Bulls are shopping Thad Young not Zach LaVine

[MrSparkle]

Who will be taking on new salary next season with everyone losing big money???

Thad and Sato will play out there contracts next season and then their options wont be picked up.

With Salary Cap going way down it seems AK's primary way to make us better will be a trade instead of FA... or hitting big on our pick in a bad draft

I agree it’s pretty unrealistic. IMO Thad for Mo Harkless was about the best they could’ve done, and had PaxDorf known COVID was coming, it would’ve been done.

Thad is way too expensive compared to his productivity for any contender to raise their luxury tax in covid times.

Unfortunately that Iguodala trade sounds about the most realistic now. And that’s basically a buy-out deal, but it would atleast shed a little more off with non-guaranteed money. I don’t even think Riley takes it though; he’s got FA plans and I think he structures AI’s contract really well for sign-and-trade flexibility. I don’t think any of that 21/22 salary is guaranteed, it’s basically there in case they whiff in FA and need a salary filler afterwards.

[TeamMan]

Who will be taking on new salary next season with everyone losing big money???

Thad and Sato will play out there contracts next season and then their options wont be picked up.

With Salary Cap going way down it seems AK's primary way to make us better will be a trade instead of FA... or hitting big on our pick in a bad draft

Lot of wing players.

Most likely we get a SF.

[Red8911]

I liked the Thad signing last year and thought he would make a difference here but he was a disappointment.Most of us expected better from him.He doesn’t want to stay and he’s pissed off that he doesn’t get more minutes. Truth is though he wasn’t good enough even for the bulls and we all want him out anyways.

I’m sure Thad would of been traded earlier if it wasn’t for the President/GM changes, as we all know Pax didn’t make one move at the deadline because he knew they were leaving. Once the off-season officially begins I expect Thad to be one of the first moves AK makes to trade him. I just hope they get something back for him.

[drosereturn]

I liked the Thad signing last year and thought he would make a difference here but he was a disappointment.Most of us expected better from him.He doesn’t want to stay and he’s pissed off that he doesn’t get more minutes. Truth is though he wasn’t good enough even for the bulls and we all want him out anyways.

Whether the Bulls deal Thad or not, it doesnt really move the needle for the Bulls. He is not the problem nor the solution so its okay even if he rots until his contract runs out. If they end up dealing him instead of Lavine, they will get nothing in return so nothing really news worthy.

[pipfan]

I agree with Show, Thad is not a big issue, since we need a back up PF and we won't have cap space no matter what

I wonder if Minny would do JJohnson for him?

[sco]

I agree with Show, Thad is not a big issue, since we need a back up PF and we won't have cap space no matter what

I wonder if Minny would do JJohnson for him?

I think the key will be if we draft a PF. I don't advocate drafting for need, but if a PF is BPA, I'd be happy drafting a guy who could make Lauri expendable after this season.

The thing about Thad is that he isn't better what you could find for vet min.

[MikeDC]

It really depends on the draft. We know that the average value of a pick is low, but, on the other hand, the cumulative probability that at least one player drafted at or after a given pick will be high is very large. Like, in almost any draft, you can find one of the better players later.

The better a job you’ve done on the draft, the better a job this sort of trade is likely to be.

It’s also worth understanding that the way the money/contract issue turns out, the Bulls don’t have to draft the next Kawhi to make the trade a win. If the player is basically comparable to Lauri but cheaper, we are still better off. If the player is a lot worse than Lauri, he’s still cheaper, so we’re worse off, but it’s not a complete loss.

I would say that generally speaking, the Bulls (and historically the Nuggets with AK) are fairly solid at scouting the draft. That increases the odds in the favor of the trade turning out well. You don’t do this sort of trade blindly, you do it close to the draft with an educated idea that there’s a player available that you want and you feel good about.

You have to assume you're going to get median value with the pick though, and maybe if you're really good, then you say a 20% better than median value. If you assume you will get value that is much better than median value then you should be trading all your players for picks, and you will probably find that you can't repeat that type of result consistently over time and that you actually likely just got really lucky.

The funny thing is I need to also get my head wrapped around the fact that a Lauri trade has a good chance of yielding a 2021 pick rather than a 2020 pick depending when you make it. If you trade him on draft day, you know pretty specifically exactly the player you are targeting and the pick you're getting. If you make it after the draft, you are getting uncertainty in the players that will be available, uncertainty in how good they will look, and uncertainty in where you will pick. Uncertainty shouldn't necessarily mean bad, there is upside in that too, especially given that we feel pretty bad about the 2020 draft as a whole. Uncertainty in 2021 probably has more value than certainty in 2020.

This is all backwards. We don’t “have to” assume the median. We aren’t going to pick the median, we’re picking a specific player. Likewise, it doesn’t matter one bit how we feel about the 2020 draft “as a whole”. We’re not picking the draft as a whole, we’re picking one specific player. Thinking ahead to whether we’d like a 2020 or 2021 pick, the certainty of 2020 is the certainty of our evaluation of that particular player we would likely pick. Saying a 2021 pick has more value is basically saying you specifically don’t like any player much at your 2020 pick spot.

Also, pining for a 2021 pick is simply a poor mindset. There’s a difference between risk (which is somewhat concrete and quantifiable) and uncertainty, which is more or less random.

