Chicago Bulls: 4 players who were traded too early

2. Elton Brand, Center

There were a couple of good examples of Krause giving up too early on his draft picks in the latter years of his tenure as the Bulls general manager. And this might be the biggest one. Leading up to the 2001-02 season, the Bulls got rid of the former Duke Blue Devils big man Elton Brand just before his first All-Star selection.

And while the Bulls didn’t get the worst return for Brand, they also didn’t hang onto that return for all that long. The Bulls shipped off Brand in June 2001 for a return of center Tyson Chandler and Brian Skinner from the Los Angeles Clippers. Chandler was a decent return, but that doesn’t mean that the Bulls shouldn’t look back and learn from how impatient they were with Brand.

During his lengthy and accomplished NBA career, Brand was a two-time NBA All-Star selection, 1999-00 All-Rookie Team selection, 1999-00 Rookie of the Year award winner, and one-time All-NBA selection. It’s hard to figure out why the Bulls wanted to give up on the 1999-00 Rookie of the Year so soon after he took the honors back to the Windy City.

The best of Brand’s years came with the Clippers. In seven seasons in a Clippers uniform, Brand registered a stellar 4.3 box plus/minus rating, 27.9 value over replacement player rating, .186 win shares per 48 minutes, and 68.3 total win shares. That was much better than the 1.2 box plus/minus rating that the Bulls gave up on after just two years with the organization.