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Seen that and realized why I support both teams as lil as possible
Chicago Bulls Offseason Thread
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by sthebest,
- Start date
Lake Shore Drive
formerly slp product
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@ that Reinsdorf quote.
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What's up fellow NikeTalk Bulls fans,
My buddies and I have our own personal blog. We're all Bulls fans as well and just posted a collective piece about our thoughts and grades for the Bulls this off-season. It's too much text to post itself on the forum, but check it out if you guys are interested.
http://sixthandgreen.com/2012/07/25/grades-analysis-on-the-chicago-bulls-off-season/
In a nutshell, most of us did not have kind words for the Bulls org this year.
My buddies and I have our own personal blog. We're all Bulls fans as well and just posted a collective piece about our thoughts and grades for the Bulls this off-season. It's too much text to post itself on the forum, but check it out if you guys are interested.
http://sixthandgreen.com/2012/07/25/grades-analysis-on-the-chicago-bulls-off-season/
In a nutshell, most of us did not have kind words for the Bulls org this year.
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Last edited:
Bend_The_Knee
formerly gotholesinmysocks
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Really?! Nate Robinson 
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I'm mad I even read that garbage. The brass pushed him to write a pro bulls article... either that or he's a got damnit moron.
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I'm mad I even read that garbage. The brass pushed him to write a pro bulls article... either that or he's a got damnit moron.
I actually thought he did a decent job of not appearing to be an org mouthpiece. To me, he's questioning what the "2014 Plan" really is and has his doubts.Towards the end of the article I think he was writing from a more positive mindset. Of course, with this offseason having a "positive" mindset could be misconstrued as being delusional since this is clearly a lost season, not a hopeful one that the org is trying to spread to the fans
On a side note, I guess T-Mac will be signed soon?
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Omer Asik should still be a Bull (and Landry Fields should still be a Knick)
Written by Mark Deeks
Article Here
Written by Mark Deeks
Omer Asik is now officially a Rocket, his offer sheet (identical to that of Jeremy Lin's) going unmatched by Chicago. This gives Houston an absolute defensive wall at the centre position, someone who last year was one of the best defensive big men in the league. On a par with Dwight Howard and Tyson Chandler, albeit in considerably less time. We'll see how well this holds up when he becomes a 25mpg+ player outside of the comfort of Tom Thibodeau's defensive system; nevertheless, by paying him upon a highly favourable prediction of future performance, Houston got their guy, someone who can now break out akin to how Joel Przybilla did at the same age, if not better.
Asik's value to Houston is more than it would ever have been to Chicago, which is why an expense that is difficult to justify for one team is much easier to justify for the other. In a situation very similar to that of Marcin Gortat and Orlando three years ago, Chicago had an awesome backup centre, and knew it, yet the secret was out. And while Houston could pay Asik to be a starter, Chicago couldn't. Their self-imposed budgetary restrictions, combined with the presence of having a better player in front of him (and one with whom Asik has an ill-fitting skillset, making it unlikely the two could ever play alongside each other), made it a tough ask to match. While Carlos Boozer's contract is the problem, losing others is its solution, and with Taj Gibson similarly up for a pay day, the Bulls had to choose between the two. They went for the better two-way player.
The choice Chicago faced concerned whether to play $8.3 million to a season to a player you can only play 15 minutes per game until the guy in front of him gets injured (which, while he inevitably will, is arguably a misappropriation of the very limited asset that is the Bulls's financial flexibility), or lose a defensive anchor and a key piece of the thing that keeps you competitive. That's no choice at all, a lose-lose situation. However, it didn't have to be this way.
Asik was drafted in 2008 with the 36th pick in the draft; that is to say, he was not a first rounder. As a second rounder, Asik was not bound by the rookie salary scale - as long as you have the means to do so, you can pay second rounders whatever you want. They can get the maximum, in theory. In practice, of course, they often get the minimum. A combination of lack of leverage, team's prioritising of their exceptions elsewhere, and not normally being good enough to merit anything more, leads to most second round rookies getting the smallest possible amount. And that's if they get any contract at all.
