The Bulls only have 3 good contracts

[League Circles]

The only guys going into the offseason that we'll be happy with on their contracts are:

Coby
Caruso
Ayo
Our 2024 1st round pick I suppose

Unhappy with them:
Vuc
Carter
Zach
Terry (cheap, young but not even worth the spot)
Phillips (see Terry)
Ball

Not under contract:
Demar
Drummond
Patrick
Craig
Taylor (non guarantee)
Sanogo
Bitim
Drell

It's sad but it's where we are. Since we don't have any magic trade asset stockpile, we have to be very prudent in remaking the team via whatever flexibility we have.

I think looking at the above, it screams that we have to use Caruso to get rid of some of the dead weight in the second group. None of us want to trade Coby and Ayo, and nobody else is positive value. If Alex can help us move Vuc, Zach, Ball or Carter for better fitting pieces coming back, we'll be a lot better positioned to have leverage and make good deals with Demar, Patrick, Drummond, and Craig or be better positioned to let them walk and be more aggressive in free agency even if it still may be just the full MLE or maybe we do S&Ts more easily.

[Tetlak]

Terry and Phillips are most definitely worth their spots, especially Phillips as he barely makes anything. Both have contributed meaningfully at times this season, and have further potential.

Why does it matter if we have good contracts? Most players in the NBA are overpaid once their rookie deals are done.

[MrSparkle]

The only guys going into the offseason that we'll be happy with on their contracts are:

Coby
Caruso
Ayo
Our 2024 1st round pick I suppose

Unhappy with them:
Vuc
Carter
Zach
Terry (cheap, young but not even worth the spot)
Phillips (see Terry)
Ball

Not under contract:
Demar
Drummond
Patrick
Craig
Taylor (non guarantee)
Sanogo
Bitim
Drell

It's sad but it's where we are. Since we don't have any magic trade asset stockpile, we have to be very prudent in remaking the team via whatever flexibility we have.

I think looking at the above, it screams that we have to use Caruso to get rid of some of the dead weight in the second group. None of us want to trade Coby and Ayo, and nobody else is positive value. If Alex can help us move Vuc, Zach, Ball or Carter for better fitting pieces coming back, we'll be a lot better positioned to have leverage and make good deals with Demar, Patrick, Drummond, and Craig or be better positioned to let them walk and be more aggressive in free agency even if it still may be just the full MLE or maybe we do S&Ts more easily.

Honestly, there are no bad contracts on the Bulls, besides for Zach.

Lonzo is soon expiring/dead. Vuc’s less of a basketball fit than a salary burden. I don’t see how Terry and Phillips are possibly considered negative deals. They’re extremely cheap prospects with athletic tools and skills. Craig might take that player option, like Drummond did. Jevon at $6m is about as cheap as you’ll get a veteran 3D guard on the open market, even if he’s had a poor season. It’s the kind of salary that’s so easy to move that it only helps to have the chip for trade flexibility.

If Zach can play basketball and/or get traded next year, then the only remaining questions are what they figure out with Demar and Pat. I don’t think they’ll overpay to keep Demar.

It’s probably the one thing this FO has done well without exception. Keeping Reinsdorf’s books clean. Though Zach’s injury throws a huge wrench in the whole plan (not to mention Lonzo). If we didn't have $65M locked on rehab patients, we'd have one of the better salary situations. But alas, it's going to be ugly trying to get out of Zach's money.

[2weekswithpay]

Carter and Terry are disappointing but they aren't making enough to be considered bad contracts.

Caruso is a great asset but 1 year of Caruso isn't enough to take Vuc or Zach.

[League Circles]

Carter, Terry and Phillips have all played like they don't belong in the league this year. That's why they're bad contracts. When you can get solid vets at the minimum there is little excuse to have guys this bad on the roster.

[Dez]

Terry and Phillips are young players that have shown promise this season.

They aren't bad contracts at all and neither is Carter.

[ChettheJet]

If you want to arbitrarily set the bar on what's good, bad and indifferent and what you want, I doubt you can find any NBA team that meets your standards for 'Good'.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

Terry and Phillips are most definitely worth their spots, especially Phillips as he barely makes anything. Both have contributed meaningfully at times this season, and have further potential.

