4 biggest fleeces AKME have gotten away with for the Bulls

1. Tomas Satoransky and Garrett Temple for Lonzo Ball

The Chicago Bulls’ interest in acquiring Lonzo Ball was for a long time one of the worst-kept secrets in all of basketball. The Pelicans held Lonzo’s rights as a restricted free agent. New Orleans held all the leverage possible to extract value in a trade with the Bulls, but just… didn’t.

Presumably picking up where negotiations left off at the trade deadline, the Bulls capitalized on New Orleans’ unwillingness to lose Ball for nothing. In the end, the package the Pelicans received may as well have amounted to nothing anyways.

Chicago sent Tomas Satoransky and Garrett Temple to New Orleans along with a second-round pick in 2024 and cash considerations. Satoransky would go on to play almost impressively awful, averaging just 2.8 points per game on 29.9% shooting from the field in 32 games. Temple didn’t fare much better, as he posted 5.2 points per game on a terrible 37.6% shooting mark.

Neither Satoransky nor Temple even play in the NBA anymore, meaning NOLA’s sole asset acquired in return for 2017’s second overall pick is a measly second-rounder in 2024 — a year by which all accounts the Bulls should be a pretty good team and push that pick even further back into the draft.

Trading for Lonzo Ball was one of the biggest fleeces in Chicago Bulls franchise history.

When you compare this trade to the package the Bulls received for an inferior player in Markkanen, it’s incredible that Chicago was ever able to negotiate such an enormous fleece. Not only did the Bulls receive a better player and better draft compensation, they also did it by giving up a worse restricted free agent than Lonzo.

Yes, Lonzo was held out with injury for the majority of his debut season in Chicago. For all we know, his injury history could very well continue to be a big problem down the road. But when you account for the fact that the Bulls got him for essentially nothing, it’s hard to be mad.

In the games he did play last season, Lonzo rated out as a top-five perimeter defender and a top-five three-point shooter in the entire NBA. He’s elite in the areas Chicago needs it most and it’s clear to see why the Bulls were a much better team when he was on the court.

When you look around the league and see that Lonzo is barely being compensated more than the likes of other lesser guards like Evan Fournier, Duncan Robinson, and Luke Kennard, it’s easy to see that not only was the trade incredible value, but so was the contract he signed. This is the magnitude of fleece that helps a good team become a truly great team.

All Lonzo needs to do now is stay on the court long enough to prove AKME’s genius decision-making for trusting him in the first place.