The Minimum Salary Exception - which, as its name suggest, is a salary cap exception that allows you to sign (or trade for) players earning the minimum salary - is a maximum of two years in length. This limitation became an issue in the summer of 2004 when Gilbert Arenas, who had signed a two year deal via the MSE in 2002, hit free agency. Arenas signed a two year minimum salary contract using the MSE after being drafted, and then went on to be really quite good. As a result, he merited a big pay day. But the Warriors - over the cap and thus limited to the Early Bird exception, which offered only a contract that started at the value of the Mid-Level Exception - couldn't give it to him. So when Arenas signed an offer sheet with Washington that was higher than the value of the MLE, Golden State didn't have a salary cap exception with which they could match it. And thus they watched him walk.
[NB: Carlos Boozer, himself embroiled in an Arenas situation that summer, actually signed a three year deal using part of the MLE with a team option on the third year, one which Cleveland declined in the hopes of re-signing him long term cheaply. Similar, but significantly different.]
Arenas's situation highlighted a loophole in the system, one in which a team couldn't pay its own players as much as its competitors could. That's the very thing the "Bird Clock" allegory was supposed to solve. So a remedy was sought. In the CBA negotiations the following summer, the loophole was supposedly closed with the invention of what was subsequently known as the "Arenas provision." The specifics of its details are outside the remit here, but can be found at Larry ****'s CBA FAQ - essentially, it limits the amount certain free agents can be given, while giving the incumbent team the ability to pay it too.
In the first seven years since its invention, this provision was never used. The reasons for this are probably two-fold - firstly, more teams decided it was worth cracking off a chunk of their MLE to sign second rounders (or particularly impressive undrafted rookies) to three year contracts, and secondly, there just weren't as many viable candidates. The only one there may have been was Carl Landry in 2008, yet he managed only a three year $9 million contract, not nearly big enough to invoke the provision.
This summer, though, it's been used three times. Once on Lin, once on Asik, and once on Landry Fields. None of the three offers were matched when all of them could have been. But it is more important to note that at least two of them should never have been in this situation.
As stated above, the Minimum Salary Exception offers only a maximum of two years. But the Minimum Salary Exception is a salary cap exception, meaning it is only used by teams over the cap. Teams under the cap aren't bound by any limitations other than those conferred by the size of their cap space, and in 2010, the Bulls and Knicks (infamously) both had plenty of it.
The Knicks took care of most of their offseason business early, signing and trading for Amare Stoudemire, signing and trading away David Lee, and outright signing Raymond Felton. It is understandable that those were priorities. But even after those moves were down, the Knicks had some money to spend, and they did so on Roger Mason and Andy Rautins. Rautins signed for the kind of contract Fields should have done, a three year contract with a slight bonus above the minimum ($600,000) in the first year. And Mason signed for $1.4 million, an odd amount to give to a man you'll play ahead of Rautins, and whose minimum salary would have been $1,146,337, of which New York would have only been on the hook of $854,389. That was $550,000 they didn't really need to spend. Even after that, though, the Knicks were enough under the cap to sign Fields without needing the Minimum Salary Exception to do it. But for whatever reason, they didn't.
Meanwhile, Chicago's LeBron-less offseason saw them pay Asik two years and $3,578,500, after he had spent two more years since being drafted developing further in his native Turkey. They spent considerably above the minimum to bring over a player whose rights they had previously traded the equivalent of three picks to obtain in the first place - indisputably, then, they valued the player. They might not have known they had an elite defensive anchor on their hands, but they suspected that there was a chance, else they would not have gone to those lengths. The question, though, is why they didn't go one length further, Asik's contract called for no third year, not even an option, and now they're paying the price for that. The question of why such a coveted long term project was not signed long term is a valid one.
This all sounds a bit hindsighty, and that is unfortunately unavoidable. But it is a struggle to see what rationale existed for giving neither of the duo three year contracts. They have now lost valuable contributors they deemed to be of excessive cost when they could have initially been signed at a negligible cost, using only the cap room they already had. Whereas it could have cost very little, it has now cost an awful lot.
