HomoSapien wrote:Peelboy wrote:HomoSapien wrote:So some time has gone by, and as of today I still feel like we made a mistake picking Caruso over Theis. I don't love how our front-court depth is shaping up, especially on the defensive end. I think we're going to spend the entire season talking about how to find a defensive-minded 4. I'd like to know what exactly happened here. It was a good trade and he ended up signing with a bad team for a fairly cheap amount. To me that suggests that we probably didn't even make him an offer to come back.
To me it's all dependent on the next steps. Seems in general that good 3&D wings (Caruso) are harder to find bargains on than defensive bigs. Feel like offensively challenged defender/rebounder guys can generally be found cheap (Tony Bradley). If you find maybe not a Theis but Theis-lite, then they made the right move IMO. Between MLE, Lauri, that seems likely.
Caruso is more of a point guard/combo guard. I think he definitely helps, but his minutes are automatically capped due to Ball, Lonzo, and Coby all getting significant playing time. I guess you can look at is as Caruso and Bradley vs Theis + a minimum point guard but Theis seemed more important to me. Good defender, could actually hit the occasional three, brought some athleticism to the team, and could play small ball-five or be the four in a more traditional lineup. I really believe we're going to be questioning this all season long, but the off-season isn't over yet so let's see what happens.
This may be part of the difference of opinion, but I envision the Bulls going with a lot of 3-guard lineups, swinging DeMar to 4 (or keeping PW there and sitting DeMar), with Zach/Lonzo moving up. That opens up time for Caruso. Coby is a huge ? because of the injury and time he'll take to get back in basketball shape plus the fact that he's currently at best bench offense. I tihnk he's likely the one getting squeezed not Caruso. I envision minutes shaking out something like this in a somewhat positionless rotation:
PG/SG/SF: Zach(34), Lonzo (34), DeMar(23), Caruso(25), Coby(20), PW(5),Ayo(3)
PF: PW(30), DeMar(7), Bradley(5), ???(6)
C: Vuc(32), Bradley (10), ???(6)
The wildcard in all of this is Lauri. If he returns or brings back a currently useful big, that upends the rotations, pushing everyone else down and squeezing Caruso/Coby/Ayo. But at this specific point in time, I think Coby is situational in the minds of the FO and may be best used as an asset in trade to someone who's interested in trying to continue to develop him as a lead guard rather than an off-guard/bench scorer.