Potential Zach Trade Partners? Playoff Edition.

[League Circles]

I’m pretty sure there will be more moves this time. AK for the first time sounded like he wanted to make changes. Sure Demar might be coming back and as the best player of this team it’s not a bad move but doesn’t necessarily mean everyone else is coming back as well.

The way I see it only Coby, Ayo, and probably Patrick (despite being a RFA) are safe to return. The rest of the roster can be used in trades including Vuc and AC.

He effectively said at the end of season last year "just wait until you see what I do in free agency" or something like that, then used 7M of the MLE on Jevon Carter and brought in Torey Craig. I wouldn't get too hyped up.

And sure, not _everyone_ is coming back, but you just listed everyone on the team that has any value whatsoever outside of AC as safe to return. So again, we're trading Zach and swapping deck chairs.

We probably won't improve much if at all, but I also see a little bit more substantial player movement. I actually think the best bets to be on the roster are Coby and a re-signed Demar. I think AK will shop ALL of these guys and probably end up trading at least two, maybe several more than that:

Vuc
Drummond s&t (maybe somebody will realize he's worth a real contract who is capped out and using their MLE on someone else)
Patrick s&t
Caruso
Terry
Zach
Ayo
Ball (as part of a deal as an expiring)
Carter
#11 pick (or top 4 if we're lucky)

I think the "continuity" plan now will still be valued, but pared down to just the two main guys in Demar and Coby. I think Phillips and Bitim are AK's worthless personal choice prospects so they'll be back pretty much for sure too unless needed in a deal. I think Craig will opt out and be gone.

It's not a ton different than what you were saying, but I do think these positive value assets will be aggressively shopped:

Patrick s&t
Caruso
Zach
Ayo
#11

I think we'd all agree that Vuc and Carter aren't positive value assets (hell, Zach probably isn't either but a team would only acquire him to try to improve which is why I ranked him in the above group), but for fit reasons, another team may "value" them for equally meh deals for their players due to positional or style needs.

So anyways I that's kinda what we're working with. What we do with Demar in terms of years, dollars etc should really depend on moves with this group, so I hope/expect to see us try to make moves before FA with some or all of Zach, Caruso, Ayo and our pick. Then we reassess and maybe tweak more with moves with the others.

[dougthonus]

It's not a ton different than what you were saying, but I do think these positive value assets will be aggressively shopped:

Patrick s&t
Caruso
Zach
Ayo
#11

The gap on what I've said is:
Pat S&T
Caruso
Ayo

I would be shocked if we shopped Ayo. He's AK's one major success and one of the few feathers in his cap. The fans absolutely love him as well so the backlash would be magnified in any trade.

I wouldn't be surprised if we shopped Pat, but I think his situation will mean we get nothing meaningful back for him. His value as a player isn't that high, and S&Ts are typically 50c on the dollar trades, so 50c on the dollar of a not very valuable player gets you back down to deck chair status.

I'd be surprised but not shocked with a Caruso trade. I think the fundamental problem with a Caruso trade is that we're trying to win now, and I don't think you can move Caruso for a different piece that helps you win now more. Caruso makes sense to move in a rebuilding effort, but we're not going to enter a rebuilding effort.

We'll see what happens. The last time he did want to make changes he got really aggressive about it, and he referenced that again, which would seem to mean that a lot more should be on the table. At the same time, I just don't see how that's going to work in practicality.

I think if he gets aggressive, it will break my heart and be more dumping future assets to try and boost this team to 41 wins.

[Stratmaster]

What do you think the narrative was? Zach was super happy in Chicago but asked to be traded?

I mean there might be layers to how unhappy he was or what he was unhappy with exactly, but he clearly asked to be traded and wanted to be traded and would not have done so if he was happy to be here and wanted to stay.

K.C. Johnson said differently. It's funny how everyone in here is a mind reader. there was never a single report that Zach asked to be traded.

Maybe if I put it this way.... it wasn't Zach who came up with the idea of trading him, and the Bulls did that long before Zach was reported to have agreed to work with them to get it done.

So you believe that Zach is happy to be here and his preference is to stay? Okay. You're alone on that island. Good luck convincing anyone else of that.

I never said that. Comprehension seems to be a real problem on this board.

I've said multiple times what happened, per the reports. But that isn't enough drama for the Zach detractors. If you choose not to understand it, please stop putting words in my mouth. You know damned well that isn't what I said.

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[Stratmaster]

The good news is that the way things are shaking out, there might be a market for Zach. He won't be the most pursued guy but he could go in a second wave after teams miss out on their first target. At one point I was thinking that Chicago might just trade him for absolute junk.