It is entirely possible that the respective players and agents demanded two year contracts, in anticipation of a big pay day in year three. This, while rare and risky, worked out absolutely bloody perfectly if it was indeed planned that way. Failing that, another tenuous explanation may have been the two team's respective desires to keep open 2012 salary flexibility, a policy that seemingly required as little committed salary as possible, even the small ones. Or maybe they just didn't value them that highly.
Whatever the logic or the circumstances, though, the two teams had the opportunity to retain these players THIS summer, two summers ago. And they didn't.
Asik's value to Houston is more than it would ever have been to Chicago, which is why an expense that is difficult to justify for one team is much easier to justify for the other. In a situation very similar to that of Marcin Gortat and Orlando three years ago, Chicago had an awesome backup centre, and knew it, yet the secret was out. And while Houston could pay Asik to be a starter, Chicago couldn't. Their self-imposed budgetary restrictions, combined with the presence of having a better player in front of him (and one with whom Asik has an ill-fitting skillset, making it unlikely the two could ever play alongside each other), made it a tough ask to match. While Carlos Boozer's contract is the problem, losing others is its solution, and with Taj Gibson similarly up for a pay day, the Bulls had to choose between the two. They went for the better two-way player.
The choice Chicago faced concerned whether to play $8.3 million to a season to a player you can only play 15 minutes per game until the guy in front of him gets injured (which, while he inevitably will, is arguably a misappropriation of the very limited asset that is the Bulls's financial flexibility), or lose a defensive anchor and a key piece of the thing that keeps you competitive. That's no choice at all, a lose-lose situation. However, it didn't have to be this way.
Asik was drafted in 2008 with the 36th pick in the draft; that is to say, he was not a first rounder. As a second rounder, Asik was not bound by the rookie salary scale - as long as you have the means to do so, you can pay second rounders whatever you want. They can get the maximum, in theory. In practice, of course, they often get the minimum. A combination of lack of leverage, team's prioritising of their exceptions elsewhere, and not normally being good enough to merit anything more, leads to most second round rookies getting the smallest possible amount. And that's if they get any contract at all.
The Minimum Salary Exception - which, as its name suggest, is a salary cap exception that allows you to sign (or trade for) players earning the minimum salary - is a maximum of two years in length. This limitation became an issue in the summer of 2004 when Gilbert Arenas, who had signed a two year deal via the MSE in 2002, hit free agency. Arenas signed a two year minimum salary contract using the MSE after being drafted, and then went on to be really quite good. As a result, he merited a big pay day. But the Warriors - over the cap and thus limited to the Early Bird exception, which offered only a contract that started at the value of the Mid-Level Exception - couldn't give it to him. So when Arenas signed an offer sheet with Washington that was higher than the value of the MLE, Golden State didn't have a salary cap exception with which they could match it. And thus they watched him walk.
[NB: Carlos Boozer, himself embroiled in an Arenas situation that summer, actually signed a three year deal using part of the MLE with a team option on the third year, one which Cleveland declined in the hopes of re-signing him long term cheaply. Similar, but significantly different.]
Arenas's situation highlighted a loophole in the system, one in which a team couldn't pay its own players as much as its competitors could. That's the very thing the "Bird Clock" allegory was supposed to solve. So a remedy was sought. In the CBA negotiations the following summer, the loophole was supposedly closed with the invention of what was subsequently known as the "Arenas provision." The specifics of its details are outside the remit here, but can be found at Larry ****'s CBA FAQ - essentially, it limits the amount certain free agents can be given, while giving the incumbent team the ability to pay it too.
In the first seven years since its invention, this provision was never used. The reasons for this are probably two-fold - firstly, more teams decided it was worth cracking off a chunk of their MLE to sign second rounders (or particularly impressive undrafted rookies) to three year contracts, and secondly, there just weren't as many viable candidates. The only one there may have been was Carl Landry in 2008, yet he managed only a three year $9 million contract, not nearly big enough to invoke the provision.
