Chicago Bulls Offseason Thread

Here's an interview of KC Johnson. Unlike his reporting in the Tribune and his tweets, he actually voices his opinion which I thought was refreshing.

Interview Here


Edit:

The segment concerning Thibs' contract was the most concerning for me.
 
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dmbrhs said:
Yep. They're not going to do anything this season except shed contracts and focus on the future. Rose, Noah, Taj and Deng are part of that. Everyone else is expendable.
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Noah and Deng are definitely expendable as they spent part of the summer shopping Deng and Noah has come up in convos as well. The ONLY person safe on the Bulls is Rose and if they don't have it together in the next 5 years don't be surprised if he leaves.
 
CurtisCarter23 said:
i just dont see how the bulls cant get involved in these Dhoward deals??
Bulls: Andrew Bynum
Orlando:Noah and bulls first rounders (including Bobcats pick)
LA: howard and a bad contract
The bulls have to get creative somehow. Management is really pissing me off.
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This would help the Bulls get Noah contract off the books and Bynum would be a free agent after the season anyhow so financially it would be a win for the Bulls.
 
Have y'all been watching the summer league games god damn it's some bums on our team only person I seen do anything was.....Jimmy everybody else has been shooting piss poor
 
well I sure hope they ink belinelli so I can feel content with one thing they did this summer
 
Waiting for another summer for free agents who will most likely not sign with the Bulls is a waste of time. You've tried it twice before, what makes you think it's going to work this time?
 
Nazr Mohammed to sign with Bulls
According to Peter Vecsey, Nazr Mohammed agreed to sign with the Bulls, meaning that the Asik days are likely over.
 
Good to see Pooh coming along on his rehab and addressing the fans.

The Nazr signing seems to confirm that the Bulls will not be matching that "ridiculous" offer from Houston.
Hopefully the FO is looking at the bigger picture and are looking to reload/revamp this team for "13-14" season.
 

Bulls' decisions this summer sure have a financial feel to them
Forman will contend moves have been basketball decisions

By K.C. Johnson, Tribune reporter

8:57 p.m. CDT, July 22, 2012
General manager Gar Forman stared into the cameras and microphones on NBA draft night and uttered a phrase that Bulls fans have clung to throughout free agency.

"Our decisions this summer will be basketball decisions, not financial decisions," Forman said.

Omer Asik's $5 million salary is on the verge of disappearing in favor of Nazr Mohammed's $1.4 million salary. Kyle Korver's $5 million salary has become Vladimir Radmanovic's minimum deal. Ronnie Brewer walked for nothing, replaced by Jimmy Butler, who is still on his rookie deal and sat out Sunday's summer-league finale because of injury as the Bulls finished 1-5 following a 113-68 pasting by the Bucks.

The Bulls did spend money on Kirk Hinrich to replace C.J. Watson and appear close to signing Marco Bellinelli to augment a bench that also lost John Lucas III. But with the Bulls finally receiving Asik's three-year, $25.1 million offer sheet from the Rockets on Sunday, the writing is on the wall.

In the wake of Derrick Rose's knee injury, the Bulls have made their decisions. Whether they are interpreted as basketball or financial is in the eye of the beholder.

On the one hand, the Bulls will enter luxury-tax territory for the first time in franchise history. But they will do so after letting Asik walk for nothing, an asset Forman repeatedly said he would match any offer for throughout last season.

Plus, the team's biggest star beyond Rose in posting the NBA's best record in back-to-back seasons was its depth, its Bench Mob. That unit, save for Taj Gibson, whose extension is next on the docket, has been dismantled.

Management will say its financial decisions are cloaked in basketball reasons. With Rose out until likely March, next season is a treading-water season. So instead of depth being the secondary star, the Bulls hope to add a legitimate one alongside Rose.

With Hinrich, Belinelli, Radmanovic and Mohammed all signing short-term deals, the plan to clear major salary-cap space in 2014 will remain intact. That's also when Luol Deng's contract expires, Nikola Mirotic could come over from Real Madrid and Carlos Boozer likely will be a victim of the amnesty provision.

But there are no guarantees in free agency, as the 2010 pursuit of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh proved. Plus, the Bulls have sold hope and financial flexibility before — remember when the non-guaranteed deals of Watson and Brewer were billed as trade chips? — and failed to act.

Something to watch closely for whether this makeover is basketball- or financial-based will be if the Bulls cash in the $5 million trade exception acquired in the Korver trade to the Hawks.