I will say this. The writing is on the wall. The plan is to bring back the team as is, including giving Demar a big offer. Then trade Zach in a way that allows them to just slide under the tax barrier.

Ayo / Ball?
Coby / Caruso
Demar
Patrick
Vucevic
+ draft pick and random parts that come back in trade for Lavine.

That's your 38-44 Chicago Bulls.

Pretty much, yep.

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[MisterRoy]

Why aren't we keeping Drummond if he wants to come back?


Sent from somewhere you’ve never been.

[League Circles]

It's not a ton different than what you were saying, but I do think these positive value assets will be aggressively shopped:

Patrick s&t
Caruso
Zach
Ayo
#11

The gap on what I've said is:
Pat S&T
Caruso
Ayo

I would be shocked if we shopped Ayo. He's AK's one major success and one of the few feathers in his cap. The fans absolutely love him as well so the backlash would be magnified in any trade.

I wouldn't be surprised if we shopped Pat, but I think his situation will mean we get nothing meaningful back for him. His value as a player isn't that high, and S&Ts are typically 50c on the dollar trades, so 50c on the dollar of a not very valuable player gets you back down to deck chair status.

I'd be surprised but not shocked with a Caruso trade. I think the fundamental problem with a Caruso trade is that we're trying to win now, and I don't think you can move Caruso for a different piece that helps you win now more. Caruso makes sense to move in a rebuilding effort, but we're not going to enter a rebuilding effort.

We'll see what happens. The last time he did want to make changes he got really aggressive about it, and he referenced that again, which would seem to mean that a lot more should be on the table. At the same time, I just don't see how that's going to work in practicality.

I think if he gets aggressive, it will break my heart and be more dumping future assets to try and boost this team to 41 wins.

I just disagree with the bolded part. As much as we all love Caruso and know how big his impact is, the bottom line is that it's very easy to argue that he's the fourth to 6th best perimeter after Coby, Demar, Zach and Ayo, let alone good Patrick and a healthy Ball. To be fair, it's also the case that you could argue that he's the best player the Bulls have, period (yes, being serious). But it's irrelevant because he doesn't play big minutes, and he forces us to essentially play 4 defensive guards along with a defensive nothing in Vuc. Whether you call Demar or Caruso or whoever the 4 in our lineups, none of them is best actually playing there. We have a clear overabundance on the perimeter that means we can't get good value out of all of our guys. Now of course that might be substantially changed hy a Zach trade, but any Zach trade is pretty likely to involve yet another perimeter guy or two coming back to throw into the mix.

Meanwhile we have the absolute worst bigs in the league outside of Drummond who is a FA.

Besides, Caruso's salary is so low that he could plausibly be part of a package that brings back an upgrade (again, at the 4/5 positions) where he goes with some combo of Carter, Terry, Vuc etc and brings back a more expensive player.

I've been saying it til I'm blue in the face but since we're not going to tank, it's imperative that we at least TRY to force Billy's hand and have him play a more traditionally oriented lineup with a person that will attempt to protect the basket, whether that's benching or trading Vuc or having a real 4 out there with him instead of Patrick or a guard like Alex (I prefer Patrick at the 3).

For an average to below average team, we have an embarrassment of riches at the 1-3 spots and a total lack of talent at the 4/5 spots, which is the glaring place to start to try to improve since that's the philosophy chosen.

[jnrjr79]

Why aren't we keeping Drummond if he wants to come back?


Sent from somewhere you’ve never been.

Because absent other salary-clearing moves, the Bulls won’t be able to afford it and stay under the tax.

[DuckIII]

K.C. Johnson said differently. It's funny how everyone in here is a mind reader. there was never a single report that Zach asked to be traded.

Maybe if I put it this way.... it wasn't Zach who came up with the idea of trading him, and the Bulls did that long before Zach was reported to have agreed to work with them to get it done.

So you believe that Zach is happy to be here and his preference is to stay? Okay. You're alone on that island. Good luck convincing anyone else of that.

I never said that. Comprehension seems to be a real problem on this board.

I've said multiple times what happened, per the reports. But that isn't enough drama for the Zach detractors. If you choose not to understand it, please stop putting words in my mouth. You know damned well that isn't what I said.

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I don’t mean to slight this conversation because in an earlier post I said I understand why for perception purposes this is being discussed and I agree Zach gets the poop end of the stick from too many Bulls fans.

But I’m still a little lost, so is a fair way of distilling this down to its most basic principle that “Zach is unhappy now and fine with being traded, but he didn’t start it”?

[DuckIII]

Why aren't we keeping Drummond if he wants to come back?


Sent from somewhere you’ve never been.

Because absent other salary-clearing moves, the Bulls won’t be able to afford it and stay under the tax.

