Bulls Moving Forward

By: Kolsky

Merry halfway to Christmas, Chicago. Meet your present – Derrick Rose.

In all likelihood this is the best present anyone has ever received for Jesus’ half birthday. He’s going to be a star – you can book it now. I could go further into that, but someone already has, and he’s probably done more research than me, so let’s move on.

Which is what the Bulls can now do – there’s a coach in place (say what you will about his qualifications) and a new franchise cornerstone in Rose, so it’s time to build a team around him. Which begins, naturally, with taking stock. As far as I can tell, the current team breaks down like this…

PG – Rose, Kirk Hinrich

SG – Larry Hughes, Ben Gordon, Thabo Sefolosha

SF – Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni

PF – Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas

C – Joakim Noah, Aaron Gray

Guys who will be lucky to make the roster and likely won’t leave the bench if they do – JamesOn Curry, Cedric Simmons, Demetris Nichols.

There are a couple things that jump out at me here. First, the perceived and oft-discussed “glut of guards” doesn’t entirely exist, particularly if you consider that Thabo is long enough and a solid enough defender to log some minutes at small forward.

Yes, there are four returning guards on this team, plus Rose, but I think they all bring different things to the table. Specifically…

Ben Gordon is a volume scorer, who is capable of tearing any team apart when he gets hot, regardless of the defender. Assists from Rose can only help in that department.

Kirk Hinrich is in many ways an intriguing combo guard. While he’s often criticized for not fitting either guard position particularly well – a legitimate criticism, I think – he certainly is not as bad as he played last year and there’s a good argument to be made that his versatility between the two guard spots offers welcome flexibility for a coach.

Thabo Sefolosha is already a very, very good defender at the 2; he’s got crazy long arms and a willingness to break down and guard people. He still got beat occasionally last year, but never for lack of trying. He can be a lockdown defender in this league.

Larry Hughes is a bit of an enigma, and often takes frustratingly bad shots, yes. However, he also is the only returning player who is both capable of and willing to drive to the hole on a regular basis. He is also untradable right now with his ridiculously inflated contract, so Bulls fans might as well get used to having him around.

All in all, a team is not at a disadvantage for having depth at the guard positions. What puts the Bulls at a disadvantage is the general lack of experience – and, let’s be honest, ability – at the power forward and center positions.

I’m on record as being a Drew Gooden fan, and I stand by that – but the trio of Thomas, Noah and Gray is troublesome. Together they have a total of four years of NBA service, and each has marked weaknesses. There is potential there, but this is where the Bulls need help.

That said, John Paxson has maintained that the first order of business is to resign the Bulls’ own restricted free agents, Ben Gordon and Luol Deng. And business time begins today, July 1, with the opening of the NBA’s free agency period.

For the uninitiated, restricted free agents have the option to sign an offer sheet – essentially a long-term contract offer – with any team around the league. If they do, the team that owns their rights has the option to match that offer and keep the player; or they choose not to match, letting the player go. If the player chooses not to sign an offer sheet, they can return for a one-year “qualifying offer” and become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this coming season.

For Gordon, that last option is the most likely. In a down market, with very few teams having available salary cap space, Gordon is not likely to find an offer that he feels is appropriate. That’s judging from the audacity he showed in turning down the Bulls’ reported five year, $50 million offer last offseason.

Unfortunately for the Bulls, this means there is little they can do with Gordon. And perhaps even more unfortunately, Deng – who is far more versatile and two years younger than Gordon – is far more likely to sign an offer sheet and force the Bulls to overpay him.

Working in the team’s favor is the fact that almost nobody around the league has the kind of salary cap space that would be necessary for that sort of deal. Outside of the Memphis Grizzlies, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Clippers, there is essentially nobody who could afford the sort of contract Deng is believed to want; and both the Clippers and Sixers would likely have to let their own free agents (Elton Brand and Corey Maggette for the former; Andre Iguodala for the latter) walk out the door.

One would hope that Deng could be signed to a longer-term extension, but for now let’s assume he’s targeting unrestricted free agency in the Summer of ‘09. What, then, ought the Bulls do to shore up their frontcourt?

Solution 1: Elton Brand

Brand is undoubtedly the best player available on the open market, and his opt-out clause from the Clippers makes him an unrestricted free agent. In other words, if Brand can be convinced that Chicago would be a good place for him, there is nobody who can stop him from signing here.

And oooohhhh, would Chicago be a good place for him – much different than he remembers it, I’m sure. Instead of the likes of Corey Carr and Cory Benjamin, Brand would be teamed with a hot young point and a host of other talented youngsters.