If the Bulls sign Hinrich to any portion of the midlevel exception and Belinelli to the biannual exception, their payroll can't exceed $74.3 million. Thus, matching Asik would be impossible.

And the 2012-13 roster would look like this:

Guards: Rose, Hinrich, Belinelli, Richard Hamilton, Marquis Teague.

Forwards: Deng, Boozer, Gibson, Butler, Radmanovic.

Centers: Joakim Noah, Mohammed.

That's roughly $73.3 million of committed salaries, with $1 million left to spend on a non-guaranteed deal like big man Malcolm Thomas or point guards Patrick Beverley orE'Twaun Moore.

It will be intriguing to monitor whether the Bulls take until their three-day deadline to announce their decision on Asik. Though the Bulls didn't formally receive the offer sheet until Sunday, the Rockets received from the league a 10:59 p.m. Central time Tuesday deadline because attempts to deliver were made on Saturday.

Typically, teams take the full period to tie up the other team's salary-cap situation. But the Bulls have no longer given any indications they will match. And though they haven't let the Rockets know their plans, league sources said Rockets management is under the impression they will land Asik.

Mohammed's imminent signing screams as much. And the debate over basketball or financial decisions will rage on as well.

[email protected]

Twitter @kcjhoop
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AlBooBoo said:
[h3]Bulls Close To Contract With Marco Belinelli[/h3]



The Bulls are close to reaching a deal with Marco Belinelli.
Belinelli signed the qualifying offer with the Hornets last season.


 
ViaK.C. Johnson/Chicago Tribune
Read more:http://basketball.realgm.com/wireta...o_Contract_With_Marco_Belinelli#ixzz21T9S2DS1
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only move aside from the Kirk move that ive liked all offseason.... ill be a lil happy if they sign Malcom Thomas too... him & taj off the bench could be nice
 
ColdCity said:
AlBooBoo said:
[h3]Bulls Close To Contract With Marco Belinelli[/h3]



The Bulls are close to reaching a deal with Marco Belinelli.
Belinelli signed the qualifying offer with the Hornets last season.


 
ViaK.C. Johnson/Chicago Tribune
Read more:http://basketball.realgm.com/wireta...o_Contract_With_Marco_Belinelli#ixzz21T9S2DS1
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only move aside from the Kirk move that ive liked all offseason.... ill be a lil happy if they sign Malcom Thomas too... him & taj off the bench could be nice
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The Chicago Bulls officially announced Monday the Kirk Hinrich signing that the Tribune reported on July 8.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...unce-hinrich-signing-20120723,0,1279495.story

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Source confirms Marco Bellinelli’s deal with the Bulls is done. Also: Bulls attempting to sign summer-leaguer Malcolm Thomas to 1-year deal.

... Sam also says the Bulls are still going after free agent Randy Foye.


http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/07/23/report-marco-belinelli-to-bulls-deal-done/

ok cool .... i need them 2k rosters to be updated now so i can see if we can still cook with out DR1...... Marco & Val can both shoot... & like i said i like malcom thomas he will def get some burn... either behind or alongside Taj... not sure about the possible foye over thomas signing
 
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jimmy and malcom make all summer-l squad

chi will be wearing black w pinstirpes as well something like this monochrome joint

700
 
Loss of Omer Asik another reason Bulls likely to take step back in the East
Zach Lowe - The Point Forward Blog
http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/07/24/omer-asik-bulls-rockets/

The Bulls have agreed to terms with both Kirk Hinrich and Marco Belinelli, and in the process surrendered Omer Asik to the Rockets via a back-loaded offer sheet, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. Thus ends a puzzling offseason for Chicago, back-to-back regular-season champions of the Eastern Conference who now appear a bit further behind Miami — the measuring stick now for any would-be title contender — than they were before Derrick Rose blew out his knee in the April playoff opener.

This is clearly a financial choice for the Bulls, who will nonetheless pay the luxury tax for the first time in franchise history. Chicago’s new guys — Hinrich, Belinelli, Vladimir Radmanovic, Nazr Mohammed and first-round pick Marquis Teague — will collectively earn something along the lines of $7.5 million less than the departed Bulls crew of Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, C.J. Watson and Asik would have made under their various options and offer sheets. Chicago, in theory, could have kept Asik, Watson and one of the Korver/Brewer duo and been in the same financial ballpark. However, the 2012-13 tax hit would have been a bit worse, and Asik’s deal would have been a tax killer in 2014-15; the Turkish big man would have counted for about $15 million on Chicago’s cap for that season, leaving the Bulls with about $62 million committed to just four players — Asik, Rose, Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer.