Great googley moogley. This rocks.

[MisterRoy]

Sorry...I just keep seeing all the trade stuffs and some of it just doesn't make any sense to me. We have players that were just on the team in whom we know what we have. We like Drummond a lot during the season. We know how he plays and what we bring to the team. Why would we not try to resign him?


Sent from somewhere you’ve never been.

[kodo]

Drummond might not be back simply because he may want to play somewhere else for min...or someone might offer more than min which I think is highly likely. We can't compete with more than min because we have to shed massive salary to afford Derozan and Patrick. And everyone still signed get their normal pay raises for next year.

We let DJ walk without a fight in this situation last season.

[dougthonus]

I never said that. Comprehension seems to be a real problem on this board.

In a reply to "Zach asked to be traded"

What you said was:
"Of course he is. But you are ignoring the context, and I will say it again since you ignored it: My point is that the narrative that Lavine was unhappy and "asked to be traded" or "didn't want to be in Chicago" is far, far, far from what actually happened."

I have inferred what "far, far, far from what actually happened" to mean that Zach wants to be in Chicago and didn't ask to be traded and is happy here that seems far far far different. I'm not sure what else would qualify as being far far far different, but maybe we have vastly different views on what requires you to emphasize how wrong it is three times.

If your only opinion is "Yes, Zach doesn't want to be here now, but it's management's fault", then okay, maybe, but I don't think that changes the outcome of Zach's current thought process (which would seem to me that he prefers to be with the Lakers if possible).

[dougthonus]

I just disagree with the bolded part. As much as we all love Caruso and know how big his impact is, the bottom line is that it's very easy to argue that he's the fourth to 6th best perimeter after Coby, Demar, Zach and Ayo, let alone good Patrick and a healthy Ball. To be fair, it's also the case that you could argue that he's the best player the Bulls have, period (yes, being serious). But it's irrelevant because he doesn't play big minutes, and he forces us to essentially play 4 defensive guards along with a defensive nothing in Vuc. Whether you call Demar or Caruso or whoever the 4 in our lineups, none of them is best actually playing there. We have a clear overabundance on the perimeter that means we can't get good value out of all of our guys. Now of course that might be substantially changed hy a Zach trade, but any Zach trade is pretty likely to involve yet another perimeter guy or two coming back to throw into the mix.

Meanwhile we have the absolute worst bigs in the league outside of Drummond who is a FA.

Besides, Caruso's salary is so low that he could plausibly be part of a package that brings back an upgrade (again, at the 4/5 positions) where he goes with some combo of Carter, Terry, Vuc etc and brings back a more expensive player.

I've been saying it til I'm blue in the face but since we're not going to tank, it's imperative that we at least TRY to force Billy's hand and have him play a more traditionally oriented lineup with a person that will attempt to protect the basket, whether that's benching or trading Vuc or having a real 4 out there with him instead of Patrick or a guard like Alex (I prefer Patrick at the 3).

For an average to below average team, we have an embarrassment of riches at the 1-3 spots and a total lack of talent at the 4/5 spots, which is the glaring place to start to try to improve since that's the philosophy chosen.

In a vacuum, I agree that you could better balance out the team trading from our perimeter strength to get some better big men, and perhaps a Zach trade addresses that even if you aren't getting a particularly good player back for Zach.

I think the problem with Caruso is (as you noted) that his salary is so low, and the Bulls presently project to need to shed salary to do the rest of the stuff they've said they wanted to do, that it's hard to figure out the move where you trade him and bring in a quality bigger player in the same salary space.

That may or may not prove to be a problem in the long term depending how the Zach trade resolves, how DeMar resolve, and how Pat resolves.

You can throw out a healthy Lonzo Ball as a piece on this rotation. It's a patently ridiculous thought to count on Lonzo Ball to play a single minute for this team, and it's even more ridiculous to think after not playing basketball for 2.5 years that if he could play a single minute that he will play them at high quality. There's certainly room for that opinion to end up being wrong, but Lavar already said he didn't expect Lonzo to even be able to play 5/5 until July at the earliest.

I also agree with you that the problem is also that even if you get better bigger players, you'd need to convince Billy to play differently, though that might be more of a talent thing than anything else. It's hard to say what he'd do with talented big men since he's never had any.

[Stratmaster]

So you believe that Zach is happy to be here and his preference is to stay? Okay. You're alone on that island. Good luck convincing anyone else of that.

I never said that. Comprehension seems to be a real problem on this board.

I've said multiple times what happened, per the reports. But that isn't enough drama for the Zach detractors. If you choose not to understand it, please stop putting words in my mouth. You know damned well that isn't what I said.

