Why there could be some difficulties in acquiring Trae Young
For one, the Bulls don’t have much wiggle room in terms of cap situation heading into the offseason. Even if Chicago was to renounce all their cap holds this offseason, they’d only have somewhere around $16 million in cap space. So to make a deal happen, the Bulls are going to have to trade something of substance to Atlanta, likely along with a collection of future first-round picks.
The second part that makes it difficult is the fact that the Bulls only have eight players under contract on the roster heading into the offseason, with two players that will likely decline their player options in Andre Drummond and Derrick Jones Jr. Coby White, Nikola Vucevic, Ayo Dosunmu, Patrick Beverley are all free agents this summer.
If the Hawks are going to try to acquire Young, they’re likely going to have to include one of their core players in any hypothetical deal. Before the Bulls even get to that point of offering a trade package to Atlanta, that’s something they’d have to be OK with.
Assuming they’d be willing to do so, we’ll now explore three all-in trade packages that Chicago could pull together.