This summer, though, it's been used three times. Once on Lin, once on Asik, and once on Landry Fields. None of the three offers were matched when all of them could have been. But it is more important to note that at least two of them should never have been in this situation.
As stated above, the Minimum Salary Exception offers only a maximum of two years. But the Minimum Salary Exception is a salary cap exception, meaning it is only used by teams over the cap. Teams under the cap aren't bound by any limitations other than those conferred by the size of their cap space, and in 2010, the Bulls and Knicks (infamously) both had plenty of it.
The Knicks took care of most of their offseason business early, signing and trading for Amare Stoudemire, signing and trading away David Lee, and outright signing Raymond Felton. It is understandable that those were priorities. But even after those moves were down, the Knicks had some money to spend, and they did so on Roger Mason and Andy Rautins. Rautins signed for the kind of contract Fields should have done, a three year contract with a slight bonus above the minimum ($600,000) in the first year. And Mason signed for $1.4 million, an odd amount to give to a man you'll play ahead of Rautins, and whose minimum salary would have been $1,146,337, of which New York would have only been on the hook of $854,389. That was $550,000 they didn't really need to spend. Even after that, though, the Knicks were enough under the cap to sign Fields without needing the Minimum Salary Exception to do it. But for whatever reason, they didn't.
Meanwhile, Chicago's LeBron-less offseason saw them pay Asik two years and $3,578,500, after he had spent two more years since being drafted developing further in his native Turkey. They spent considerably above the minimum to bring over a player whose rights they had previously traded the equivalent of three picks to obtain in the first place - indisputably, then, they valued the player. They might not have known they had an elite defensive anchor on their hands, but they suspected that there was a chance, else they would not have gone to those lengths. The question, though, is why they didn't go one length further, Asik's contract called for no third year, not even an option, and now they're paying the price for that. The question of why such a coveted long term project was not signed long term is a valid one.
This all sounds a bit hindsighty, and that is unfortunately unavoidable. But it is a struggle to see what rationale existed for giving neither of the duo three year contracts. They have now lost valuable contributors they deemed to be of excessive cost when they could have initially been signed at a negligible cost, using only the cap room they already had. Whereas it could have cost very little, it has now cost an awful lot.
It is entirely possible that the respective players and agents demanded two year contracts, in anticipation of a big pay day in year three. This, while rare and risky, worked out absolutely bloody perfectly if it was indeed planned that way. Failing that, another tenuous explanation may have been the two team's respective desires to keep open 2012 salary flexibility, a policy that seemingly required as little committed salary as possible, even the small ones. Or maybe they just didn't value them that highly.
Whatever the logic or the circumstances, though, the two teams had the opportunity to retain these players THIS summer, two summers ago. And they didn't.
Article Here
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I'm mad I even read that garbage. The brass pushed him to write a pro bulls article... either that or he's a got damnit moron.
Towards the end of the article I think he was writing from a more positive mindset. Of course, with this offseason having a "positive" mindset could be misconstrued as being delusional since this is clearly a lost season, not a hopeful one that the org is trying to spread to the fans
On a side note, I guess T-Mac will be signed soon?
Hence its garbage spewed from a company mouthpiece because no sane person expects this team minus Pooh for the first 6 months to be a playoff team. Hell it isn't smart to expect them to become one as soon as he comes back. I'm not expecting him to be anywhere near his previous form until the same time NEXT season
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this year is a wash anyways with rose out for most of it. not sure whats all the crying about of every move we dont make.
if we sign tmac i take it that means deng IS getting the surgery for his wrist?
if we sign tmac i take it that means deng IS getting the surgery for his wrist?
h1n1proof
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Yeah, I don't get this eitherReally?! Nate Robinson
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You're missing the point. It's not crying about the moves that weren't made. It's being discouraged that this org unnecessarily hard-capped themselves, crippled their flexibility, and displayed an overall lack of creativity to try and use some of the bench mob assets that they had rather than letting some of them just walk away. They're hanging their hopes on attracting and signing a star free agent in 2014 and/or Mirotic coming over and panning out, along with Derrick being Derrick again. I have more confidence in the latter happening.