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I don’t mean to slight this conversation because in an earlier post I said I understand why for perception purposes this is being discussed and I agree Zach gets the poop end of the stick from too many Bulls fans.

But I’m still a little lost, so is a fair way of distilling this down to its most basic principle that “Zach is unhappy now and fine with being traded, but he didn’t start it”?

See how easy this is?

Now, the next comment from someone will be... so what. I've already explained that, too, but I will have to do it again.

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[Stratmaster]

I never said that. Comprehension seems to be a real problem on this board.

In a reply to "Zach asked to be traded"

What you said was:
"Of course he is. But you are ignoring the context, and I will say it again since you ignored it: My point is that the narrative that Lavine was unhappy and "asked to be traded" or "didn't want to be in Chicago" is far, far, far from what actually happened."

I have inferred what "far, far, far from what actually happened" to mean that Zach wants to be in Chicago and didn't ask to be traded and is happy here that seems far far far different. I'm not sure what else would qualify as being far far far different, but maybe we have vastly different views on what requires you to emphasize how wrong it is three times.

If your only opinion is "Yes, Zach doesn't want to be here now, but it's management's fault", then okay, maybe, but I don't think that changes the outcome of Zach's current thought process (which would seem to me that he prefers to be with the Lakers if possible).

I didn't say anything about changing Zach's current thought process. Do you believe the perception of how and why a player is leaving a team can affect the return you receive?

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[Charlesareed]

Coby & ayo are staying no matter what unless your can trade them for a superstar player AD KD if either ask out and want the bulls which is not likely idk what’s gonna happen with demar next contract tho pat is probably gone and rightly so Graig is I’ll opt out drummed will leave in free agency for more money caurso Zach pat will all be traded pat s&t Phillips terry bittum are staying unless traded Carter needs to be traded immediately ball expiring contract will hopefully be traded in the offseason AKME needs to brings in some big PF/C with size a defense & mobility

[dougthonus]

I didn't say anything about changing Zach's current thought process. Do you believe the perception of how and why a player is leaving a team can affect the return you receive?

I literally have no idea what you are talking about. When did anything I quoted or discuss with you ever discuss trade value.

All I asked was, what do you think the narrative is that is far far far away from "Zach is unhappy and asked to be traded" which were your words.

Do you think Zach is happy in Chicago? I think the answer is no.

Do you think Zach would prefer to be traded? I think the answer is yes.

In terms of whether the Bulls maximized Zach's trade value, clearly not. They screwed up this situation terribly. They look destined to trade him at the absolute lowest point of his value since he was acquired, which seems par for the course for our FO.

[Stratmaster]

I didn't say anything about changing Zach's current thought process. Do you believe the perception of how and why a player is leaving a team can affect the return you receive?

I literally have no idea what you are talking about. When did anything I quoted or discuss with you ever discuss trade value.

All I asked was, what do you think the narrative is that is far far far away from "Zach is unhappy and asked to be traded" which were your words.

Do you think Zach is happy in Chicago? I think the answer is no.

Do you think Zach would prefer to be traded? I think the answer is yes.

In terms of whether the Bulls maximized Zach's trade value, clearly not. They screwed up this situation terribly. They look destined to trade him at the absolute lowest point of his value since he was acquired, which seems par for the course for our FO.

Wait. I thought you responded to my comment. Did I miss that this was all in response to something you posted?

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[Stratmaster]

I didn't say anything about changing Zach's current thought process. Do you believe the perception of how and why a player is leaving a team can affect the return you receive?

I literally have no idea what you are talking about. When did anything I quoted or discuss with you ever discuss trade value.

All I asked was, what do you think the narrative is that is far far far away from "Zach is unhappy and asked to be traded" which were your words.

Do you think Zach is happy in Chicago? I think the answer is no.

Do you think Zach would prefer to be traded? I think the answer is yes.

In terms of whether the Bulls maximized Zach's trade value, clearly not. They screwed up this situation terribly. They look destined to trade him at the absolute lowest point of his value since he was acquired, which seems par for the course for our FO.

Of course, he is now unhappy here. Of course, he now would prefer to be traded. No one ever said otherwise.

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[dougthonus]

Of course, he is now unhappy here. Of course, he now would prefer to be traded. No one ever said otherwise.

Fair enough, believe it or not, I wasn't trying to get you in a "haha, got you!" moment nor was I trying to trash Zach. I thought you literally just thought something different and clearly misinterpreted your point.

My interpretation now is that you are saying Zach is would prefer to be traded and is unhappy, but that is largely due to the context of management's prior treatment of him that made us arrive at this point due to their previous shopping of him and quiet scapegoating of him.

If that's what you meant, I agree. Zach is out on the Bulls now, but the Bulls were out on him first.