Bulls may have much bigger needs than PG

[HomoSapien]

Sure. Point forwards are rare though and I don’t think LeBron or Luka are available.

I agree with many of your identified needs. A legit playmaker who defends helps with several of them. Further, many of those issues will fall on coaching, disciplined play and easier to target role players.

We don’t have 6 bullets in the gun. We have maybe 1 for something significant. The big swing has to be a point guard if it’s going to happen this summer. Then you nip and tuck the rest to tighten it up.

What is your #1 bullet then? What would you do overall? Who is the PG you would pursue and at what do you have left?

My overall plan is:
No contracts that extend to 2022
42M cap room + Zach + Vuc + Pat + Coby, hope to add Beal or Kawhi, team looks like a legitimate contending team

That's the best single bullet solution I can come up with.

I do think there are higher floor solutions. Like I think I came up with a plan that was something like lose Thad/Sato/Aminu and you could keep Theis / bid on Ball(or some other PG around 20M), but then you have no wiggle room to do anything next year, and so I think those are also low ceiling solutions.

Just to add, as time passes we'll be reloading our bullets. Losing two draft picks is tough to stomach, but it's also not a crippling amount. It does limit us heading into next season though.

If Williams and/or Coby show flashes then that gives us on-court help as well as added trade value and I think we can look at former lottery pick Troy Brown as our replacement draft pick as well. He has starter potential and showed some nice flashes.

[dougthonus]

I would really be disappointed if we let Theis walk, because Gafford was always a solid rotation big man. If TBJ was the main reason for doing the trade, then I guess I'd understand but they all seemed genuinely high on Theis as well. He really had good chemistry with Zach in particular and was one of our few plus defenders. To me, it'd be a disaster if we don't make an effort to keep him.

I think they were high on Theis too, just think they may have viewed him as helpful for a season and not necessarily a long term piece given he'll be a UFA and you simply don't know what hte market will be like.

[sco]

I would really be disappointed if we let Theis walk, because Gafford was always a solid rotation big man. If TBJ was the main reason for doing the trade, then I guess I'd understand but they all seemed genuinely high on Theis as well. He really had good chemistry with Zach in particular and was one of our few plus defenders. To me, it'd be a disaster if we don't make an effort to keep him.

I think they were high on Theis too, just think they may have viewed him as helpful for a season and not necessarily a long term piece given he'll be a UFA and you simply don't know what hte market will be like.

IDK if it would work, but I'd rather have Theis under contract, and trade White after next season for a future 1st (or likely 2nd rounder) to save some $.

[dougthonus]

I would really be disappointed if we let Theis walk, because Gafford was always a solid rotation big man. If TBJ was the main reason for doing the trade, then I guess I'd understand but they all seemed genuinely high on Theis as well. He really had good chemistry with Zach in particular and was one of our few plus defenders. To me, it'd be a disaster if we don't make an effort to keep him.

I think they were high on Theis too, just think they may have viewed him as helpful for a season and not necessarily a long term piece given he'll be a UFA and you simply don't know what hte market will be like.

IDK if it would work, but I'd rather have Theis under contract, and trade White after next season for a future 1st (or likely 2nd rounder) to save some $.

Theis will make twice as much as White. You might be able to find ways to make things work, but you wouldn't be able to make a max offer to Kawhi or Beal if you do this.

[DuckIII]

Sure. Point forwards are rare though and I don’t think LeBron or Luka are available.

I agree with many of your identified needs. A legit playmaker who defends helps with several of them. Further, many of those issues will fall on coaching, disciplined play and easier to target role players.

We don’t have 6 bullets in the gun. We have maybe 1 for something significant. The big swing has to be a point guard if it’s going to happen this summer. Then you nip and tuck the rest to tighten it up.

What is your #1 bullet then? What would you do overall? Who is the PG you would pursue and at what do you have left?

My overall plan is:
No contracts that extend to 2022
42M cap room + Zach + Vuc + Pat + Coby, hope to add Beal or Kawhi, team looks like a legitimate contending team

That's the best single bullet solution I can come up with.

I do think there are higher floor solutions. Like I think I came up with a plan that was something like lose Thad/Sato/Aminu and you could keep Theis / bid on Ball(or some other PG around 20M), but then you have no wiggle room to do anything next year, and so I think those are also low ceiling solutions.

Lonzo Ball or getting blind lucky with the draft is my bullet. I’d prefer your plan if I believed Zach Lavine would agree to it, but I don’t think he will.

Part of this may explain to others (not you, you get it) why I think AK probably* had an absolutely horrible season as our GM this year. Possibly even grossly incompetent to the extent we may have no way out of this mess he created for another 4-5 years.

*I say “probably” because it’s still possible all the chips fall into place perfectly for him. But it’s extremely unlikely.

