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These are not your mother’s Chicago Bulls, ladies and gentlemen.
No, the still new front office of the team led by Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley is in the interest of big, unpredictable splashes. And push the chips to win now.
Their last submission in that department was the acquisition of DeMar DeRozan from the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday – adding to an active free agency spell that also saw them agree to Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso’s terms.
RELATED: NBA Free Agency: The Grading Bulls Moves, Signings On The First Active Day
But the DeRozan deal was the most important, both in terms of impact and cost.
Terms: Bulls acquire DeMar DeRozan (three-year, $ 85 million fully guaranteed) from Spurs in exchange for Thad Young, Al-Farouq Aminu, first-round pick in 2025 and second-round picks in 2022 and 2025
Analysis: Let’s start with the positives.
In this deal, the Bulls have met a few needs. Once (and again) thin on the depth of the wing, they’ve grabbed the best little striker in the business outside of Kawhi Leonard – and that little striker instantly becomes the team’s best playmaker on the half court. , averaging 6.9 assists (compared to just 2 turnovers) in 2020-21.
This isn’t the only wrinkle DeRozan will add. His ability to shoot fouls (his 7.2 free throw attempts per game last season ranked eighth in the NBA) directly corrects a weak point that Artūras Karnišovas identified during his end-of-season exit interview (the 17 , The Bulls’ 5 free throw attempts per game was dead last in the league). Plus, he’s averaged nearly half the number of records per game (18.2, sixth in the NBA) as the Team Bulls (40.8, 26th) last season, and has been effective in those occasions; it will be a godsend for a Bulls team that in recent years has lacked dribbling penetration outside of Zach LaVine.
Bottom Line: As a passer and passer (he was an isolated 96th percentile scorer and averaged 21.6 points in 2020-21), DeRozan plans to really help the Bulls’ offense – and in the process, to take a heavy fire-creation burden from LaVine, who was already posting near-historic efficiency numbers without constant help, but without whom the Bulls often stagnated (their offensive rating dropped 7.6 points per 100 possessions within minutes LaVine’s rest last year).
Now for the cost.
At first glance, the Bulls dropping another future first-round draft pick – the third they’ve traded in the past five months – a productive player at Young and an annual average of $ 28.3 million in salary for Inking DeRozan is a loss, an asset. There is no way around it. The team’s long-term business and financial flexibility (especially with a lucrative expansion coming up for LaVine next offseason) is now significantly crowded to the point of seeming non-existent. And such a high salary figure is made even more confusing by the apparent lack of suitors looking for cash in the market for his services.
Put simply: it’s a decision that treats DeRozan, who turns 32 in August, turns 34 when this deal ends and does little to bolster the team’s defense, like the last major play to push the Bulls into a real showdown.
Is that a fair expectation for this group that, while significantly overhauled, haven’t sniffed out the playoffs since 2017? It seems a step too far too soon, but time will tell. What is clear is that if a 2022 playoff spot was mandatory before this multitude of moves, even greater success is now needed to justify what could very well be a fiscally painful end to the three-year pact. by DeRozan.
But the Bulls hope losing the trumps game will soon lead to winning basketball games. Despite the questions on the defense, this will be a much more powerful and talented group offensively than this city has seen since the late Derrick Rose years.
And notably, the Bulls have deployed a multitude of creative and clever moves for the big market to put it together. Movements that, it should be noted, landed on happy ears at LaVine:
With another step towards relevance, the hope must be that an alignment and reputation lift, as well as incremental rungs in the Eastern Conference hierarchy, will make up for the depletion of the team’s assets. on the road. It’s a risky bet, but at the very least, this front office has chosen a path and has done it with conviction.
Ranking of bulls: B-
The long-term reach of the deal is enough to make you nauseous, and on paper Spurs are big winners. But the short-term zeal cannot be denied. The excitement is justified for now, but how this acquisition ages depends on what the Bulls are able to do with this window.
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