Non-sarcastic reasons to stand pat at the trade deadline Edit: And that’s what happened

[Evil_Headband]

What do you got? I hope this is not a debating thread. I know virtually everyone thinks there should at least be a reset if not a full rebuild. I’m included in that group. However, I think there can be logic in decisions I don’t personally agree with and it doesn’t mean those who disagree (AKME/ownership possibly) are idiots. I hope we can discuss that here.

Some things that come to mind:

Current vets are valuable for leadership.
The team has played better since the terrible start.
Possible trade returns may not be good enough.
If they make the play-in, anything can happen.
If the team were ever healthy, they would be better.

[Andi Obst]

Possible trade returns may not be good enough.

That's the only argument I could see, especially against a DeMar trade. The offers might be so bad that losing DeMar for nothing isn't much worse. I'm confident that the offers for Caruso are gooood, though.

If they make the play-in, anything can happen.
If the team were ever healthy, they would be better.

[FriedRise]

- Being where we are checks most of the boxes (in terms of non-basketball related metrics like ticket sales, merch, attendance, etc.) - so why change what's technically working?
- Over reliance on league parity - believing that there's not much of a difference in terms of talent between a playoff and a play-in team and how a couple key injuries can change the outcome of a season/series
- Fear of the unknown - FO rather sticking with what they know (value contracts like Caruso, Drummond, DeRozan) vs investing for the scary unknown future
- Over reliance on cherry-picked stretches of games where the team looked like a legit contender while ignoring the rest

[Ice Man]

Pretty much all the proposed trades involve offering players who can contribute now (Caruso, DDR, and Zach if we expand "now" to mean next season) for players who are either not so good now (prospects) or who do not yet exist (draft picks).

That is, the team will almost certainly get worse than its current .500 status. And there's no guarantee of when it may get back to the .500 level.

I know that everybody here is thinking, "Fine I will take that chance, anything but this," but not every organization will necessarily share that viewpoint. Particularly as the Bulls already went through this process 6 1/2 years ago, and failed after doing so.

[HomoSapien]

I don’t think we should stand pat, but the two reasons are:

1.) We are not being offered anything of real value towards a rebuild.

2.) We believe that we will actually be a playoff team, which we are slowly trending towards.

I hope we are talking with Drummond about his future. If he’s not signaling that he’d resign next season, we have to shop him hard. Assuming a first round pick isn’t available, my preference is to resign him to a cheap multi year deal. That said, as much as I love the guy we absolutely cannot keep him for just a half season playoff run.

[Wingy]

- Being where we are checks most of the boxes (in terms of non-basketball related metrics like ticket sales, merch, attendance, etc.) - so why change what's technically working?
- Over reliance on league parity - believing that there's not much of a difference in terms of talent between a playoff and a play-in team and how a couple key injuries can change the outcome of a season/series
- Fear of the unknown - FO rather sticking with what they know (value contracts like Caruso, Drummond, DeRozan) vs investing for the scary unknown future
- Over reliance on cherry-picked stretches of games where the team looked like a legit contender while ignoring the rest

I think E H meant real reasons, not AK’s delusional reasons, which you’ve done a nice job summarizing btw.

I’ve really got nothing.

Even the vet leadership card is overplayed. Our youngsters are a bunch of unselfish, team first guys who have been exposed to good pros for most of their young careers. I don’t think another season is going to make any kind of material difference for Ayo, Pat, Coby.

[Wingy]

I don’t think we should stand pat, but the two reasons are:

1.) We are not being offered anything of real value towards a rebuild.

2.) We believe that we will actually be a playoff team, which we are slowly trending towards.

I hope we are talking with Drummond about his future. If he’s not signaling that he’d resign next season, we have to shop him hard. Assuming a first round pick isn’t available, my preference is to resign him to a cheap multi year deal. That said, as much as I love the guy we absolutely cannot keep him for just a half season playoff run.

1. Completely illogical vs everything we can obviously see (ultra competitive league with no invincible favorite), and everything we’ve heard (too many buyers - AK last year, Woj earlier this year).