The problem with this scenario is simple logistics. The Bulls have been unwilling to cross into the luxury tax threshold (i.e. exceed the salary cap), and they would likely have to do that in order to sign Brand.

Unless, somehow, they can get Ben Gordon out the door. Thanks to the NBA’s awesome rookie pay scale, Gordon (as the #3 pick in 2004) is set to earn basically $2 million more than Deng if they both sign their qualifying offers. If Gordon manages to score an offer sheet – from, say, Philly – and the Bulls let him go, that’s about $6.5 mil in extra cap space that they would have to work with, and might be enough to go after Brand. It would also clear up the logjam – perceived or actual – in the Bulls’ backcourt, and give Derrick Rose an established offensive and defensive force on the interior.

Solution 2: Nenad Krstic

Clearly a major dropoff from Solution 1, but such is life. Krstic, before knee injuries derailed his last two seasons, was considered a real up-and-comer at the center position, especially on the offensive end. With the almost entirely defensive contributions of Joakim Noah and (sometimes) Tyrus Thomas, the Bulls could use someone capable of scoring in the post with regularity, as Krstic appeared able to do before injuries struck.

As a restricted free agent, the current Net is not likely to be a signee for the Bulls, but is a potential sign-and-trade candidate. The Nets went big – really big, actually – in the first round of the NBA draft when they picked up Brook Lopez and Ryan Anderson, presumably to be their starting center and power forward of the future (though Anderson could end up projecting more as a 3). Either way, it seems to mark the end of them valuing Krstic particularly highly, and that could be where the Bulls come in.

After unloading Jason Kidd last year and Richard Jefferson on draft day, the Nets essentially have three guards in their rotation – Vince Carter, who many expect to be the next Net to be traded away; Devin Harris, their prized point guard acquired in the Kidd deal; and Marcus Williams, a second-year point out of Connecticut that is expected to develop into a pretty good player. Throw in second-round pick Chris Douglas-Roberts if you like, but it’s not likely he’ll have much of an impact this season.

On the other hand, the Nets’ frontcourt is almost comically overcrowded – besides Anderson and Lopez, they have youngsters Sean Williams, Yi Jianlian, Josh Boone and DeSagana Diop, plus less young-sters Stromile Swift and Bostjan Nachbar. You may call some of those guys small forwards, and that’s fine, but the bottom line is I just listed eight players who are listed at 6′9″ or taller. The Bulls have basically three – Noah, Gray and Gooden.

There haven’t been any reports to this effect, but it sure looks to me like the Nets might want an experienced combo guard like Kirk Hinrich in exchange for a center they apparently no longer value. So I think that’s a possibility, and while it might not be an exciting one it could be a very practical one, particularly if Gordon and Deng both stick around for one-year contracts.

Solution 3: Absolutely nothing

Sadly, as a veteran observer and fan who has followed the NBA closely for a decade and been so on top of Paxson’s career as a GM that I should be paid for it, this strikes me as by far the most likely scenario. It might seem weird for the word “solution” to be the associated label for a summer of inactivity, but to a certain extent I think this is a reasonable action.

It will certainly be intriguing to see how the addition of Rose affects the rest of the team, as he is the first true point guard I can remember the Bulls acquiring since… well, ever. After watching the Jay Williamses and Jamal Crawfords of the world traipse through the United Center for unsatisfying stays, a point who actually wants to pass the ball is a novelty that Chicago is not entirely familiar with.

But it would certainly help the Bulls front office considerably in their evaluation of guys like Gordon and Deng. So often in the last two years the Bulls seemed to be a talented bunch of players running around like a chicken with its head cut off – no on-court leadership; and if the behavior of Noah and Thomas is any indication, little off-court leadership.

A year with Rose at the helm of the ship would give Paxson the chance to see who fits with his young franchise cornerstone and who needs to go, and there’s nothing to suggest that resigning guys like Gordon and Deng will be especially harder next summer as opposed to this one.

Plus, let’s be honest – even the acquisition of Elton Brand wouldn’t make the Bulls a championship contender this year. Rose, great as I think he will be, is only 19 years old and will not likely walk in and dominate the league from Day One. What he should do from Day One is help weed out the undesirables.

So, for instance, if Ben Gordon can’t get on board the Rose train, then Paxson knows he won’t try to resign him next season. And if the Bulls stand pat this summer, their committed payroll just about cuts itself in half for next season, giving Pax all the flexibility he could ever want to bring in anyone who is available from a group that could include Rasheed Wallace and Carlos Boozer, not to mention the long-coveted free agent class of 2010 that includes most of the legendary 2003 NBA Draft.

