1. Bulls trade the whole farm for Westbrook
When it comes to Westbrook trade rumors, it’s usually very obvious what stance the writer is taking or what narratives they’re attempting to push. Lakers fans are notorious for being over-eager in hypothetical trades online. Tanking teams (like the Bulls, a few years ago) also have a bad habit of overvaluing their young talent.
This trade proposal by Da Windy City writer Ryan Heckman, however, was apparently all aboard throwing every asset imaginable at the Rockets to secure Westbrook back in late 2020.
"“In Chicago, it would be [Westbrook’s] show just like it was in Oklahoma City. He’d have some younger pieces, potentially, to help develop as well. But, just how many of those pieces would the Bulls sacrifice to land Westbrook?”"
The answer is, apparently, all of them.
The only rational explanation I can muster for this proposal is that the author must have been in a state of complete and utter desperation to watch winning basketball in a post-Jimmy Butler world. After all, the Bulls had been one of the worst teams in the entire NBA for two seasons straight and were staring down the barrel of a third consecutive wasted season when this article was posted.
Expunging this many assets on Westbrook would have left the Chicago Bulls utterly depleted of almost all their future assets with no clear route to the playoffs, let alone championship contention. If this trade went down this is how the rotation would have likely looked.
- PG: Russell Westbrook, Ryan Arcidiacono
- SG: Zach LaVine, Garrett Temple
- SF: Tomas Satoransky, Denzel Valentine
- PF: Patrick Williams, Thaddeus Young
- C: Wendell Carter Jr., Daniel Gafford
Does this scream “contender” to you?
In the end, Westbrook actually ended up being quite effective for Washington, so who’s to say for sure how things would have played out in this scenario? Still, I feel rather confident Chicago opted to head down the right path when they steered clear of all the rampant trade requests for Russell. Westbrook