It's time for the Bulls to spend some of those PROFITS!!!! and get serious about winning championships. 3 simple trades, which I am 100% positive the other teams would make, would get the Bulls $5,695,076 over the Luxury Tax threshold and prove that they are actually serious about winning, PROFITS!!!!! be damned! http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/6497333 Noah Gibson Mirotic Dunleavy for Amar'e''e''' Bargnani ======================================= http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/6497336 Rose for Joe Johnson ======================================== http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/6497343 McDermott Butler Snell Bairstow for Lin Sacre Amar'e'''e''''' $23,410,988 Johnson $23,180,790 Bargnani $11,500,000 Lin $8,374,646 Gasol $7,128,000 Hinrich $2,732,000 Brooks $915,243 Sacre $915,243 7 vet min $2,536,680 TOTAL $82,524,076 PG - Lin, Brooks SG- Hinrich SF- Johnson PF- Amar'e'''e'''''', Bargnani C- Gasol, Sacre Plus 7 more veteran minimum players. This would increase the team's payroll by $16,039,701 (24.1%). Obviously, that would mean the team's winning percentage would also increase by 24.1%. Quit being cheap, Uncle Jerry!!! Git 'er done, GarPax!!!
Dammit! I had August 1 in the pool for "When will the SportsTwo Bulls board cause Bullsville to lose his mind?"
Well, there's an asterisk - I have to drive to Nashville to pick up my son from the airport on Friday, so I had to lose my sanity a little early. So really, you deserve a mulligan on this one.
Or the Bulls could decide to be a high payroll team and spend the extra money on good, productive players. Then they could be like pretty much all the teams that have won a NBA Championship during the tax era. Or they can just keep doing what they are doing. No championships but still plenty of Profits! ------- Its not worth getting so worked up about though. The Bulls are what they are. Maybe they will get lucky and win a title without having a high payroll. Probably not, but maybe some of these cheaper rookie contracts result in a couple stars in the next couple years and something good happens.
I don't know if people will agree with my trade proposals, based on the Bulls' actual, factual history over the last 10 years: Year..Payroll..Playoffs 2014-8th, 1st rd 2013-5th, 2nd rd 2012-10th, 1st rd 2011-27th, 3rd rd 2010-13th, 1st rd 2009-21st, 1st rd 2008-21st, missed 2007-26th, 2nd rd 2006-19th, 1st rd 2005-15th, 1st rd The Bulls have been to the 2nd round 3 times in the last 10 years, and twice it happened when they were bottom-5 in the league in payroll. They lost in the first round in 2009, let Ben Gordon walk for nothing, and went to the first round the next season. They lost in the first round in 2012, let Asik and Korver walk for nothing, and went to the second round the next season. This season, after adding three minimum salary players to get the roster to 15, they will be ~$8.5 million under the luxury tax level, but they are unanimous favorites to reach the conference finals. Even after letting Deng walk for nothing. So maybe the Bulls should just continue their practice of getting the best player they can, and putting together the best team they can, even if sometimes that means replacing a higher-paid player with a lower salary when it makes the TEAM better? (Yes, I'm aware that they've spent every available penny of cap space in 2010 and 2014 and the MLE in 2011, 2012 and 2013 when it was available)
Well, the Bulls could have kept Asik at essentially $8.3mil/year, but they would have had to hope that he was tradeable this summer if they wanted to get into the Carmelo hunt. They could have offered Deng $14 or $15mil/season last February and I think Deng would've chosen to skip free agency...again though, no Anthony pursuit. Or they could've kept Deng without signing him, seen how the Anthony thing went and sign Deng (top his best offer) as Plan B...but then no Gasol. Maybe if they'd kept Deng til this summer he could've been used in a sign and trade...but probably not. Some fans bemoan the fact that the Bulls didn't keep Nate Robinson and D.J. Augustin. However, those weren't money issues. They were talent evaluation issues where Forman and Paxson chose to use their taxpayer MLE on Dunleavy rather than Robinson (2013) and their available cap space on Gasol and Mirotic rather than Augustin. I really liked Asik, but I like Gibson more...and I'd trade Gibson in a heartbeat as part of a Love deal or for a top-12 SG or SF. If we become attached to players, they need to be "win because of" guys, not "win with" guys. Asik, Gibson, and Deng for that matter, fall into the latter category IMO. When you overpay for win with players, you often regret it because it removes flexibility you may need to improve your team. Or of course, Bulls management could adopt a pessimistic attitude and assume that, as many believe, no great players will want to come here. Then they don't need future flexibility and can overpay all their players as they choose. Sorry...enough rambling. Time to play golf. Have a good day, guys.