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He has more potential than JL3, and for the vet minimum he's not a bad acquisition. The question is if he can work with Thibs full time and blend in.
I think this also shows that Teague will sparingly get playing time this season.
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Yea i'm not mad about this pick up. That Teague draft still infuriates me, shows that we were inadequately prepared. There is no way he deserved to get drafted in the 1st round. I'm Sorry.
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Boozer gonna lead the team to the 2nd round. Big BOOZER! 
...Noah underrated too
...Noah underrated too
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yall really mad about the nate signing... when jliii was doing his best nate impression all season (aside form the excessive dribbling)
Nate will come in a fill it up
Nate will come in a fill it up
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Addendum to Teague story: the Bulls's salary cap picture, and how it came to be
Written by Mark Deeks
Article Here
Written by Mark Deeks
Article Here
When the new maximum salary figures came in, Derrick Rose's 2012/13 maximum salary contract went from $15,506,632 to $16,402,552, an increase of as-near-as-is $900,000. Luol Deng's salary went down by $60,000, but that barely offsets the increases, and it's an increase that put the Bulls right up against the "apron".
After all the roster turnover, the Bulls breakdown of 2012/13 salaries currently looks like this:
Derrick Rose: $16,402,552
Carlos Boozer: $15,000,000
Luol Deng: $13,305,000
Joakim Noah: $11,300,000
Richard Hamilton: $5,000,000
Kirk Hinrich: $3,941,000
Taj Gibson: $2,155,811
Marco Belinelli: $1,957,000
Jimmy Butler: $1,066,920
Nazr Mohammed: $854,389
Vladimir Radmanovic: $854,389
Nate Robinson: $854,389
Total: $72,691,450.
Only listed above is committed salary, not any cap holds. Cap holds aren't relevant at this juncture. What is relevant is how much the Bulls have left to spend.
The process by which the Bulls put together that roster is more important here than usual. The new CBA created a level, known colloquially as the 'apron', which subjects any team with a payroll above that level to further payroll restrictions. The line exists $4 million above the luxury tax threshold of $70,307,000, so the Bulls are not over it. It is more important to note, however, that there is absolutely no way they can now go over it, because of what they have done thus far.
The Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception cannot be used by teams over the apron, or by teams who would finish above the apron upon using it. Also, if you DO use it, you can't then go over the apron under any circumstances. The same is all also true of the Bi-Annual Exception. And the Bulls have used both - Hinrich received $3.941 million of the $5 million MLE, while Belinelli got the full BAE.
Proximity to the apron - which, it bears repeating, they CANNOT now go over - is now the Bulls's major problem. They have only $1,615,550 in room beneath it now, and with only 12 players under contract, they need more. This is doubly true in light of only having four big men, triply true in light of two of those four being incredibly injury prone historically, and quadrupley true in light of Rose missing most if not whole of next season. But adding more players is difficult because they just can't afford much.
Refer back now to the aforementioned Teague issue. The Bulls want to pay him less than what protocol mandates - whereas paying him 120% of his rookie scale would cost $1,028,400, 100% of it would cost only $857,000, whilst 80% of it would cost only $685,600. At the risk of stating the obvious, the less they give Teague, the more they can use to patch up the rest of the roster.
If Teague gets 120%, there's only $587,150 remaining; that's enough for a rookie minimum and two ten day contracts, and that's all. (And for what it's worth, the $473,604 rookie minimum will nonetheless count as $854,389 for tax purposes.) Until such time as Rip Hamilton is traded, the pinch is a tight one. Therein lies Teague's problem and the source of the conflict. The Bulls have much leverage with Teague that they don't have with others - if he wants to play in the NBA, he has to either play with Chicago, or, if not Chicago, spend a year out of basketball altogether for them to lose their exclusive rights. Chicago put themselves in a position where they needed to squeeze someone, and that someone was Teague.