2. Delusional. We are about to get a rude, rude awakening the next ~15 games.

We have the 10th toughest remaining SoS.

[ChettheJet]

Some things that come to mind:

Current vets are valuable for leadership.
The team has played better since the terrible start.
Possible trade returns may not be good enough.
If they make the play-in, anything can happen.
If the team were ever healthy, they would be better.

yes it's debatable

They have a VERY veteran team. Coby has stepped up and Patrick still tends to defer to Demar, Ayo came in a a 3 year college guy and has been a starter. Phillips is only now seeing minutes. Otherwise, Demar, Zach, Vuc, Caruso, Craig, Carter, Andre ain't no kids. If they haven't taken to the leadership of the current roster they aren't going to start the last half of this year.

They started to play better without Zach after the bad start. Very often a team picks up for a while when they get new coach, sometimes when the stars are out for a game the bench guys come alive. But it's always temporary

Trade returns right now can be taking advantage of teams expecting to go eep in the playoffs needing someone to take that step. Sometimes that's a injury to a key guy sometimes it's a guy they brought in at the start of the season just isn't providing a boost on either end. Desperation is motivation. Come June teams will be looking at FAs and lofty expectations are assigned to even 2nd round picks, right or wrong.

Scrapping in the play in aims them straight at the #1 or 2 seed, no reality is nothing can happen.

If like me you dream that Lonzo will be in camp playing, you might as well forget trading Zach because he'll be back full speed and not suffering any other injury. You're resigning a 35 year old Demar who doesn't start to break down, Patrick is in the fold and doesn't have any more nagging injuries. Caruso stays and doesn't bounce off the floor the wrong way, again. Then name the next 5 guys you're counting on who don't get hurt. Tired old saying, injuries are part of the game work through them. They haven't been able to start working though them for 2 1/2 years

[FriedRise]

- Being where we are checks most of the boxes (in terms of non-basketball related metrics like ticket sales, merch, attendance, etc.) - so why change what's technically working?
- Over reliance on league parity - believing that there's not much of a difference in terms of talent between a playoff and a play-in team and how a couple key injuries can change the outcome of a season/series
- Fear of the unknown - FO rather sticking with what they know (value contracts like Caruso, Drummond, DeRozan) vs investing for the scary unknown future
- Over reliance on cherry-picked stretches of games where the team looked like a legit contender while ignoring the rest

I think E H meant real reasons, not AK’s delusional reasons, which you’ve done a nice job summarizing btw.

I’ve really got nothing.

Even the vet leadership card is overplayed. Our youngsters are a bunch of unselfish, team first guys who have been exposed to good pros for most of their young careers. I don’t think another season is going to make any kind of material difference for Ayo, Pat, Coby.

Well yeah, then in that case I've got nothing either lol.

I agree with you that the vets being around is no longer a necessity. The kids have spent however many offseasons now with DeMar; he's done all he can to help them grow. Now we're getting to a point where him being on the team is kinda stifling their growth. We're never gonna see how Coby, Ayo, or Pat would perform in end of game scenario when every option revolves giving the ball to DeMar in the last 4 minutes of every close game - and that's a HUGE part of development and taking that next step.

I'd rather give Coby all the reps he needs in a lost season like this. Let him make his mistakes, and maybe when we're ready to contend, he would've seen it all. The kids are ready. They're just waiting for their turn now. The kind of vets they need are the role-playing, floor-raising kinds, like your Torrey Craigs and Andre Drummonds.

The only thing I can think of is getting meaningful value back, but if the reports are true in regards to teams having interest on Caruso, Drummond, maybe DeMar, then you gotta pull the trigger. I get standing pat if all you're getting are lowball offers, but it doesn't make sense to set their price so unreasonably high that the only way you're willing to listen is if it's a gross overpay. That's just stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

[drosestruts]

people, in my opinion incorrectly, think we have to be bad to be good.

A lot of the conversation this season has been around the development and growth we've seen from both Coby White and now Ayo Dosunmu. I'm of the opinion that some, and we can debate how much, of this development is due in part to veterans like DeRozan and Caruso being on the team and actively working with these young players.

