Bulls Trade Deadline Recap: Not Disappointed, but .... Disappointed

Overall, it's hard not call the moves the Bulls made in the past couple days a success. In trading Salmons to the Bucks for the expiring contracts of Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander, we successfully turned one of the worst contracts in the NBA (Nocioni) into a bunch of expirings (Miller and Milwaukee's spare parts). That sets us up to have enough cap space to offer a max-deal to a free agent this summer, which hopefully means we can pair Wade or Bosh with D-Rose. And that alone means that this was a successful trade deadline, but ...

There were plenty of rumors that had us moving Kirk Hinrich, which I would have loved. Having that contract off the books would have allowed the Bulls to possibly offer a max and another near-max deal to FAs this summer. That would have been fun, but seems far-fetched, even today. I'm not sure signing two max (or near-max) FAs was ever realistic.

Based on how things went down, I'm not sure there was ever a real market for Kirk and his contract. So that means signing 2 big names this summer is pretty much out.


We also heard plenty of rumors about trading TT for a 1st round pick, including an early offer from the Bobcats that was put on the back-burner. It looked very likely that we would move TT for Al Harrington. That may have helped the offense this year, but it's clear that this year is not a priority for this franchise. We are preparing for the future, and it would have been a pointless/sideways move. We basically would be disguising the fact that we would let TT walk this summer (because we would surely let Harrington walk). It would have meant that in consecutive summers, the Bulls let BG walk (#3 overall draft pick in 2004) and TT walk (#4 pick in 2007, swapped for #2 pick LaMarcus Aldridge).

Instead we swapped TT for some Bobcats expirings and a future #1 pick, which at least means we got something. So we turned the #3 pick in 2004 and the #7 pick in 2007 into a non-lottery future first round pick! [Singing: "Only the Bulls ... Ooonly the Buuulls ..."]


So while this trade deadline must be considered a success as we prepare to make a run at Wade or Bosh this summer, the deadline was definitely not everything I had hoped for.