You’ll notice that the last two of those are Chicago’s starting big men. That gets at the heart of the real issue here: When you’re paying two big men in their respective primes the kind of money Chicago is paying Noah and Boozer, you really shouldn’t be fretting about the fourth big man on your roster (Taj Gibson, of course, is No. 3). Just for kicks, I looked back at the postseason rotations of every conference finalist from 2003-04 through last season and found just a hair more than half of those teams didn’t even feature a fourth traditional big man as part of their regular rotations. Digging deeper, the lack of need for a fourth big stemmed from a few key factors beyond the very basic need for good health among the core bigs:

• Having at least one big man capable of playing 40 minutes per game. If a team had one of these guys — a prime Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Amar’e Stoudemire or Shaquille O’Neal — they had little need to go beyond the third big on the depth chart. This rule also generally applied if teams had two quality big man capable of logging at least 35 minutes per night, though a couple of such teams — the 2003-04 Pistons and the 2010-11 Bulls — represent small exceptions, with fourth bigs (Mehmet Okur and Asik) who managed to (barely) snag double-digit minutes despite quality at the top of the roster.

In general terms, teams that required some heavy lifting from a fourth big man lacked a power forward or center capable of going for something like 38 minutes per game — or two such players that could credibly play 32-35 minutes. The LeBron-era Cavaliers, 2006-07 Spurs and 2007-08/2009-10 Celtics stand as good examples of teams that needed regular minutes from a fourth big man in order to compensate for the limitations of one or more starters.

• The roster versatility to “go small,” with a traditional small forward shifting to power forward. We saw this most dramatically with the Heat and Thunder last season, but a bunch of teams over the last decade have cobbled together a “fourth” big man by combining short stretches of small-ball and a tiny patchwork of minutes from a fourth and fifth “traditional” big man. And just to be clear, several teams didn’t even need to go small in order to keep the fourth big man glued to the bench; the Pistons of 2005-06 and 2007-08, and the Lakers of 2009-10, represent a few examples of teams that played “big” virtually all the time and nonetheless relied on only three traditional big men for just about all meaningful power forward/center minutes.

The real issue with the Bulls is that they haven’t been talented or creative enough to go either of these routes consistently, which is why Asik’s loss will sting. Boozer, notwithstanding one insane All-Defense vote, is a minus defender with lead feet that make him prone to hopeless reaching on the pick-and-roll and otherwise, and he has thus failed to earn head coach Tom Thibodeau’s trust as a consistent crunch-time option. Joakim Noah has (mostly) earned that trust, but he hasn’t emerged as a consistent enough offensive player on a team with occasionally serious spacing issues that Thibodeau absolutely has to have him out there at money time. That has combined to turn the Asik/Gibson combination into a two-man defensive hellfire and rebounding machine Thibodeau has often used for extended fourth-quarter minutes.

The Bulls last season allowed about 95 points per 100 possessions and rebounded about 32 percent their own misses — both top-three overall marks. They have been neck-and-neck with Boston over the last two seasons as the league’s stingiest defense. That defense and their offensive rebounding have reached historically nutty levels with Asik and Gibson together; the Bulls with those two on the floor last season rebounded 35 percent of their own misses and allowed an astounding 86 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would be the best in league history by a long shot — so good no team could possibly sustain it over a full season.

They have needed Asik more than they should have, and they will miss him. Mohammed, presumably the fourth big, is a sieve on defense, and Radmanovic is a useful small-ball-ish power forward who will struggle for time against an ultra-quick and deeper Miami team.

They will also miss Asik in part because Thibodeau has ditched small-ball aside from a very effective stretch early in the 2010-11 season, when Luol Deng played significant minutes at power forward as both Noah and then Boozer dealt with major injuries. Chicago’s guard and wing rotation just hasn’t been reliable enough, in Thibodeau’s eyes, to justify that play — not even against the small-ish Heat in the 2011 conference finals. The Watson/Rose combination brought some size issues. Korver provided precious spacing but needed to be hidden on defense. Brewer was an ace on defense, fully capable of guarding small forwards, but his lack of shooting crunched Chicago’s spacing, and he represented the only reliable back-up for Deng. Deng is an ironman, but he has to rest sometime, and that limited Thibodeau’s ability to play Deng and Brewer together.

The signing of Richard Hamilton last season was supposed to provide even more wing depth, but he was never healthy enough for Chicago to really test all the possibilities.

