Chisoxfn

By the way, the Hinrich resigning is another example of the front office being lock-step with Thibbs. Thibbs said from the beginning he wanted Hinrich back and that was a priority move for him and low and behold Hinrich is back. Gar also indicated that was part of their plan too. So both Dougie McBuckets and Hinrich, two guys Thibbs was very vocal about wanting, are in Chicago. Seems to indicate some coesion there (not to mention all the coordinated efforts between Gar/Pax/Thibbs on the Melo chase).

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:52 AM) Also who downplayed McDermott in the Summer League? I don't want anyone to think I'm not excited about watching the bulls. Our spacing with certain lineups will be much improved. I'm going to watch regardless, I'm going to convince myself we can beat the top teams regardless, but this was the last FA period (next years FA sucks) with our core in their primes. It's hard to even anticipate what Rose will be. If he truly is 2011 Rose, then the game has changed. But I worry, even if the heavy post offense will destroy in the reg. season, better teams can deny that ball going to the post and it will be up to exclusively rose to make that team offense work. I'm looking at our team, I don't see how there are more defensive holes than last year. Any subtractions would at least be lateral, and Rose/Kirk defensively is much better than Augustin/Kirk. In fact I think defensively we've upgraded. The Spurs didn't have a ton of "scorers". They have a great passing offense with a lot of shooters. We will have arguably the two best passing big men in the league at times in the same center court, one who has a very good post game as well + Taj who is a solid post player (although not near the same level of a passer) and we actually have shooters who should help create space. This is a different offense then the one Miami shut down. Also, that Miami team doesn't exist anymore.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:47 AM) I think Augustin is basically a Piston after agreeing to 2yrs/6mil Sessions would be nice pickup tho, along the lines of vet min which is basically all the Bulls can afford now anyway. I wasn't around at all yesterday so didn't realize Augustin had signed. I agree with the posters that said with a healthy Rose, Hinrich is the better fit, however, we need to plan for Rose to miss some games and need another solid back-up who is capable of helping from the scoring perspective. This team is significantly improved from a year ago though.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 07:23 AM) The next top of the line in his prime free agent the Bulls sign will be the first. If you or they are counting on making cap space in the future to sign these types, you and they are only kidding themselves. Rarely do these types even move. Fraschilla said Mirotic would have been top 4 in this draft and says right now he is a young Turkoglu. McBuckets scored 31 in a summer league game. It's totally downplayed. That is 2 lottery picks in this draft where most of complainers thought the Bulls should tank to get a lottery pick. Yet they complain when they trade their 2 picks to get a lottery pick. Rose is coming back. Gasol put up 20 with 19 boards agains the Defensive Player of the Year last year. Pardon me while I think that more than offsets the loss of DJ Augustin. The Bulls weren't going to get Melo and unless they totally gut their roster, no shot at Love. Be realistic. This team won 48, added 2 lottery picks, a 26 year old former MVP, and a possible HOFer with some gas left in the tank. That's not bad. The Heat isn't going to be the Heat. The Bulls, health provided, have a decent shot at the finals. Great post.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 06:32 PM) FWIW, Real Plus Minus hated Augustin. Apparently, his defense was awful. It was. Bulls need another back-up though and a quality one. We can't play Kirk starters minutes. Kirk is perfect if we have another back-up PG and we can get him to

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 06:28 PM) Wow. DJ Augustin gets 2 year 6 million and Kirk gets just under it. This is bad to be honest. Kirk gets way more than I thought and Augustin gets way less. EDIT: Augustin to Detroit. This is really bad. Bulls needed to find a way to bring both in.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 05:04 PM) Houston is not matching on Parsons. What a terrible off-season for the Rockets. Ariza at $8 million a year is nice, but I truly doubt he'll be the player he was last year. He's had 2 good years in his career and both came in contract years. Wow, that was an awful off-season for Morey. He should literally be fired. Yeah, Bulls should have cleared all their space and just hoped. If Gar / Pax did what Morey did this off-season, wow is all I could say. No one had a worse off-season then Houston.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 04:55 PM) A 48 win team added Rose, Gasol, Mirotic and McBuckets. Losing Melo sucks, but I think if Rose is back to being Rose this is a title contending team. If Rose is back to being Rose, this is the best team in the east (with the Cavs currently constructed). With Rose being at 90%, this is still a title contending team. Great depth, however, I do expect rust as we are going to see two rookies get pretty significant action and I also expect Tony Snell to get quite a bit of minutes (and I don't personally think that is a bad thing). He's put on a lot of weight and will continue to grow with this squad into a pretty serviceable player.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 04:53 PM) Gasol is better offensively than Boozer and he definitely can't be worse defensively. Dunleavy is more or less average defensively (good length). Just because they're white doesn't mean they can't fit into the system. Gasol can also spell Noah, which is something Boozer couldn't do.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 04:51 PM) You want the offense to improve without the defense takin' a hit. We got six white dudes. None of which are known for their defensive prowess. Hinrich is known for his defense.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 03:13 PM) @nikolamirotic12 52s I am very happy and excited to announce that next season I will be playing with the @chicagobulls . Today I fulfill a dream. #BullsNation Mirotic, Gasol, Hinrich, McBuckets, and another back-up PG is a solid off-season. Then we should be scouring the trade market to try and find an upgrade at the 2 guard if we at all can. We will rely on Rose but this team has a lot of good young core pieces, a veteran presence, and some nice upside. However, it is clearly dependent on Rose to win it all. The fact that we lost Melo, who clearly wanted as much money as possible, isn't something anyone can or should lose sleep over.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) If they chose Hinrich instead of Augustin, I'm gonna be pissed. Hinrich better not be getting the BAE. I really want Augustin or Sessions and they need to find a way to get them in at that price. We can't have Kirk as our primary back-up. If the organization hasn't learned that we can't just rely on Rose being healthy, then good grief.