Why does it matter if we have good contracts? Most players in the NBA are overpaid once their rookie deals are done.

because there's a salary cap in basketball and in order to win (besides having a superstar or two or three), you need the majority of your roster to be outperforming their contracts. ie rookie scale deals, players like drummond on vet min, striking gold in the gatorade league. coby and caruso should have been traded, they're the most valuable players on our team.

[League Circles]

If you want to arbitrarily set the bar on what's good, bad and indifferent and what you want, I doubt you can find any NBA team that meets your standards for 'Good'.

I'm confused on what would be debatable from my list. The positive guys are pretty obvious.

Vuc is a low end starting C or a good backup. That's not worth 20 mil.

Zach is a good starter, lets say, but is paid like a big time star.

Carter, Terry and Phillips have not played like they belong on the court this year. Considering that you can get guys that belong on the court for the vet minimum (Drummond, Craig, Green the last couple years, etc), guys don't belong on the court aren't even worth the minimal deals they get. They might be worth keeping for the moment for potential, but they didn't earn their contracts relative to their peers.

[Tetlak]

Terry and Phillips are most definitely worth their spots, especially Phillips as he barely makes anything. Both have contributed meaningfully at times this season, and have further potential.

Why does it matter if we have good contracts? Most players in the NBA are overpaid once their rookie deals are done.

because there's a salary cap in basketball and in order to win (besides having a superstar or two or three), you need the majority of your roster to be outperforming their contracts. ie rookie scale deals, players like drummond on vet min, striking gold in the gatorade league. coby and caruso should have been traded, they're the most valuable players on our team.

You're 1000% incorrect.

Championship rosters typically are deep into the luxury tax. You're confusing having talented rosters with having value contracts.

Money buys talent. Also, it doesn't matter whatsoever either way unless there is a superstar on the roster.

The premise of this thread is flawed.

[Dan Z]

The only guys going into the offseason that we'll be happy with on their contracts are:

Coby
Caruso
Ayo
Our 2024 1st round pick I suppose

Unhappy with them:
Vuc
Carter
Zach
Terry (cheap, young but not even worth the spot)
Phillips (see Terry)
Ball

Not under contract:
Demar
Drummond
Patrick
Craig
Taylor (non guarantee)
Sanogo
Bitim
Drell

It's sad but it's where we are. Since we don't have any magic trade asset stockpile, we have to be very prudent in remaking the team via whatever flexibility we have.

I think looking at the above, it screams that we have to use Caruso to get rid of some of the dead weight in the second group. None of us want to trade Coby and Ayo, and nobody else is positive value. If Alex can help us move Vuc, Zach, Ball or Carter for better fitting pieces coming back, we'll be a lot better positioned to have leverage and make good deals with Demar, Patrick, Drummond, and Craig or be better positioned to let them walk and be more aggressive in free agency even if it still may be just the full MLE or maybe we do S&Ts more easily.

If AK trades Caruso in order to get rid of Vuc, Zach or Ball that would be terrible. Just let Ball expire and try to rehab Zach's value. Then go from there.

If they can't sign anyone new next season because they won't pay the tax then so be it.

[HomoSapien]

Phillips is definitely not in the bad contract territory.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

Terry and Phillips are most definitely worth their spots, especially Phillips as he barely makes anything. Both have contributed meaningfully at times this season, and have further potential.

Why does it matter if we have good contracts? Most players in the NBA are overpaid once their rookie deals are done.

because there's a salary cap in basketball and in order to win (besides having a superstar or two or three), you need the majority of your roster to be outperforming their contracts. ie rookie scale deals, players like drummond on vet min, striking gold in the gatorade league. coby and caruso should have been traded, they're the most valuable players on our team.

You're 1000% incorrect.

Championship rosters typically are deep into the luxury tax. You're confusing having talented rosters with having value contracts.

Money buys talent. Also, it doesn't matter whatsoever either way unless there is a superstar on the roster.

The premise of this thread is flawed.

You can’t use the luxury tax to sign free agents. You use the luxury tax to retain guys and we wasted it on Vuc and Lavine. You have to actually build a roster and maintain it with cheap salaries. Of course you obviously need a superstar but the simple fact of the NBA is you need to get the biggest bang for your buck

[PJSteven22]

Phillips is definitely not in the bad contract territory.

Yep. It’s wild to call a 2nd round pick a bad contract.