[dougthonus]

Lonzo Ball or getting blind lucky with the draft is my bullet. I’d prefer your plan if I believed Zach Lavine would agree to it, but I don’t think he will.

Well we likely won't have a draft pick. If we do have a draft pick, I would also change my plan as an FYI.

In terms of Zach agreeing/disagreeing. I think if you try it you have to find a way to make this season successful still to make the playoffs, both in that it will help attract a star and that it will keep Zach thinking there is progress here, and when you talk him through another star coming with him then it is all the better.

Granted, it could blow up spectacularly, but as you noted below, we went all in with a 30 win roster, so what are you going to do? In for a penny in for a pound, now I'm really swinging for the fences.

I just don't see where you the current group plus Lonzo gets you? That feels to me (even if we then keep Theis) like a team capped around 45 wins and a 1st round loss. Maybe that improvement gets Zach to resign, maybe it doesn't. Maybe he sees the ceiling and is more depressed and goes to join another super star in a 2 for 1 deal somewhere else that we could no longer offer.

In the end, you need Zach to be excited about where we can go when he's a FA not at the start of next year. At the start of next year your plan is more reassuring to him. At 22 FA when we can't really do anything else to improve the team and are middling, he might vastly prefer the ability to add on Kawhi or Beal or Durant or Irving or Harden whom we'd be able to fit any of the above in our cap room and all could potentially be available.

Part of this may explain to others (not you, you get it) why I think AK probably* had an absolutely horrible season as our GM this year. Possibly even grossly incompetent to the extent we may have no way out of this mess he created for another 4-5 years.

*I say “probably” because it’s still possible all the chips fall into place perfectly for him. But it’s extremely unlikely.

Yeah, I generally agree with this, and I've been in that boat since the trade, so I'm with you.

[drosestruts]

Enjoying the discussion in this thread.

Overall - I feel like DeMar DeRozan solves more of our needs than Lonzo Ball.

The interesting wrinkle in this though, and a combination of Doug's interest in maintaining 2022 cap space and Sco who brought up Justise Winslow.

Memphis has a team option for the final year of Winslow's deal, I'm not sure what direction they go with him but:

1. They keep him and I think we'd be able to acquire him without giving up too much
2. They let him, he becomes a free agent, I'd think we could give him a 1-year prove-it type deal with a 2nd-year team option.

Either way, we'd be getting an (if healthy) point-forward with strong defense. A healthy Winslow checks off several areas of need: limits turnovers, creates turnovers for the other team with his defense, capable of creating his own shot as well as shots for others, increases fast-break opportunities.

He also wouldn't affect our 2022 cap if we didn't want him to.

[dougthonus]

Enjoying the discussion in this thread.

Overall - I feel like DeMar DeRozan solves more of our needs than Lonzo Ball.

The interesting wrinkle in this though, and a combination of Doug's interest in maintaining 2022 cap space and Sco who brought up Justise Winslow.

Memphis has a team option for the final year of Winslow's deal, I'm not sure what direction they go with him but:

1. They keep him and I think we'd be able to acquire him without giving up too much
2. They let him, he becomes a free agent, I'd think we could give him a 1-year prove-it type deal with a 2nd-year team option.

Either way, we'd be getting an (if healthy) point-forward with strong defense. A healthy Winslow checks off several areas of need: limits turnovers, creates turnovers for the other team with his defense, capable of creating his own shot as well as shots for others, increases fast-break opportunities.

He also wouldn't affect our 2022 cap if we didn't want him to.

Winslow seems like a guy that is likely available for the vet min or slightly more in the off-season. Career TS% of 47%, has basically missed the past two seasons, hasn't really ever had a good season in his career yet. He was sort of kind of maybe on his way three years ago if you squinted real hard before he basically lost the last two seasons to injury, but it's really hard to look at him now and see a ton of potential.

[WindyCityBorn]

I agree.

Our need for a PG is somewhat mitigated by our play style. We are a high assist team, and we run a lot of offense through our bigs - we are fortunate to have two bigs that can act as offensive hub.

The NBA is all about versatile forwards and always has been. There's a reason so few PG driven teams have won titles or even made the finals - at the end of the day, bigger more versatile players reign supreme.

So yes, I think we should aim for probably 2 forwards this offseason, especially since the FA crop of PGs is so lackluster.

We turn the ball over way too much. We need a real PG.

We had a better turnover rate and less turnovers per game than the 2015 73-win Steph led Warriors team.

They had possibly the greatest PG of all time.

High movement teams turn the ball over more. They also win more games.

We led the league in turnovers and cost a ton of games. There is no way spin that.

[DuckIII]

We turn the ball over way too much. We need a real PG.