My hypothesis is that if we trade guys like Caruso and DeRozan, we will be negatively impacting the continued development of players like Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, but also players like Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry, and Justin Philips.

Some may not care about the development of these players, and instead prefer different hypotehtical young players for whatever reason. To me that's just resetting the clock, we have countless examples of players needing time to develop. The old thinking of "you are who you are by year 3" is outdated and clearly wrong.

If we want to see what the ceiling of players like Coby, Ayo, Williams, Terry, and Phillips are - then we need veterans like DeRozan and Caruso here guiding them and providing examples of the work it takes to actually develop.

This belief is mainly tied to guys like DeRozan and Caruso though. If the front office receives offers for Vucevic, Drummond, Craig, Carter, or LaVine - and they're good offers (or in the case of Vuc literally anything) I'd pull the trigger.

I'm much more reluctant and hesitant to trade Caruso and DeRozan.

[boundbymusic]

Guys keep getting injured so we haven't seen the real ceiling. Keep everyone together and get Lonzo back. Look what we did when he was healthy. (I don't believe any of this)

[DASMACKDOWN]

Pretty much all the proposed trades involve offering players who can contribute now (Caruso, DDR, and Zach if we expand "now" to mean next season) for players who are either not so good now (prospects) or who do not yet exist (draft picks).

That is, the team will almost certainly get worse than its current .500 status. And there's no guarantee of when it may get back to the .500 level.

I know that everybody here is thinking, "Fine I will take that chance, anything but this," but not every organization will necessarily share that viewpoint. Particularly as the Bulls already went through this process 6 1/2 years ago, and failed after doing so.

The funny thing is fans cherry pick results too.

Not for their own franchise but for other teams. They will see a team doing well and think that should be us. Just do this and that. But they completely ignore the years where they win 20 games. or less

OKC right now is the shiny jewel of tanking and being young and tops in conference. But they are the anomaly.

Even Orlando where they are much improved. Are still just barely hovering over .500. They have had 1 season over .500 since 2012.

Its just not an exact science. Even when we got Derrick, we were .500, two years in a row. Not until we filled out the roster with big free agents and coaching did we bust out.

The Knicks where they have been meddling team for donkey years, get Brunson and totally changed the climate of the team. No one saw that coming. They built that team from free agents and trades - and it clicked, not from home grown talent.

But circling back to us, ours is a little bit more streamline because our core guys are older. No matter what AKME want to think, father time is going to make the decisions for him.

[HomoSapien]

1. Completely illogical vs everything we can obviously see (ultra competitive league with no invincible favorite), and everything we’ve heard (too many buyers - AK last year, Woj earlier this year).

I want to rebuild but I don't want to make a trade for the sake of making a trade. Tor me, it completely depends on the return. Is Caruso for a deal centered around Moses Moody worth it? What about for a late 1st round pick? In those scenarios, Caruso is more valuable to me both in terms of on-court production and of-court impact. How about Drummond? Realistically, what is his trade value? Maybe two second-round picks? It's better than nothing, but if we think he'll resign again next year I'd rather keep him. If we can get any type of first-round pick, then by all means trade him.

2. Delusional. We are about to get a rude, rude awakening the next ~15 games.

We have the 10th toughest remaining SoS.

Could quite possibly be, but I think we're a different team than the one that started the season and hopefully can close out these close games with a healthy Craig and hopefully eventually Pat.

[weneeda2guard]

I don't want to get caught up In making a move just to make a move and I feel alot of bulls fans want to just make a move.

I don't want to add future salary. And I don't want to add guys who won't earn significant minutes here. And I want picks we can actually do something with and not be like other teams with a ton of picks no one wants. Imo making those kind of deals will just leave us worst off and with a unhappy locker room since the guys leaving are loved.

For lavine I just want 2 young prospects and 2 picks. Picks don't even have to be top 5 picks just 2 1st rd picks. I don't think that's asking the world and we should sit on lavine until that is the return

For derozan another expiring with a pick is cool. But I rather keep derozan then add future salary for a player considerably worst than derozan.