[DropStep]

When salary allocation comes up, I sometimes think of a nerd type (Gladwell? Freakonomics?) I heard, who claimed that economically the easiest way to get performance that exceeds the dollars spent is always at the artificial limits, both high and low, meaning max and minimum guys. Other players should be within a margin (allowing for performance variance, GM stupidity factor, etc.) of their fair value if the market is working. In his prime, Lebron was probably worth 3x or more of the max, and there was little guesswork to it. There's no way to match that while getting more or less what you pay for with middling guys, no matter how well build your roster.

I don't remember what they said about minimum players, but it probably had something to do with having all the players in the whole world who aren't currently in the NBA to pick from to suit your needs, there's probably more than 450 players arguably capable of being in the NBA, and if they blow up and are useful at all, you can quickly get a multiple of their salary in profit (Drummond). It's a lot easier to do at 3 million than at 8.

(Rookie scale is artificial too, but babies don't usually make much of a difference in the NBA.)

This ignores some realities of basketball - how a weak player can be hunted, how defenses have to work together with no slackers to be completely successful, etc. but I thought it was interesting anyway. It kind of accounts numerically for the concept of star difference makers, The Process, why having our max player out (or ineffective) hurts double, and why Ishbia thought he could (and did) build a quick contender with stars and nobodies and only a few in between. (Although, blowing through the tax helps too.) A roster loaded with middling salaries would allegedly stink in comparison, even though the expenditure is the same... So yeah, for what it's worth.

[FriedRise]

Data is a few weeks old (so before trade deadline), but:

Read on Twitter

If you go through the thread, you'll see that every team carries several bad contracts (even the best ones).

For us, Zach's 40M is the biggest drag and obviously Lonzo's 20M, but I assume Zo's not on the chart because there's no data on him. This was also before Ayo took his jump, so he's probably closer to a neutral/green now.

Read on Twitter

[Dez]

Cannot agree with that assessment of Ayo.

[sco]

Fun debate. IMO, players rarely perform at their contract level: Young studs outperform rookie deals. Old vets are almost always overpaid based on past performance. The key though isn't having the highest player ROI, it's building a winning (or at least complementary roster).

This feels like another AK sucks thread, but I'm not a hater. He came in and made bold moves based on a model that worked in Denver. Having a healthy Ball and Lavine over this stretch would, IMO, have made us a near-contender, but sure, that's debatable.

I think we're now in a bit of a limbo situation for this/next season. After that, Ball will (likely) be gone. Zach will probably will be gone too, but the question there is whether he returns to enough of his prior form to bring back value. Vuc will become an expiring deal. There will be decisions to make on AC, Demar and Pat. If I had to guess, all 3 come back on new deals.

From a contract perspective, I think the goal should be to add 1 star and upgrade the C position via trades/drafts/FA signings.

I guess there is the hail mary scenario where Ball and Zach come back healthy and somehow Pat pulls a Coby leap, which is probably written on a piece of paper that AK sleeps with under his pillow.

[coldfish]

One of the fundamental issues with the Bulls is that they functionally have a hard cap at the LT barrier but when giving out contracts, they act like they don't.

They should have dumped Lavine well before things started going south. Very, very few people ever thought he was going to be a value contract at his last deal.

Vucevic? Shouldn't have traded for him. Shouldn't have resigned him but his deal isn't epic and he is at least playing and contributing.

[dougthonus]

I'd put it this way:
Zach: Likely worth about 80M over the next 3 years but paid 140M so overpaid by ~20M per year. Problem with this math is Zach has a massive range of variability in his outcome. If he gets back to Zach of last year, he could be net neutral on his contract, if he plays like this past year, he could be worth like 15M a year and be even worse. I sort of averaged those out, but it probably won't really be average, it's probably either going to be a complete disaster or totally fine.

Vuc: Likely worth about 10M of the 42M he has left on his deal.

Everyone else, sort of irrelevant.

Lonzo's got dead 20M but if he doesn't come back we may be able to medically waive it or have insurance cover it and use it as a trade chip, so it really doesn't necessarily have a huge impact.

Philips is on a good deal relative to his displayed potential. Terry's probably 5M negative over two years at most which is mostly irrelevant. Carter probably has enough value from previously displayed performance that he isn't so negative.