Maybe, although being a medium payroll team despite being a large market, large revenue, large Profits! team has resulted in 2 division championships, 0 conference championships and 0 NBA championships in over a decade. So it depends on what you are looking for in the NBA franchise you root for. I feel that being medium payroll puts the Bulls at a competitive disadvantage relative to the high payroll teams. The teams that win championships appear willing to be high payroll for stretches in order to accomplish it, along with making wise basketball decisions. But, others may feel differently. You can break down any individual transaction and debate its plusses and minuses, and spin it whatever way you please. Its been done over and over in these types of forums. In aggregate, the Bulls methodology doesn't have the results, if the results are measured by banners in the rafters, which is what I'm looking for as a fan. The Bulls are on the top of the Forbes list. They make decisions that lead to high Profits!, which is respectable when viewed from another lens, but not necessarily from that of a basketball fan wanting their team to win the NBA Championship. Different strokes for different folks, as they say.
But I believe that both you and I feel that the Bulls were not realistically in the Melo hunt, right? They certainly were not poised to make a competitive financial offer. (I think TB#1 has stated he thought it was a longshot as well)
I guess I'm just a realistic fan that has seen the current ownership bring the Bulls more NBA championships than any franchise in professional sports in North America in the time it has owned the team. I guess I'm just a realistic fan that expects there will be a period of rebuilding after the most dominant decade in professional sports since World War II. I guess I'm just a realistic fan that actually breaks down each transaction on its own merits, because having a high payroll without highly talented players is only accomplished by overpaying average players. I guess I'm just an average fan who isn't naive enough to think that an uber-successful businessman like Reinsdorf doesn't understand that championships mean more profits because of the increased value of a championship team. But that's just me, every fan is more than welcome to have their own expectations.
Agreed, Taj is certainly not untouchable. Is it just me, or are many Bulls fans who bitched that we didn't match Asik's offer the same ones who are now complaining that "we have too many front-court players". They wanted us to match Asik under the premise that "we could have traded Asik (or Noah)", as if we can't trade Gibson (or Noah) now?
Pre-tax era and with the GOAT. That was a very, very long time ago at this point. Close to multiple decades. Almost to the point of irrelevancy. We'll see if it happens again. Going to be hard with an average payroll. Hopefully they will get lucky. In this tax era, 2 division championships, 0 conference championships, 0 NBA championships. Woot.
The scenario isn't Taj or Asik, and Noah. It's Taj AND Asik AND Noah. Asik is way better than Nazr or Boozer, who we had to play at C since we didn't have Asik. As if we couldn't trade Asik or Noah or Taj now.
If you, me and TB#1 combine our NBA inside knowledge, we've still got nuthin'. Most fans and observers I heard/read felt that Anthony was THE perfect fit for what the Bulls needed. Some bona fide insiders claimed the Bulls had a chance. How would it have gone down if GarPax would have told the press that "K4E, TB#1 and transplant think we're wasting our time so we've broken off talks with Mr. Anthony's camp."
The Bulls did the right thing in trying, but it was pretty obvious Melo wasn't going anywhere. It seems like the greats pass through town, say nice things about Chicago, then take their talents elsewhere. That should be the expectation, and when that is proven wrong, we can be happy about it. I thought Melo would be a great fit for us, even more so than Love. As good as you might think the Bulls are on paper, they still lack that 2nd guy who can manufacture points if defenses focus on taking Rose out of the game. I thought Noah might be able to be a point center, but the more I remember teams trapping Rose at half court, he's going to end up getting the ball near half court, too. Not his comfort zone. They have to play the games. We will see once playoffs cone around.
What every expert I heard say was that the Bulls were THE perfect fit for what Melo allegedly wanted... to win. That's why people in his "inner circle" wanted him to become a Bull - winning makes you money. Lots of money. Short term and long term. Anyone with even half a brain knows that.
Well, of course not, but then what would the point be of internet message boards. I never felt the Bulls were positioned well to get Melo to come here, since they couldn't even offer a MAX salary. There was just all this talk of a Melo hunt, and many fans that pay closer than average attention were not at all surprised that the Bulls could not execute.
