the 1st round. (04-07 team, 11/12 sans Rose and 13/14 team). Note that “bad attitude” Nate Robinson was actually fun to watch and helped us make rd 2 despite being the underdog. I’m OK with bringing in bad seeds if it means we’ll have an extra guy making 3P shots and being able to dribble past his defender.

Miller and Artest were gone before Pax, and no way was Jamal Crawford better than Deng, Noah, or even BG.

[Am2626]

This is probably the biggest problem with this organization. They put too much emphasis on them and finding players to fit them as opposed to finding the best players to help them win. The NBA always was and is a players league. It’s not the other way around.

The Bulls team at that time wasn’t the 96 Bulls so to rule out someone because they have preconceived feelings about them is wrong. J R Smith had all the talent in the world. You never know if someone like Skiles or the try hard Bulls team could have tapped into his potential. You can always move him later if it didn’t work out but to not even entertain it and dump him for nothing is ignorant and foolish.

YUP +100

were all the other GMs/coaches ignorant and foolish to not trade more than second round picks for j.r.?

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.” You can’t be that closed minded in this business. Also this being a hard working good citizen stuff is really not as important as Paxson makes it out to be. Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important. If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

[kulaz3000]

YUP +100

were all the other GMs/coaches ignorant and foolish to not trade more than second round picks for j.r.?

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.” You can’t be that closed minded in this business. Also this being a hard working good citizen stuff is really not as important as Paxson makes it out to be. Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important. If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

You can not compare adding someone like Rodman to the Bulls when they had estabished alpha leaders like Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. Or when JR had LeBron to crack him into shape. Compares to someone like Rodman or JR being added to a young and impressionable team. You're not making a fair comparision without also factoring in the unique situations of both teams.

That said, I don't disagree that there are situations where calculated risk should be made, and Paxson has shown he can make those types of decisions at times, when he signed Rondo who had his own reputatoins as a prickly player, as well as Ben Wallace. Both failed of sorts, however, let's not act like he only ever brings in only good character guys through and through because he only plays it safe.

[Am2626]

were all the other GMs/coaches ignorant and foolish to not trade more than second round picks for j.r.?

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.” You can’t be that closed minded in this business. Also this being a hard working good citizen stuff is really not as important as Paxson makes it out to be. Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important. If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

You can not compare adding someone like Rodman to the Bulls when they had estabished alpha leaders like Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. Or when JR had LeBron to crack him into shape. Compares to someone like Rodman or JR being added to a young and impressionable team. You're not making a fair comparision without also factoring in the unique situations of both teams.

That said, I don't disagree that there are situations where calculated risk should be made, and Paxson has shown he can make those types of decisions at times, when he signed Rondo who had his own reputatoins as a prickly player, as well as Ben Wallace. Both failed of sorts, however, let's not act like he only ever brings in only good character guys through and through because he only plays it safe.

That Bulls team had some vets in Ben Wallace and PJ Brown came over in that trade. I really don’t see JR Smith impacting or affecting guys like Deng, Gordon, or Hinrich. One could argue that a disciplinarian like Skiles was what JR Smith needed to reach his potential at that age. Regardless it was a mistake to dump him like that. At least hold on to him and see what happens. If it doesn’t work then dump him. If it does, then maybe the Bulls have the 2 guard they didn’t have in 2010 when they lost to the Heat in the ECF.

[dice]

YUP +100

were all the other GMs/coaches ignorant and foolish to not trade more than second round picks for j.r.?