We had a better turnover rate and less turnovers per game than the 2015 73-win Steph led Warriors team.

They had possibly the greatest PG of all time.

High movement teams turn the ball over more. They also win more games.

We led the league in turnovers and cost a ton of games. There is no way spin that.

Yeah, this was not fun and gun frantically paced risk-taking play with your pants on fire and oops turnovers happen but oh well type of turnovers.

This was oh my god they are pressuring the ball, I coughed it up and gave them an uncontested layup and their defense is now just down there waiting for us as we bring it back up the court again type of turnovers. It killed us.

[League Circles]

I fully expect the FO to keep Theis. He has huge value for us as rim protector who can both play alongside Vuc and back him up. There aren't many guys in the league who can do that.

To your point, and while it can happen while operating under the cap, I see our best chance to improve as operating over the cap. We would likely be out of the Ball sweepstakes if NY wants him, but honestly, I see Ball as less of a good fit/more replaceable than I do Theis. That decision will come to light when we see what happens in the upcoming guarantee decisions on Thad and Sato.

Regardless of the Theis decision, I want us to go find another rim protector in the draft or FA.

It would be criminally stupid to not pick up Thad's contract.

You could have moved him for a 20+ 1st rounder and an expiring at the deadline. If you actually eat money this year instead of taking that pick and cap freedom at the deadline it shows an ungodly amount of stupidity and lack of planning. I mean you had to know at that point whether you were planning to operate over/under.

Same is largely true of Sato. If you wanted to operate under, you should have traded him at the deadline for an expiring and a 2nd rounder, likely could have been done and saved you money on the cap this year.

The fact that neither happened signals to me one of two things:
1: We plan to operate over the cap.

2: Our front office is god awful stupid and can't plan even three months into the future effectively.

The fact that we should have obviously traded Thad doesn't impact whether we should keep him now or not. BTW I had not heard of an offer of a 20s first and expiring are you just speculating or was that reported? If AK passed on that........just wow.

I think the way to proceed at this sad point is to trade Thad, once and for all, almost certainly for a PG like Dragic or Rubio who also only have one year left, or maybe for their SF equivalent to spell Patrick.

The reason being, although neither are special, the ability to resign Theis and/or Lauri cannot be squandered IMO. We simply don't have enough talent/assets to justify losing BOTH of those guys and rolling with one year of 32 year old Thad.

I agree frontcourt is as big of a concern as PG. Certainly from a depth perspective.

I think drafting a big in round 2 is likely. Think Gafford, Michael Ruffin, etc. Some times those types are early contributors even if they have low ceilings.

Literally the only thing the Bulls can do right now is try with all their might to trade some combo of Thad, Sato, Aminu, and Brown for something useful coming back while hopefully creating more cap room at the same time.

Theis having a 9.5 mil cap hold is sadly one of our most positive assets. Now, maybe we still don't re-sign him cause someone else overpays, and it's a moot point if we don't operate under the cap, but I think that's somewhat more likely and more advisable than you do.

I simply believe it's unjustifiable to return this roster plus an MLE and a sound round rookie. Yuck. I do admit that going under the cap is risky and could easily yield a worse outcome, but I think keeping the roster + MLE is just so sure to not move the needle.

[bulls_downunder]

I expect the Bulls to operate over the cap this off-season, if so, their roster will likely look like this going into the off-season:

PG/SG: Coby
PG/SG/SF: LaVine / Temple / Sato
SG / SF: Brown
SF / PF: Williams / Aminu
PF / C: Thad
C: Vuc

You have potentially four quality players to play PG/SG, whether you think those are positions of strength or not is debatable, whether we can improve or not is debatable.

You literally do not have a single quality SF on the roster unless you think Williams is a SF instead of a PF, but in that case then you literally only have two big men on the roster at all, and one of them is probably a 25 mpg cap.

Now maybe the Bulls won't operate in this way, maybe they'll go under the cap and the guys returning will look totally different (I think they'll actually be in worse shape if that happens), but if something like this happens, you desperately need a good SF (to push Williams to PF) or PF (if you want Williams at SF primarily) and possibly both as well as a quality backup C.

The Gafford trade has aged really poorly based on the roster construction IMO. This changes quite a bit if we keep Theis, but I don't see us doing that.

Removing Temple from the equation because he is technically a free agent. Below is how I see our roster heading into the off-season:

PG: Satoransky, Arcidiacono
G: Lavine, White
G/F: Brown
F: Williams
PF: Aminu
F/C: Young
C: Vucevic

I 100% agree with you about the lack of a quality big wing. Hopefully, Williams can be this player after another off-season of development.

The Bulls don't necessarily need a quality PG to improve the offense, rather a quality playmaker regardless of position. With a whole off-season, I'm hoping the combination of Lavine and Vucevic will provide enough playmaking to make the Bulls a playoff team next season.