The Bulls, in theory, should be able to survive the loss of Asik by leaning more on their top three big men and engineering a bit more roster versatility. But “in theory” may not apply to reality. The additions of Belinelli and Hinrich, the latter a combo guard much more than a point guard, and the continued development of Jimmy Butler might help in this regard. Hinrich brings more size to the Watson role, and Belinelli is a good three-point shooter with just enough ball-handling and passing skills to keep defenses honest (and to convince Belinelli its OK for him to launch off-the-dribble 20-footers on the pick-and-roll). But Hirnich can’t shoot, Belinelli is probably a slight minus overall on defense, Hamilton is only getting older and more fragile, and Butler is unproven on the NBA level despite a strong showing in Las Vegas during the NBA’s summer league. Butler also remains the only viable back-up for Deng.

Overall, this feels like a backward step for the Bulls before even considering how much time Rose and Deng might miss next season due to injuries. They won’t have cap space to correct it next summer, either, though they could carve out some by using the amnesty clause on Boozer and further thinning out the front court; Chicago as of now has about $63 million committed for 2013-14, not including the full amount of Hamilton’s deal or a cap hold for Gibson, who will be a free agent after this season. That puts Chicago over the cap and likely close enough to the tax line to take the full mid-level exception out of play.

As for Houston, they are probably overpaying here, but it’s not as bad an overpay as those unfamiliar with Asik might think. Big men get paid — the Sixers will pay Spencer Hawes and Kwame Brown $12.5 million combined next season — and unlike some of those big men getting paid, Asik has two proven elite skills — defense and rebounding. He won’t able to do either at quite the same level in extended minutes, but big men who can defend at a high level beyond just taking up space are enormously valuable.

And Houston’s cap situation is so clean they can withstand an overpay here. The Rockets will have only about $24 million in guaranteed money on the books for 2013-14, putting them in comfortable position to offer a max contract and much more next summer. (That doesn’t include cheap options on Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris or Chandler Parsons). Even now, with Asik and Jeremy Lin on board, their 2012-13 cap figure is only around $49 million, leaving them about $9 million of space. Combine that with Kevin Martin’s expiring deal and some outgoing salaries tied to first- and second-year players, and they could still take back Jason Richardson or Glen Davis from Orlando in a Dwight Howard deal. And it wouldn’t take much work to carve out enough space to add Chris Duhon or Quentin Richardson. The Howard story, as always, drones on.
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The Chicago Bulls have reconstructed their roster, once again

By Kelly Dwyer | Ball Don't Lie – 9 hours ago

With news hitting on Tuesday that the Chicago Bulls are preparing to decline to match Houston's contract offer to restricted free agent Omer Asik, the team's miserable offseason is just about complete. They've done absolutely everything right, in a very real sense, and everything miserably. The Chicago Bulls will finally pay the luxury tax*, in 2012-13, so that the team will be able to point and yell "SEE?!?" when you call the organization's ownership group cheap. They've dismantled the core — and, make no mistake, this is THE CORE — of the team that put together the league's best record from 2010 through last April with enough caveats and excuses in place to completely get away with it.

This is what they always do. Spend enough to skirt complete and total criticism. Leave enough not entirely unreasonable influences and timing issues to help you understand. Leave it so the moves in a vacuum — taking apart that bench just to save money — that seem so abhorrent are easily argued with a nice pull quote from a team employee or sound bite in a call-in radio show from the team's owner. You don't need to be an NBA junkie to shake your head at the team's moves, but the Bulls' front office makes it so you don't need to be an NBA salary capologist to understand their impetus behind those moves. The fair-weather fan can be persuaded away from his anger in a manner of minutes, or space of two paragraphs.

They're clever, those Bulls. And they're going to be gone for a few years.


Yes, two years. Not just for 2012-13, as Derrick Rose sits for in upwards of 60 games as he recovers from a torn ACL. All of 2012-13 will be a wash, the Bulls will infer, as they decline to retain Kyle Korver (traded to Atlanta just days before the team was going to waive the last year of his contract, for a trade player exception the team will not use), C.J. Watson (team option declined, he's off to Brooklyn), or Ronnie Brewer (team option declined, he's off to New York).[=http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...tructed-roster-once-again-183945339--nba.html][/] Chicago won't straight up own to the fact that Rose's injury will wipe out its chances next season, it's under no obligation to, but reasonable analysts agree that Chicago was not retaining that tax-paying triptych even if Rose was healthy heading into his fifth season next year.

