The buyout market is starting to get pretty dry around the NBA, but Allen Crabbe could be one solid last-minute option for the Chicago Bulls.
Since the Chicago Bulls have pretty much officially faded out of playoff contention for good in the Eastern Conference race, they might not be the likeliest landing spot for a bigger name buyout target. The Bulls do have one glaring positional need in the rotation that really thinned out of late for head coach Jim Boylen. That one position comes at the wing.
For much of the regular season, the Bulls ran their rotations without a single true small forward healthy. Former Washington Wizards small forward Otto Porter Jr. could be returning to the lineup soon, but he was out for most of the season so far recovering from a foot fracture. OPJ still has yet to play in a double-digit number of games this season.
Moreover, the Bulls other top small forward has struggled with more injury problems too. The most recent nagging injury to hamper the status of second-year former Boise State Broncos small forward Chandler Hutchison was that shoulder. That should injury just won’t go away for Hutch. His shoulder has been a problem since his days with the Boise State basketball program.
Hutch has played in just under half of the Bulls regular season games so far. The Bulls enter their 60th game of the 2019-20 regular season when they take on the New York Knicks on the road at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 29. If the Bulls wrap the weekend without Hutch or OPJ back in the lineup, then the wing situation will get really dire.
There’s not many options left for John Paxson and Gar Forman if they’re looking for the next solution to the wing depth issue. It is too thin for the Bulls on the wing to remain any sort of competitive when they’re overmatched on both ends of the floor. They can find something if they actually decide to turn to the buyout market.
Where the Bulls could look initially now is the former Brooklyn Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves small forward Allen Crabbe. Spending time with four teams over the course of the last three and a half seasons, Crabbe is starting to become one of those NBA career journeymen.
Minnesota has agreed to a contract buyout with Allen Crabbe, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 29, 2020
According to a report from ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski on Twitter, the Timberwolves reached a contract buyout with Crabbe on Feb. 29. He will be eligible to join a team for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs in his next landing spot.
For the 2019-20 season so far, Crabbe played in nine games with the Timberwolves and 28 with the Atlanta Hawks. Between his 37 games with the Hawks and the Timberwolves, Crabbe averaged 4.6 points per game, 2.1 rebounds, and 0.9 assists, while shooting 35.6 percent from the field and 30.3 percent from beyond the arc.
Crabbe could have a similar impact on this Bulls team like veteran wing Trevor Ariza had with the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland did a nice job of hitting the free agent market to plug their various roster holes over the course of the season. Signing forward Carmelo Anthony is a good example of that.
While the Bulls playoff hopes are all but gone this year, they can start to add to the roster and build up in the right direction heading into the fourth offseason of this rebuild. Maybe adding Crabbe to the roster now could help them add him as a cheap wing option off the bench in future seasons.