It is not true to say, though, that the Bulls were forced to battle the apron. Were the above roster built via a different mechanism, they wouldn't have suffered from any spending limitations other than those they self-imposed. For the purposes of this post, we will ignore the basketball reasons WHY the Bulls gave Hinrich the contract that they did - as opposed to keeping the superior and cheaper C.J. Watson - and instead only look at how they could have done it.
To avoid having to pay him $500,000 in guaranteed compensation, the Bulls traded Kyle Korver to Atlanta in exchange for a nominal amount of cash. This is the same team from which they signed Hinrich. Had the Hawks signed-and-traded Hinrich for Korver, the Bulls wouldn't need to have used the MLE to sign Hinrich. The only negative difference in this outcome would have been the Bulls didn't create a TPE of $5 million, which they did in the real one. Yet it now matters not. The S&T was discussed, but it wasn't done.
Had the S&T been done, Belinelli could then have signed for his BAE amount using the non-taxpayer MLE to do so. If a team signs a player using the non-taxpayer MLE for an amount smaller than the taxpayer MLE, it is treated as though the taxpayer MLE was used instead, for the purposes of establishing whether or not the apron can be exceeded. (Put in practice, if you sign someone using the NTPMLE, but pay them less than $3.09 million in the first year, which is what the TPMLE is this year, you can still go over the apron.) Therefore, had Hinrich not taken the MLE, Belinelli could have done, and the whole thing would have been treated as though only the TPMLE was used, Chicago could sign as many minimum salaries as they have roster space, and give Teague 120% without any repercussions apart from the luxury tax incurred. But this is not what happened.
The Bulls could have had exactly the same roster without the TPE and without the hard cap that is the apron. They instead chose the TPE and thus burdened themselves with the hard cap. If the TPE from the Korver trade is used at some point (probably next July) to land a quality player that would have been otherwise unavailable, this makes sense. Yet as of right now, they aren't even able to freely use the minimum salary exception without consternation because of this process. This is what they chose. It is justified if the TPE becomes of some use, and not before.
Tom Thibodeau's salary has nothing to do with the salary cap, though. So just pay that guy.
After all the roster turnover, the Bulls breakdown of 2012/13 salaries currently looks like this:
Derrick Rose: $16,402,552
Carlos Boozer: $15,000,000
Luol Deng: $13,305,000
Joakim Noah: $11,300,000
Richard Hamilton: $5,000,000
Kirk Hinrich: $3,941,000
Taj Gibson: $2,155,811
Marco Belinelli: $1,957,000
Jimmy Butler: $1,066,920
Nazr Mohammed: $854,389
Vladimir Radmanovic: $854,389
Nate Robinson: $854,389
Total: $72,691,450.
Only listed above is committed salary, not any cap holds. Cap holds aren't relevant at this juncture. What is relevant is how much the Bulls have left to spend.
The process by which the Bulls put together that roster is more important here than usual. The new CBA created a level, known colloquially as the 'apron', which subjects any team with a payroll above that level to further payroll restrictions. The line exists $4 million above the luxury tax threshold of $70,307,000, so the Bulls are not over it. It is more important to note, however, that there is absolutely no way they can now go over it, because of what they have done thus far.
The Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception cannot be used by teams over the apron, or by teams who would finish above the apron upon using it. Also, if you DO use it, you can't then go over the apron under any circumstances. The same is all also true of the Bi-Annual Exception. And the Bulls have used both - Hinrich received $3.941 million of the $5 million MLE, while Belinelli got the full BAE.
Proximity to the apron - which, it bears repeating, they CANNOT now go over - is now the Bulls's major problem. They have only $1,615,550 in room beneath it now, and with only 12 players under contract, they need more. This is doubly true in light of only having four big men, triply true in light of two of those four being incredibly injury prone historically, and quadrupley true in light of Rose missing most if not whole of next season. But adding more players is difficult because they just can't afford much.
Refer back now to the aforementioned Teague issue. The Bulls want to pay him less than what protocol mandates - whereas paying him 120% of his rookie scale would cost $1,028,400, 100% of it would cost only $857,000, whilst 80% of it would cost only $685,600. At the risk of stating the obvious, the less they give Teague, the more they can use to patch up the rest of the roster.
