The Golden State Warriors are no longer interested in trading for Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic, placing another massive stain on the team's front office.
Golden State is instead exploring deals for Portland Trail Blazers center Robert Williams III, Dallas Mavericks center Daniel Gafford and Nic Claxton of the Brooklyn Nets, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes via the NBA on Prime.
There were some reported discussions between the Warriors and Bulls around last year's trade deadline, but a move for Vucevic never materialized. Executive VP of Basketball Operations, Arturas Karnisovas, was holding out for a first-round pick in exchange for his veteran center. No team, including Golden State, matched that asking price.
Fast forward 10 months, and Vooch is a year older (now 35) with 998 NBA regular-season games under his belt, and still in the Windy City.
If the Bulls weren't extracting a first-rounder from anyone last year, they surely aren't now.
The Chicago Bulls have screwed up another Nikola Vucevic trade
Golden State is stuck in no man's land in a loaded Western Conference. At 14-15, the Warriors find themselves in a spot painfully familiar to Bulls fans: No. 8 in the standings and clinging to the hopes of a Play-In Tournament berth.
Even with a 37-year-old Stephen Curry averaging 28.8 points per game, head coach Steve Kerr is struggling to muster enough production to keep pace with the Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves, let alone the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and LA Lakers.
Jimmy Butler (36 years old) and Draymond Green (35) are making close to $80 million combined, but are too long in the tooth to be an answer.
But nowhere are the Warriors more desperate for production than at center. Al Horford finally looks washed at age 39. Quentin Post has been the most consistent five Golden State has had this year. If the goal is to give Curry, Butler and Green one more shot in the playoffs, that can't be the case.
Hence, Haynes' report of the team's interest in the three aforementioned big men.
The Warriors' pursuit of Vucevic last year wasn't a well-kept secret. There was even a deal discussed that would've sent the Montenegrin big man and Zach LaVine out West. But after Karnisovas slapped the first-round-pick price tag on him, interest around the league quickly disappeared.
And there don't seem to be any surviving links between Vucevic and perhaps the league's most center-needy team.
Bulls have failed miserably (again) in navigating the trade market
Karnisovas waited too long to trade LaVine. He let DeMar DeRozan's value fade before he moved on. It's a miracle he extracted anything of value for Lonzo Ball.
He's clearly done the same with Vucevic, who, despite remaining productive at 35, comes with all the same flaws he did last season, chief among them a lack of foot speed and rim protection. Those two things generally decline with age, not improve.
If the Bulls could've extracted a few second-round picks from any team last February, they should've been happy to sign on the dotted line and move on. Now, Karnisovas has almost certainly screwed the franchise out of more assets by refusing to trade a player near -- let alone at -- his peak value.