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith

it's exactly the point. ANYBODY could have had JR smith. nobody was thinking "well geez, i'd like to take a chance on the kid. i'd keep him if we had him already, but we just don't have him. and trading for him is just too hard." what they WERE thinking was "2 second rounders for that pile of crap? yeah, pass"

and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.”

he wasn't ANYONE's kind of guy. not phil Jackson's, not greg popovich's, not pat Riley's, not his mother's

Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important.

j.r. smith never took any team to the next level. and he wouldn't have taken that bulls team anywhere

If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

only one GM in the league took that risk. and it was because he could rely on michael damn jordan and phil jackson to keep rodman's ego in check. that, and the team had a glaring need for rebounding

nobody has ever had a glaring need for j.r. smith. j.r. smith is the kind of guy that you take a chance on as a complimentary player if you've already got a winning foundation in place. it is harder to build a culture of winning with j.r. smith. just like it was with tyrus thomas (who was obviously the much better prospect at the time the bulls acquired him). the downside exceeds the upside. the gamble blows up in your face more often than it pays off

[dice]

were all the other GMs/coaches ignorant and foolish to not trade more than second round picks for j.r.?

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.” You can’t be that closed minded in this business. Also this being a hard working good citizen stuff is really not as important as Paxson makes it out to be. Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important. If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

You can not compare adding someone like Rodman to the Bulls when they had estabished alpha leaders like Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. Or when JR had LeBron to crack him into shape. Compares to someone like Rodman or JR being added to a young and impressionable team. You're not making a fair comparision without also factoring in the unique situations of both teams.

That said, I don't disagree that there are situations where calculated risk should be made, and Paxson has shown he can make those types of decisions at times, when he signed Rondo who had his own reputatoins as a prickly player, as well as Ben Wallace. Both failed of sorts, however, let's not act like he only ever brings in only good character guys through and through because he only plays it safe.

rondo is another great example of a complimentary player who is great if you've got established leadership in place. he was great with the Celtics until the Brooklyn trade. he was good with the bulls because he meshed well with the butler/wade leadership tandem. there have been no issues in LA w/ LeBron...

[Am2626]

That’s not the point. The Bulls already had JR Smith and Paxson dumped him for nothing because he wasn’t “ his kind of guy.” You can’t be that closed minded in this business. Also this being a hard working good citizen stuff is really not as important as Paxson makes it out to be. Finding guys that will help your team win and get to the next level is what is important. If Paxson were the GM in 96 does he pass on Rodman for those same reasons? You can’t maximize your success if you are unwilling to take calculated risks when necessary.

You can not compare adding someone like Rodman to the Bulls when they had estabished alpha leaders like Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. Or when JR had LeBron to crack him into shape. Compares to someone like Rodman or JR being added to a young and impressionable team. You're not making a fair comparision without also factoring in the unique situations of both teams.

That said, I don't disagree that there are situations where calculated risk should be made, and Paxson has shown he can make those types of decisions at times, when he signed Rondo who had his own reputatoins as a prickly player, as well as Ben Wallace. Both failed of sorts, however, let's not act like he only ever brings in only good character guys through and through because he only plays it safe.

rondo is another great example of a complimentary player who is great if you've got established leadership in place. he was great with the Celtics until the Brooklyn trade. he was good with the bulls because he meshed well with the butler/wade leadership tandem. there have been no issues in LA w/ LeBron...

Forget about JR Smith for a minute. If Paxson is the Bulls GM in 96, does he go get Rodman? In my opinion he passes and goes for the more conservative and safer path. Maybe it doesn’t matter because the greatness of Jordan still would be enough to 3 peat again but maybe it does and the Bulls only win 1 or 2 championships instead. That’s the point. Paxson is a point A to Point B Executive and a very conservative low risk and safe pick type of guy at that. He doesn’t have the ability or vision to bring a championship to Chicago. His value has a shelf life and we’ll see history repeat itself again here. Just have to wait til 2021. It’s a rinse and repeat cycle and we’ll be back to a treadmill team again.

[dice]

You can not compare adding someone like Rodman to the Bulls when they had estabished alpha leaders like Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. Or when JR had LeBron to crack him into shape. Compares to someone like Rodman or JR being added to a young and impressionable team. You're not making a fair comparision without also factoring in the unique situations of both teams.