2 picks and a young prospect for Caruso

A young big and a pick for vucevic. I'll even take let's say a jaxson Hayes and 3 2nd rd picks with expiring salary for vuc.

If this can't be done then I can see a world where we do nothing.

[Hangtime84]

people, in my opinion incorrectly, think we have to be bad to be good.

A lot of the conversation this season has been around the development and growth we've seen from both Coby White and now Ayo Dosunmu. I'm of the opinion that some, and we can debate how much, of this development is due in part to veterans like DeRozan and Caruso being on the team and actively working with these young players.

My hypothesis is that if we trade guys like Caruso and DeRozan, we will be negatively impacting the continued development of players like Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu, but also players like Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry, and Justin Philips.

Some may not care about the development of these players, and instead prefer different hypotehtical young players for whatever reason. To me that's just resetting the clock, we have countless examples of players needing time to develop. The old thinking of "you are who you are by year 3" is outdated and clearly wrong.

If we want to see what the ceiling of players like Coby, Ayo, Williams, Terry, and Phillips are - then we need veterans like DeRozan and Caruso here guiding them and providing examples of the work it takes to actually develop.

This belief is mainly tied to guys like DeRozan and Caruso though. If the front office receives offers for Vucevic, Drummond, Craig, Carter, or LaVine - and they're good offers (or in the case of Vuc literally anything) I'd pull the trigger.

I'm much more reluctant and hesitant to trade Caruso and DeRozan.

I’m in the same mindset with this. Front office needs to move either Vuc or Drummond this deadline tho. It’s clear to me Dre won’t resign with chicago next season especially if Vuc is here.

[MGB8]

I can get not trading Caruso because the future picks are likely very late firsts, and he acts so much like a coach on the Court, you want that influence on younger players. Plus, he’s under contract.

DeMar… assuming even a late first is offered, is harder. The option after this season will be to give him 30+ M per year, probably for 3 years… or let him walk. Not to mention that ISO DDR fails pretty hard most of the time, when attempted to close games, and seems to get in the way of other players.

Vuc probably has no value. Drummond probably can net you a 2nd rounder or 2… but would the Bulls go out and get another player, or risk injury (and negatively impact development) by playing, say, Phillips there? Or Pat when he comes back? Not to mention, if the Bulls can keep Andre relatively cheap long term, he is one of the best backup Cs in the league.

Sigh.

[LateNight]

The argument for standing pat, to me, would be that constantly losing games can demoralize young players and potentially break them. There are a lot of high lottery picks that played on bad teams and never really learned what it takes to win. They often learn how to score a lot and not play defense - so the fear of trading all the high level talent is that it could interfere with the development of younger players, maybe cause coby to regress.

I’m not sure I buy that and would prefer for us to make some moves to clear cap and prep for the future - but that’s my anti-tanking argument which could apply here

[Ice Man]

[OKC right now is the shiny jewel of tanking and being young and tops in conference. But they are the anomaly.

True, although it also is true that of all the retooling teams in 2017, following the Jimmy Butler trade, the Bulls have been among the least successful.

In descending order of badness, here were the 9 teams in the 2017-18 season that won fewer than 30 games -

1) Knicks - Won a playoff series last year and will likely win 50 games this season.
2) Nets - Enjoyed brief glory as a superteam.
3) Kings - Overall, similar high point as the Bulls, but they are now looking up rather than sideways
4) Magic - Made some 1st round appearances with Vuc but overall very disappointing
5) Mavs - Got Luka, made an WCF
6) Atlanta - Mixed results, but did make an ECF
7) Memphis - Won a bunch of games, although disappointing in playoffs
8) Phoenix - Just about won an NBA title

All that said, it has been 5 full seasons since then, with no titles for the 9 teams that were bad in 2018 and only one Finals appearance. Retooling is hard!

[TheSuzerain]

The only one I can think of is that it prevents AK from trading more draft picks for Vet help.

[FriedRise]

Does this count? Or am I still too jaded lol

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