Friday, May 14, 2010

Is LeBron to Bulls Possible? Or LBJ + Wade or Bosh??

Chad Ford on TrueHoop: LeBron to the Bulls? 3 GMs think so

Boston Celtics fans were chanting "New York Knicks" during Thursday's Game 6 every time that LeBron James went to the foul line. Maybe they should've been chanting "Chicago Bulls."

Within minutes of the Cleveland Cavaliers' elimination at the hands of the Celtics, the speculation about LeBron James' next destination resumed in full force.

In the space of five minutes I heard from three NBA GMs via text, e-mail and phone. All three said that based on the information they have, they believe LeBron will leave the Cavs.

More surprisingly, all of them said they believe the destination will be the Chicago Bulls. Two said they believe that John Calipari will be the Bulls' new head coach.

One GM went a bit further in a phone call a few minutes later. "I think the Bulls are really going to go for it. Look for them to offer the Cavs Luol Deng in a sign-and-trade for LeBron. That will allow them to retain most of their cap space. Then they'll go after Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh as well."


I'm sure we'll hear various scenarios involving the Knicks, Nets and Heat over the course of the next month. But it's hard to come up with any other scenario that would be quite as appealing for LeBron.


So the Bulls could trot out a lineup of Rose, Noah, Taj, LeBron and either Wade/Bosh? Sounds unrealistic. And it is, but not by as much as you'd think. Larry Coon has written some great things to make NBA salary caps and the CBA understandable

He was asked on twitter last night if the Bulls could S&T Deng for LeBron, then have enough cap space to sign Wade/Bosh:

"No -- looks like they're about $1.1M short. ... But they can sell/trade/renounce their draft pick, and they'll be just $300K short. ... And technically they could decide to split it."

2 comments:

Tim Johnson said...

All this speculation is just to score ESPN ratings and give LeBron more of an ego boost because he knows the whole world will be watching him. If he is only about winning, he would take a low salary and go to the Lakers. Easy. If he is only about money and being in control, he stays with the Cavs. Or maybe he is somewhere in between. The Knicks make no sense; the team sucks and the argument that he could increase his brand awareness there is poor because he is already a global icon in..Cleveland. He doesn't need New York to increase his celebrity. The Bulls make the most sense if he wants to max out on salary *and* win, but I'm not so sure he wants to live in Jordan's shadow (which he would no matter how many titles he won because Jordan did it first). If I had to handicap it I would say chances of LeBron staying in Cleveland at 95%, Bulls 4.5%, Nets .5%, Knicks 0%. But he is such an enigmatic figure it is almost worthless to waste our time thinking about it and we should just wait until July 1 because that drama queen is going to milk this for all it's worth.

2j said...

Thanks for the comment ... totally agree with you. He will drag it out because he's an attention whore

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