As in, if we trade Lauri for rookie player X (be it Killian Hayes or Jeff Green or Precious Achuwura, or whomever), we are taking a risk but it’s based on specific information. We might be right or wrong, but it’s only partially a matter of luck and greatly a matter of our ability to correctly evaluate prospects.

If we trade Lauri for 2021 pick, you eventually have all the same risk issues, but you have a lot more random chance. Hope is not a strategy

[dougthonus]

This is all backwards. We don’t “have to” assume the median. We aren’t going to pick the median, we’re picking a specific player. Likewise, it doesn’t matter one bit how we feel about the 2020 draft “as a whole”. We’re not picking the draft as a whole, we’re picking one specific player.

If it is a 2020 draft pick trade on draft day, I completely agree, and I said as such in my second paragraph.

Thinking ahead to whether we’d like a 2020 or 2021 pick, the certainty of 2020 is the certainty of our evaluation of that particular player we would likely pick. Saying a 2021 pick has more value is basically saying you specifically don’t like any player much at your 2020 pick spot.

Yes, and there is a very good chance that is the exact situation that will occur. That no one you can get in the 2020 draft will be deemed worthy of giving up Lauri for, even if you lose Lauri for nothing. That's because the 2020 draft is viewed as a very poor draft and the pick will likely not be a high one.

Also, pining for a 2021 pick is simply a poor mindset. There’s a difference between risk (which is somewhat concrete and quantifiable) and uncertainty, which is more or less random.

As in, if we trade Lauri for rookie player X (be it Killian Hayes or Jeff Green or Precious Achuwura, or whomever), we are taking a risk but it’s based on specific information. We might be right or wrong, but it’s only partially a matter of luck and greatly a matter of our ability to correctly evaluate prospects.

If we trade Lauri for 2021 pick, you eventually have all the same risk issues, but you have a lot more random chance. Hope is not a strategy

I don't think pining for a 2021 pick is what's going on. It's acknowledging that it may be the case that you are certain 2020 pick isn't a good trade. You may be more willing to trade for 2021 where there is a chance the pick will be much higher if a team disappoints and the overall draft quality is viewed as higher and making this trade in general is a lot about hope that you can buck the odds.

It also may be the case where there is no trade involving a 2021 pick that passes the bar either of course. I mean to make real obvious comparisons, if you some lousy team like Phoenix was willing to go all in on Lauri and give you an unprotected 2021 pick for him, you'd view that as a lot better than if you got the 2020 pick at say 15, because maybe Phoenix makes a huge leap forward with Lauri, but maybe they don't and you end up with a great pick in the draft.

If you want to compare straight up pick #20 in 2020 or 2021, then probably 2020 has more value, but that isn't the real comparison, because the variability and chance to get a better pick in 2021 might be more appealing if the 2020 draft actuality is poor, and again, many experts seem to think that the 2020 draft quality is really poor which makes this scenario more reasonable than it might be in other years.

Gambling on talent for the draft is always going with hope. You hope the player you get in the draft is better. It's interesting you used the phrase that hope isn't a strategy, because it is almost a certainty regardless of whether its 2020 or 2021 that the pick is going to be a worse player than Lauri.

[HearshotKDS]

Makes a lot of sense, Thad's contract situation should make him easy to move, and to be honest whatever asset they can get back will be more valuable to the team than Thad currently is.

[meekrab]

Yeah there was no chance the Bulls were shopping LaVine; other teams may be asking about him but not the reverse.

[MikeDC]

[quote=“dougthonus"]That no one you can get in the 2020 draft will be deemed worthy of giving up Lauri for, even if you lose Lauri for nothing.
...
many experts seem to think that the 2020 draft quality is really poor which makes this scenario more reasonable than it might be in other years.[/quote]

And I’m saying this is a trash argument, because time and again, it’s demonstrated that even in “weak” drafts really good players show up.

What’s closer to the truth is that a “weak” draft means that the “expert” consensus is bad. Like, I remember how 2012 was supposedly the terrible, weak draft. Anthony Bennet and Alex Len... yuck.

But...if you look at it, there was plenty of talent. Giannis, Oladipo, Gobert, plenty of decent players who haven’t gotten MVP votes but were still quality players. Schroder, Adams, McCollum, etc. It’s that way every year. The whole Schtick about it being a “weak draft” is largely bull. It’s a term that gets thrown around precisely because it doesn’t have any fixed meaning. It can mean one thing or another, but mostly it’s an excuse.

[chefo]

The funniest thing about Thad was when we as fans were giving him deserving grief for being a lazy 3-point chucker, his wife took to Twitter to defend him by saying something like 'stop criticizing, that's what the coaches told him to do.'

That's his season in a nutshell. We brought in a dependable vet to complement Lauri when he switched to the 5... only to realize that Lauri cannot play the 5, and Thad is useful in the mid post only and not many other places on the floor (which is to say he's not a stretch 4, has never been one and will likely never be one). When the Bulls loosened the shackles post the All-star break, he actually looked pretty decent for a change. Before that, he was utter garbage--even worse than hobbled Lauri.

Anyhow, for a team going nowhere, he's a waste of space and $. If you can get a 2nd rounder for him, pull the trigger and let him finish his career somewhere where he can contribute.