The Bulls won't even be fully back in 2013-14, when Rose roars back to full health (it often takes nearly a year following the return from ACL rehabilitation to regain full strength and explosiveness). That season's Bulls team will be stocked much as the upcoming season's Bulls team will be, full of one-year wonders not unlike the group Chicago put together in anticipation of the 2010 free-agent bonanza in 2009-10. Not until 2014-15, with Carlos Boozer amnestied off the team and Montenegrin wunderkind Nikola Mirotic in the fold, will Chicago set out to turn things around. Even then, with Luol Deng's contract expiring in the summer of 2014, the team might still play it cheap, while (with Mirotic and Taj Gibson replacing Boozer and Deng) winning heaps of games alongside Rose and center Joakim Noah.

Damn, they're good at this.

This doesn't mean we can't criticize. Replacing Korver, Brewer and Watson with three decidedly worse players in Vladimir Radmanovic, Marco Belinelli and Kirk Hinrich (and I still remain one of Hinrich's most ardent defenders) saved Chicago hundreds of thousands of dollars per player. Not "millions." Thousands. The team could have retained the crew, minus Asik's offer from Houston (which would have been a bargain to Chicago in the first two years and a cap killer in its third; no complaint here), and still paid the same miniscule amount of luxury tax while leaving flexibility with each player for next summer.

All while retaining the same crew that played so expertly when Rose and Deng missed a total of 39 games during last year's regular season.

Because the Bulls are the Bulls, and they're so damn smart, they'll boast enough depth to get away with this. Belinelli is a good enough shooter to keep you coming back to the well. Hinrich can defend well and make the simple pass, even if he doesn't take chances as a point guard and has turned into a miserable shooter both inside and out. Radmanovic looks like a shooter, even when he isn't doing it all that well. Second-year wing Jimmy Butler seems like the sort of athlete that can take over for Brewer. Nazr Mohammad isn't awful as a fourth big man. Nothing was going to happen this year, anyway. Taj Gibson is still around. There's still Mirotic. Rose had a good workout today, we'll note sometime in January. They're owed a lottery pick from Charlotte. More carrots, more sticks.

It's never the execution. It's the ideal. Overpaying on one end (with Ben Wallace, or Boozer) in order to decline to spend elsewhere (like, say, for the person who has done the best head coaching job of any in the business over the last two years). Declining to pay Ben Gordon in 2009, because he's Ben Gordon … but what if Ben Gordon was any good? Would the Bulls have stepped up, with Luol Deng's contract already on the books? Ah, but the team had 2010 to look forward to, and the potential for LeBron James! Always a reason.

There's always another year, and another plan, to look forward to while we wait for the definitive statement as to whether or not team owner Jerry Reinsdorf cares about the fortunes of the Chicago Bulls enough to spend a fortune on the team that has made him fortune after fortune even after the retirement of Michael Jordan.

There's always, "wait until the summer of 2000; because all the 1998 free agents re-signed with their own teams, the 1999 crew was junk and we just dealt Brent Barry for cap room that summer."

It's always, "wait until Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry learn to play alongside each other, because Elton Brand was never going to be able to fit in there, and we're sure his looming contract extension had NOTHING to do with us trading him to Los Angeles."

It's always, "wait until 2006, when we'll blind you with Ben Wallace's signing before trading Tyson Chandler's eight-figure contract for an expiring deal — an 'asset' we'll never end up using in a trade because that would add salary."

It's always, "wait until 2010, LeBron James! Carlos Boozer!"

Now the team will try to sell 2013-14, even if it's really selling 2014-15, even if the team doesn't really buy anything in the summer of 2014 outside of locking up Taj Gibson as he enters his 30s, and retaining Deng if his battered body even makes it that long. While adding Mirotic on a, you guessed it, rookie contract. All while playing competitive basketball, winning just enough to keep you coming back.

You did it again, Chicago Bulls, and for this you deserve my respect. I'll see you once more in 2015, when I attempt not to re-write this column for the sixth time.

*As Bulls fan and The Basketball Jones editor Trey Kerby points out, the Bulls won't actually pay the luxury tax unless they make it to the tax deadline at the end of the season with this payroll, so there's still time for ownership to avoid it.

Article Here[=http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...tructed-roster-once-again-183945339--nba.html][/]
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James Fegan ‏@JRFegan

Is the Bulls account going to RT this? RT @whitesox:"Basketball is a game. Baseball is a religion. Baseball is American." - Jerry Reinsdorf

Sox took it down but yea... As if we didn't know. :smh:
 
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