That said, I don't disagree that there are situations where calculated risk should be made, and Paxson has shown he can make those types of decisions at times, when he signed Rondo who had his own reputatoins as a prickly player, as well as Ben Wallace. Both failed of sorts, however, let's not act like he only ever brings in only good character guys through and through because he only plays it safe.

rondo is another great example of a complimentary player who is great if you've got established leadership in place. he was great with the Celtics until the Brooklyn trade. he was good with the bulls because he meshed well with the butler/wade leadership tandem. there have been no issues in LA w/ LeBron...

Forget about JR Smith for a minute. If Paxson is the Bulls GM in 96, does he go get Rodman? In my opinion he passes and goes for the more conservative and safer path.

i think that's likely true. but i think that few GMs in krause's shoes would have gone after rodman. then again, the team did need rebounding and the cost was only will perdue. so it's hard to say

Maybe it doesn’t matter because the greatness of Jordan still would be enough to 3 peat again but maybe it does and the Bulls only win 1 or 2 championships instead.

sure. krause was also the guy who nearly traded pippen for kemp prior to MJ's return announcement, which might have put MJ's return to the bulls in jeopardy. and he was the guy who traded elton brand for chandler and curry. sometimes risks pay off, sometimes they don't

and if you don't have the superstar in tow, taking risks doesn't really matter. and krause inherited michael damn jordan

That’s the point. Paxson is a point A to Point B Executive and a very conservative low risk and safe pick type of guy at that. He doesn’t have the ability or vision to bring a championship to Chicago.

umm...he almost did. after having the best regular season record and spanking the heat in game one of the ECF the bulls were probably even money to win the series and be favorites in the finals

the only truly meaningful difference is that paxson lucked into derrick rose and krause lucked into michael jordan. and there's no comparison between the two players. give paxson a young jordan to work with instead of a young derrick and there's likely a clutch of rings. hell, there might have been rings had derrick not gotten injured

and getting back to j.r. smith, one of the complaints i'm hearing is that had paxson taken a chance on a guy like j.r. smith it might have put the '10-'11 bulls over the top. which is effectively an argument that j.r. smith would have been better than bogans. hard to argue that specific point, but it ignores the fact that bogans did not play big minutes. the guy that paxson SIGNED to start at SG (ronnie brewer) was easily the better player than bogans, but he was injured to start the year, thibs asked pax to sign his san antonio buddy bogans, and then refused to take him out of the starting lineup the rest of the season because he didn't want to mess up his cherished rotations. same reason he wouldn't take boozer out of the starting lineup for YEARS when it was clear that taj deserved the starting role. here was the split of SG minutes that season:

45% brewer
35% bogans
17% korver

pax's plan was to have korver back up both deng and brewer, which would have had korver playing a higher percentage of the SG minutes. obviously korver was the better shooter than j.r. and brewer the far better defender. and j.r. made more money than the other two players

[panthermark]

Smith was a knucklehead, but we could have used him on that Bulls team.

In his 5 years in Denver he shot 38.2% from deep on 5.4 attempts per game.
He took a dip in Cleveland, but in his 5 years in NY, he shot 38.1% from deep on 6 attempts per game.

But it really wasn't just his outside shooting, it was his ability to actually dribble a basketball and occasionally get his own shot.

A Rose/Brewer/Deng/Boozer/Noah line-up had no outside shooting, and Rose was the only one that could dribble, create, and get his own shot.

We of course could (should) have signed Wes Matthews ($5.765M) to the same money we paid Bogans ($1.6M)/Brewer ($4.78M), and still signed Bogans with the vet min later (just for Thibs)...but I digress.

