Update PG 4: Patrick Williams OUT For Season

[League Circles]

He'll have leverage if another team steps in and offers him a decent deal. If not, then I agree with you.

No doubt about it. But all we can do today is make predictions. That scenario is now far less likely.

And despite that, Pat was already in a position in which he still needed to build on the strong stretch of games he had post-Lavine in order for us to reasonably fear that scenario. And rather than building on it, he got injuries to both feet separately, his play clearly declined, and now he's undergoing season ending surgery.

Another thing to keep in mind regarding leverage is that the Bulls don't have many options at power forward if he leaves. Who would start next year? Torrey Craig (if he opts in to his contract)?

I don't know the cap well enough, but if PW leaves, and they re-sign DDR, does that mean they might have enough money to re-sign Drummond? Or no? If not, that means they need a PF and a backup C. They could draft one, but I'd rather they go BPA rather than worry about positional needs.

Having said all this...they shouldn't sign PW to a bad contract simply because they have no better options.

Well, there's a 40% chance that BPA in the draft will be a 4/5, and without Patrick they could use the MLE to sign a guy. Plus there is Phillips, Craig if he opts in, and the plausibility of trading Caruso, Zach, or Vuc in a deal that brings back a 4/5.

[DuckIII]

It's not clear to me that the Bulls will have more leverage, because NBA GMs will be thinking like Duck is: "Hmmm, we can get that guy for less money now." True, he is less valuable because of the injury but also cheaper, which will give more teams the chance to take a flier. So I don't see why hurt Pat will attract fewer offers than healthy Pat.

But it will cost the Bulls less to match those offers, that is true.

To be clear, I’m not saying he won’t get offers. I’m saying it’s far more likely now that the offers he does get will still be far less valuable than what they would have been.

And that is inherently good. But the FO still has to be smart, despite generally being incredibly stupid.

[CROBulls]

I voted for MLE but I would not even give him that now. I was in morning in good will

[dougthonus]

And that is inherently good. But the FO still has to be smart, despite generally being incredibly stupid.

I said it appears to me that you only are thinking about cost and not value. You said you aren't that stupid and seemed quite offended about the point I was making. Yet, again, you are stating the premise that lower cost is inherently good which is only half the equation.

It's only good if the cost drops by more than the value drops, and there's really no meaningful basis for an assumption in either direction since how much either drops are both unknowns. It may be that cost does not meaningfully drop at all or that value drops tremendously or that cost drops a lot and value stays the same. We have no idea about what this news means on either side of the equation, we can only make the rough guess that both will go down and even that may not be accurate.