Bulls Off-Season: It All Rests on Forman and Paxson
The trade rumors are blowing about the Windy City and the Chicago Bulls back court combo of Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose are right at the center of it all, telling us that the Gar Forman-John Paxson dam may have just broken.
Chicago got on the board earlier than the rest of the league yesterday when they traded big man Cameron Bairstow to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for point guard Spencer Dinwiddie. That trade heralded the beginning of the Bulls off-season transactions ahead of the NBA Draft on June 23 and the opening of free agency on July 1.
The Bulls roster situation is a bottle that everyone – fans, Forman, Paxson, Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose, every media outlet known to man – has been shaking for months, perhaps even years if you consider the unrest which first surfaced while Tom Thibodeau was still in town. Now, the cap has been released from the bottle.
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Earlier, our own Megann Horstead wrote about the rumors surrounding Rose and the New York Knicks. Yesterday, our friends at Nothin’ But Nets wrote about a trade that would bring the former league MVP to Brooklyn.
While the proposed deal seems to be particularly not good in any way for the Bulls, the correct way to analyze any possible trade that Chicago may be involved in is to push back from any keyboard or screen you may be staring at, close your eyes, and breathe very deeply. If the face of Gar appears in your mind, floating like some haunting apparition, you will come to the terrible realization that anything is possible for the Bulls front office.
The startling reluctance of GarPax to trade away any expiring assets last season was one of the most frustrating developments of a lost season during the 2015-16 campaign. It truly is a lost season when a team misses the playoffs and doesn’t improve draft position. Also, if a roster has the most definitely opting out Pau Gasol and expiring Joakim Noah, look for any assets that help position the team for the future instead of simply acting with blind indifference to a team composition that still screams Thibs when your head coach is Fred Hoiberg.
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Putting all of that aside, the seemingly rapid conversion looks like a major coming to the senses for Forman and Paxson. This would be a welcome turn of events.
The Butler situation is perplexing and seems like a very bad idea. Any time a team elects to trade away one of the 15 or 20 best players in the league without getting a player in kind or pick at the very top of the draft board, that team loses the deal. When the Cleveland Cavaliers traded for Kevin Love, a great offensive talent with spectacular shooting skills, they had to give up the No. 1 pick in Andrew Wiggins. That kind of trade hurt both teams in some capacity – the Wolves lost their best player, the Cavs mortgaged the future for a more immediate impact and championship contention.
There have been many pieces already written about all of the emerging options for Chicago on the Butler front, but the more recent topic that is gaining steam at an incredible rate would be Rose. This move makes more sense from the Bulls’ perspective. Rose is on an expiring deal and has made it clear he is going after his share of the league’s influx of television money. The new cap number is supposedly going to hit the $94 million mark this season.
Big questions loom for Chicago, but if Rose is being made available, the front office might finally be heading in the right direction. Still, much of the rumor mill seems to be generated from the teams who wish to be manufacturing deals with the Bulls. The Rose rumors seem to stem from inside the Knicks organization and the Butler speculation may have started in several places, though none of them are affiliated with Chicago. If Minnesota wants Bulter or New York wants Rose, to some degree both players might be available. Now, we all wait to see how GarPax handle all the suitors at their door.
Next: Rose, Knicks Trade Is Intriguing
The hope is that they approach it wisely. The team clearly has designs to be a contender this season, though the next three weeks will go a long way to clarifying if that is just misdirection for another season toiling as pretenders in the Eastern Conference.