I don't know what Paxson was thinking with Ronnie Brewer. I never understood that signing. It is like Paxson looked at his FG% and said "oh, this guy is great!", but didn't into account how different the teams were. Utah back them was ahead of the pack as Okur was a good three point shooting center. D-Will could shoot them, Matthews could shoot them, Korver could shoot them. The only "iffy" starter was AK-47. Brewer could not shoot them, but it didn't matter as he played in the space provided by everyone else. Chicago was the exact opposite in terms of spacing, and Brewer was no where near as effective here as he was in Utah. You could see that coming a mile away.

[Repeat 3-peat]

Read on Twitter

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Man. That is a serious chunk of change for Justin Holiday.

Also a good reminder that there's still a lot of money left out there in the market. Grabbing Shaq at the vet min and calling it a day was probably the best/only option for the Bulls.

[Hangtime84]

Read on Twitter

I figured he would want to pay with one of his brothers.

The vet wing we might have to bring in is Loul Deng. Doubt he would want that tho

[panthermark]

Would LOVE to bring in Vince Carter. Atlanta is not leaning towards bringing him back, and he wants to play where he will get minutes. We have plenty of reserve minutes here. I have ZERO faith in Val or Hutch, and Sato does not want to play SF.

https://atlallday.com/2019/07/16/atlanta-hawks-5/

[Am2626]

Would LOVE to bring in Vince Carter. Atlanta is not leaning towards bringing him back, and he wants to play where he will get minutes. We have plenty of reserve minutes here. I have ZERO faith in Val or Hutch, and Sato does not want to play SF.

https://atlallday.com/2019/07/16/atlanta-hawks-5/

Shouldn’t Vince Carter finish his career in Toronto? They aren’t competing anymore with Kawhi gone. As for the Bulls yeah I can see him fill the Vet role but I don’t think that role should be all that difficult to fill. Jamal Crawford could do the same and could retire with the team he first played with although he didn’t accomplish a lot with the Bulls.

[sco]

Read on Twitter

I figured he would want to pay with one of his brothers.

The vet wing we might have to bring in is Loul Deng. Doubt he would want that tho

No big loss there. I think we're Dunn looking for another guy.

[ZOMG]

Would LOVE to bring in Vince Carter. Atlanta is not leaning towards bringing him back, and he wants to play where he will get minutes. We have plenty of reserve minutes here. I have ZERO faith in Val or Hutch, and Sato does not want to play SF.

Vince stopped playing defense long ago. I get that the guy obviously loves basketball and all, but at this stage it doesn't seem like he cares about winning anymore. Just lookin for someone to give him a deal so he can still call himself an NBA player.

[bulls_troy]

I would sign Vince in a heartbeat. Though at the same time would love to see him play his final year in Toronto

[Red8911]

Thank goodness Pacers got Holiday, thought he would end up here again. Bulls still do need a SF and I’m sure they will get one whether it’s from waivers later on before the season starts or a trade.They obviously aren’t rushing it there’s still plenty of time. It’s important that they do get someone who can contribute off the bench.

[Michael Jackson]

Would LOVE to bring in Vince Carter. Atlanta is not leaning towards bringing him back, and he wants to play where he will get minutes. We have plenty of reserve minutes here. I have ZERO faith in Val or Hutch, and Sato does not want to play SF.

https://atlallday.com/2019/07/16/atlanta-hawks-5/

Shouldn’t Vince Carter finish his career in Toronto? They aren’t competing anymore with Kawhi gone. As for the Bulls yeah I can see him fill the Vet role but I don’t think that role should be all that difficult to fill. Jamal Crawford could do the same and could retire with the team he first played with although he didn’t accomplish a lot with the Bulls.

I think VC almost deserves to ring chase. Dude has spent the past few years mentoring youngins in the league. He could have ring chased then but didn’t.

That being said the interviews for ATL he was such a great lockeroom guy. Would absolutely love to have him. Doubt it though. Would love Fredric Weiss to come out of retirement to play against Vince just one game too.

[GimmeDat]

Would love Vince here.

Also, apparently there's still a lot of animosity from Toronto fans to Vince, so I doubt he goes back.