Whateves....still going to be a great team.

TIFWIW, but this is from one of the real gm insiders: [quote[sorry for the boom, but marketing is working on Melo. It seems Melo will officially be a Bull. This is a great day for us Bulls fans after the past 3 seasons. Please, I can't share but people laughed at me on Sunday with Lebron info. Travel arrangements are being made. People laughed at me about Rose going to LA to visit. I'm not posting again, but to all Bulls fans, it finally worked. Give credit to Garpax, Thibs, Noah and Rose!

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:43 PM) I'm assuming Melo has no interest in playing for Houston, but does that mean Morey will come hard at Melo again? Doesn't work. Or at least I highly doubt they can get anything to work cap wise. I suppose they could go back but really, doesn't make any sense.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:34 PM) Good bye LA cap space! I don't know how much Nick Young got but that is just an insane use of their cap space (thus far).

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:33 PM) I'm talking salary-cap wise. Isn't there still a caphold for melo for NYK? They either give him the MLE or they have 4 million. He isn't taking discount for that crap team. Knicks could offer full MLE, I believe, however, may only be able to offer less then that because they may hit the hard cap of ~80M (for signing outside players) when you include Melo's salary.

Aka Nick Young @PrioritySports: Congrats @NickSwagyPYoung on resigning with the @Lakers! 4 more years of SwagyP in LA!

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:29 PM) They are still over cap right now, I don't see him going to knicks for MLE pre-Melo. I'm guessing OKC. Bulls really screwed the pooch with the Lin to LA developments. BUt we have an in on Hinrich. It wouldn't be pre-melo. It would be Phil telling Melo, we got Pau, now get over here and sign that deal. Note: Bulls didn't really screw the pooch. Timing of everything was that they couldn't do the Pau S&T until Melo was signed. Lakers still have caproom to do a Pau S&T, however, it really would limit anything else they really could do, so it all depends on what their off-season goal really is.

What we really don't want is Pau announcing he is going to Knicks.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:22 PM) What is that again? Is it there no matter what (Melo trade vs signing)? Yeah; I believe they have that no matter what. It is the biannual exception. I think it is somewhere between 2-3M per year. You can use once every two years and I believe it is not dependent on cap situation (obviously teams only eventually use it when over the cap, but you didn't have to be over the cap from the same circumstances as you would for the MLE). Technically I believe there is also a MLE for those teams that don't meet the standard MLE. It is like an RMLE, I think and is less years / less $'s available then the full MLE. Might be mistaken though.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 02:09 PM) Hopefully a planet where the Bulls will only have the vet min to throw at a PG. If Phil doesn't wanna play with a S&T for Melo I think that's all they can do. If they can work out a S&T then maybe they can use the mini MLE on something better. BAE should go to our back-up PG.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 01:28 PM) You know more about taxes than me, but my understanding of how income tax works for pro athletes is that they pay each state based on the games played there. So its 41 games taxed at NY rates v IL rate. Yep;

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 01:20 PM) I'd like to think the Bulls have the ability to give Melo a 4 year $90 million deal. Now that's $40 million less overall, but it's not that much less on an annual basis. Pretty much same when adjusting for taxes. If Bulls got to 4 94 (which is the max for a non New York team) during the 1st 4 years, after taxes, he makes more money in Chicago then NY.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 01:15 PM) If Melo left $50 + million on the table, I would totally respect him. I would think he's stupid, but I would respect him. It won't happen. No one, no how. He is coming to the Bulls though!!!