In other words, the easiest, most likely and least pressurized course of action – the sort of route Paxson has shown himself to be partial to in the past – involves signing nobody this offseason. He will almost certainly try to work something long term out with Deng, and to a lesser extent with Gordon, but I would caution Bulls fans not to hold their breath for the big splash, as it’s quite possible that an unrestricted second-tier center like Primoz Brezec could be as wet as the Bulls get.

But don’t despair. Not only would that action set the Bulls up for a potential run at bigger talents in the future, it will allow them to use 2008-09 as a development season – which means more Derrick Rose for your viewing pleasure, and likely less time wasted trying to get something out of veterans that have disappointed us in the past. Not to mention that with Rose in the fold, the team will probably not underachieve to the embarrassing degree that they did last year.

And, perhaps best of all, it means that without having to worry about an ill-advised big-money deal potentially handcuffing your favorite basketball team for years to come, you have all summer long to bask in the glory of your best Halfway to Christmas gift ever.

Happy Holidays.

Tags: Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, Drew Gooden, Elton Brand, John Paxson, Kirk Hinrich, Larry Hughes, Luol Deng, Nenad Krstic, Thabo Sefolosha

Matt Kolsky (please feel free to call him Kolsky) is the contributing editor of the Chicago Sports Review and the editor-in-chief of Serious Sports News Network. You can hear Kolsky live on Chicago's kookiest and most fun sports radio show, The Morning Break, on Fridays (from 10-Noon on WSBC 1240 AM). As you can see, he's very busy, but you can also send him email via serioussportsnewsnetwork@gmail.com, and it's entirely possible that he'll respond.

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6 Comments

1. Nice analysis. I would choose 3. This group is better than they showed last year..

   Comment by Tom on July 1, 2008

2. I don’t think Elton Brand would be bad at all. I’m not delusional enough to think he makes them a championship contender, but he does make them a playoff team. As long as they don’t go anywhere near Krstic…

   Comment by David Lister on July 1, 2008

3. Agreed, Brand would be a good addition to the team.

   Comment by Abuna on July 1, 2008

4. You are being way too critical on Joakim Noah. I think that, as a rookie, he has shown himself to be an invaluable asset to the team; he hustles, plays a nasty defense and is one of the sparkplugs for the Bulls. Give him a little more seasoning and maturation, and he will be an outstanding NBA player.

   Comment by Harley Weeswax on July 1, 2008

5. The gist of your article might be right in that NBA contract/salary cap rules make it hard to make desired changes so sometimes you just have to wait for players contracts to expire and that might be what the Bulls have to do. However you are very wrong in one area, the oft discussed guard glut does clearly exist and will be an issue if the Bulls don’t address it. All you have to do is look at the numbers to realize it won’t work. You have 96 minutes a game combined at the 2 guard spots. Your example has Sefalosha playing some minutes at SF. Even if we go to the extreme and say Sefalosha has zero minutes at guard and gets all his minutes at SF and lets say the Bulls bring Rose along slowly and he plays only 20 minutes a game (He’s likely to play a little more than that) that still leaves only 76 minutes a game for Hinrich, Gordon and Hughes combined (about 25 minutes a game each) none of those guys would be happy playing only 25 minutes a game and if two of those guys end up playing closer to 28-32 minutes per game and Rose is at about 22-25 minutes per game (a more likely scenario)that only leaves 10-15 minutes per game for either Hinrich,Gordon or Hughes. If the Bulls don’t make a move expect to see a lot of three guard rotations/small lineups and/or unhappy faces on the bench.

   Comment by Mike on July 2, 2008

6. Mike -
   An interesting commentary, certainly, and I think you’re right about one thing - there will be some unhappy faces. I guess when I say the perceived glut of guards doesn’t exist, it’s because i don’t see Hinrich OR Gordon as NBA starters. I think Hinrich is best used as a 15-20 minute player, and Gordon is your sixth man averaging in the neighborhood of 25. That leaves plenty of minutes for Hughes if you’re bringing Rose along slowly. Gordon, Hinrich and Hughes might not be thrilled about their reduced roles, but at some point you have to realize that this is going to be your role in the NBA. Could Hinrich play more than 20 mpg for a team and succeed? Probably, but I think he and Gordon are both better-suited for smaller roles, and I don’t think it’s any secret that Hughes will be out of town as soon as Paxson can find a taker, so who really cares if he’s unhappy? Maybe I shouldn’t have said the glut of guards doesn’t exist - maybe a better way of putting it would be that I don’t see it as a problem.

   Comment by Kolsky on July 3, 2008

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