If Teague gets 120%, there's only $587,150 remaining; that's enough for a rookie minimum and two ten day contracts, and that's all. (And for what it's worth, the $473,604 rookie minimum will nonetheless count as $854,389 for tax purposes.) Until such time as Rip Hamilton is traded, the pinch is a tight one. Therein lies Teague's problem and the source of the conflict. The Bulls have much leverage with Teague that they don't have with others - if he wants to play in the NBA, he has to either play with Chicago, or, if not Chicago, spend a year out of basketball altogether for them to lose their exclusive rights. Chicago put themselves in a position where they needed to squeeze someone, and that someone was Teague.
It is not true to say, though, that the Bulls were forced to battle the apron. Were the above roster built via a different mechanism, they wouldn't have suffered from any spending limitations other than those they self-imposed. For the purposes of this post, we will ignore the basketball reasons WHY the Bulls gave Hinrich the contract that they did - as opposed to keeping the superior and cheaper C.J. Watson - and instead only look at how they could have done it.
To avoid having to pay him $500,000 in guaranteed compensation, the Bulls traded Kyle Korver to Atlanta in exchange for a nominal amount of cash. This is the same team from which they signed Hinrich. Had the Hawks signed-and-traded Hinrich for Korver, the Bulls wouldn't need to have used the MLE to sign Hinrich. The only negative difference in this outcome would have been the Bulls didn't create a TPE of $5 million, which they did in the real one. Yet it now matters not. The S&T was discussed, but it wasn't done.
Had the S&T been done, Belinelli could then have signed for his BAE amount using the non-taxpayer MLE to do so. If a team signs a player using the non-taxpayer MLE for an amount smaller than the taxpayer MLE, it is treated as though the taxpayer MLE was used instead, for the purposes of establishing whether or not the apron can be exceeded. (Put in practice, if you sign someone using the NTPMLE, but pay them less than $3.09 million in the first year, which is what the TPMLE is this year, you can still go over the apron.) Therefore, had Hinrich not taken the MLE, Belinelli could have done, and the whole thing would have been treated as though only the TPMLE was used, Chicago could sign as many minimum salaries as they have roster space, and give Teague 120% without any repercussions apart from the luxury tax incurred. But this is not what happened.
The Bulls could have had exactly the same roster without the TPE and without the hard cap that is the apron. They instead chose the TPE and thus burdened themselves with the hard cap. If the TPE from the Korver trade is used at some point (probably next July) to land a quality player that would have been otherwise unavailable, this makes sense. Yet as of right now, they aren't even able to freely use the minimum salary exception without consternation because of this process. This is what they chose. It is justified if the TPE becomes of some use, and not before.
Tom Thibodeau's salary has nothing to do with the salary cap, though. So just pay that guy.
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For the believers in the "2014 plan", da Bulls will have to compete with ORL for any marquee free agents. They'll have the cap space.
da r entertainment
Supporter
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I've come to the conclusion that NO MATTER WHAT the Bulls do fans will NEVER be happy with the moves.
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Now Chicago definitely needs to shed Deng, amnesty Boozer and have a terrible record this season. This team, at full health, cannot beat the Lakers, Heat, or Thunder in a series. If the team doesn't do this, no championship for the foreseeable future. Heck, making it to the ECF will be tough.
The Bulls need to figure out how to get a perennial All-Star to pair with Rose and Noah. That is all.
The Bulls need to figure out how to get a perennial All-Star to pair with Rose and Noah. That is all.
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^Therein lies the rub, in your last sentence. Any of the 2014 free agents? KLove in a few years, maybe?
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I could see Love coming to the bulls. He is good friend with Rose and the both have discussed about playing together. We could use Gibson making this deal. We would have to amnesty boozer and trade Deng.
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When you see what happening with other teams in major markets and then you look at the track record of our team... What is there to be happy or excited about? Seriously...
God Gave Us Pooh. What else have they done. This is a question I'd like a serious answer to.