The Bulls do need someone on the starting 5 who can defend PGs at a high level.

[WindyCityBorn]

I would really be disappointed if we let Theis walk, because Gafford was always a solid rotation big man. If TBJ was the main reason for doing the trade, then I guess I'd understand but they all seemed genuinely high on Theis as well. He really had good chemistry with Zach in particular and was one of our few plus defenders. To me, it'd be a disaster if we don't make an effort to keep him.

I think they were high on Theis too, just think they may have viewed him as helpful for a season and not necessarily a long term piece given he'll be a UFA and you simply don't know what hte market will be like.

IDK if it would work, but I'd rather have Theis under contract, and trade White after next season for a future 1st (or likely 2nd rounder) to save some $.

Theis not as good as you seem to think he is. I think he is decent stopgap starter though.

[Rose2Boozer]

This team needs a small forward who can handle the ball, and give the team over 100 3s. I like Alec Burks to fill this role. A starting role should be enough to steal him away from the Knicks.

White isn't perfect, and still learning the position, but I'd take him rather than overpaying Ball.

[CobyWhite0]

We turn the ball over way too much. We need a real PG.

We had a better turnover rate and less turnovers per game than the 2015 73-win Steph led Warriors team.

They had possibly the greatest PG of all time.

High movement teams turn the ball over more. They also win more games.

We led the league in turnovers and cost a ton of games. There is no way spin that.

I'd spin it as we didn't lead the league in turnovers. Facts are usually a good way to spin things. When you fabricate stats, that's not the way I usually look at things. https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/traditional/?sort=TOV&dir=1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Totals

We were 4th in the league in turnovers. The Lakers (3rd in the league) won 42 games, and they turned the ball over MORE than we did. The Warriors were 5th in the league in turnovers, won 39 games, and had 9 less turnovers than we did over 72 games.

The Sixers had the best record in the East, and they were 20th in the league in TO%.

It's also notable that after the trade, we decreased our turnovers by a pretty decent margin. Which isn't surprising, since we were playing at a much faster pace before the trade, with Coby playing PG for the first time in his short NBA career:

Before the trade: 15.7 TO% (29th), 101.07 Pace (8th), 110.6 Off Rtg (18th)

After the trade: 14.2 TO% (20th), 97.36 Pace (25th), 110.0 Off Rtg (22nd)

Turnovers were a big problem for us this season, no doubt about it.

But we improved quite a bit in that department after the trade. Common sense tells me that Coby will be less turnover-prone in his 3rd season than he was in his 2nd, but of course it's not guaranteed. Common sense tells me that our post-trade roster will turn the ball over less next season after a full off-season, training camp and preseason together than they did after being thrown together with no practices in the middle of this season.

[waffle]

don't care what dougie says

still want classic PG

[jump]

CP3’s performance in that final Lakers game was a real lesson. Over the entire game he didn’t seem that impactful. But in that 4th Q when Lakers made their run, he was able to take control, stop the run, and change the momentum. That’s all we need. Someone who can do that often enough. We could have some so many games this season if we had someone who could take control.

[HomoSapien]

CP3’s performance in that final Lakers game was a real lesson. Over the entire game he didn’t seem that impactful. But in that 4th Q when Lakers made their run, he was able to take control, stop the run, and change the momentum. That’s all we need. Someone who can do that often enough. We could have some so many games this season if we had someone who could take control.

Super underrated ability. Someone like Sato is a smart passer, but he's not a floor general.

CP3, Lowry, and Conley obviously all can do versions of that. On the cheaper/more attainable end, I think Rose and Dragic can also provide that calming/slow-it-down presence.

[thedarkstark]

This is incorrect. The reason they're so high on Ball is because he's a versatile lengthy defender who can slide around and play minutes at the 2 and 3 if necessary. Thats also why they like, Thad, Theis, Temple, TBJ, and Willams and why they cut bait with Carter & Lauri. Theyre also not very keen on sato or coby, dont be surprised if they're gone by next offseason.

AK has made it clear he thinks the future of the league is positionless basketball and he covets players who are versatile.

[Bulldog23]

This is incorrect. The reason they're so high on Ball is because he's a versatile lengthy defender who can slide around and play minutes at the 2 and 3 if necessary. Thats also why they like, Thad, Theis, Temple, TBJ, and Willams and why they cut bait with Carter & Lauri. Theyre also not very keen on sato or coby, dont be surprised if they're gone by next offseason.

AK has made it clear he thinks the future of the league is positionless basketball and he covets players who are versatile.

I like what your saying, but Coby can defend 1 to 3 and scores on three levels, plus assists...I believe he fits that positionless basketball you mentioned. He is just inexperienced.