Chicago Bulls Offseason

The Bulls made great strides last season, but still have a long way to go. This is where we look at what the Bulls need to realistically do this offseason in order to improve their team the most.

The first thing you want to look at is if you want the Bulls to go for instant improvement or wait an extra year, taking a chance, and shoot for the stars with the huge 2010 free agent season. The Bulls only lost small contracts this offseason and will likely be unable to do a whole lot outside of trades this offseason. The real question then comes in what you want the Bulls to do this offseason as far as trades go. Do they trade for high quality players, trade for expiring contracts, or do they mix it up?

The best option would be the last of the three. If the Bulls trade away all their talent and get nothing but expiring contracts in return, then they will likely have a poor season, and no matter how good Derrick Rose is, it becomes much harder to lure big name free agents to a team that doesn't play well the season before. In order to be able to lure these big names out of their current homes the Bulls will have to be at very least a playoff team. The only problem out there with trading purely for talent this offseason is that the talent in the free agent class of 2010 is so much greater. You have stars like Dirk Nowitzki (player option), LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Amar'e Stoudemire (player option), Josh Howard (team option), Joe Johnson, Ray Allen, and Tracy McGrady. Those are only the unrestricted free agents, assuming none of them sign an extension this summer, and there's a whole lot of restricted free agents out there as well.

The big advantage that the Bulls have is that they are a top 3 team as far as market goes, so they'll really be one of only three teams not completely hurt by the economy by that time while the other teams will likely not be willing to go very far over the salary cap. Of those three teams, New York is the only one that will also have significant cap room in 2010, and we all know that the Knicks have had very limited success over the past few years. Therefore, almost every player that is at least testing the free agent market in that summer will be at least seeing the Bulls as an option.

So, how do the Bulls make trades that will help them out both next year and give them a better chance at the free agent class of 2010? Well, first off, let's look at some of the rumors that have been going on lately. First off, Phoenix has said to be interested in acquiring Luol Deng. Deng is owed over $11 million during the 2010/2011 season. Supposedly Phoenix, among several other teams are also interested in Kirk Hinrich, who is owed $9 million during the 2010/2011 season. This clears up an additional $20 million for the Bulls during that offseason.

Phoenix is said to be shopping Shaquille O'Neal, who has $20 million still due for the last year of his contract. In order to make the deal work out though, the Bulls are going to have to offer more an expiring contract as well. You likely won't be able to do a trade that involves both Deng and Hinrich in a deal for O'Neal, so you go for Luol Deng in a Phoenix trade since he'll be harder to get any other team to take. If the Bulls offer Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and Tim Thomas for Shaquille O'Neal, they'll likely be able to get the deal done. While this trade will leave the Bulls thin as far as their forwards go, there will be ways to fix that problem.

The next trade will be a Kirk Hinrich related trade. The Minnesota Timberwolves are said to be interested in Kirk Hinrich and will likely be under the cap for the offseason. Therefore the Bulls will be able to trade Hinrich without having to match salaries. The best thing about trading Kirk Hinrich away is that because of his now much more limited role on the Bulls, trading Hinrich can be an easy way for the Bulls to work out a trade which can make each team involved better. A potential trade here involving Hinrich could be Hinrich and the Bulls' #26 pick to the Timberwolves for Craig Smith and the Timberwolves' #18 pick. With that the Bulls would have the #16 and the #18 picks in the draft as well as having Craig Smith to help solve the problems that they have in the frontcourt. With the two picks in the draft, some up front help that should still be around includes BJ Mullens (a backup center for the time being who can benefit greatly from having Shaquille O'Neal to play against in practice and learn from), James Johnson (although he may now be out of reach at #16), Chase Budinger (amazing shooter with great athleticism), Omri Casspi, Gani Lawal, and Tyler Hansbrough. While you don't have any superstars at that point, you do have guys who can come right in and at least play.

Another issue this offseason will be bringing back Ben Gordon. At this point you've kept the Bulls a playoff team while freeing up an awful lot of money. The Bulls can afford to bring Ben Gordon back to the Bulls for up to about $10 million, which is overpaying him, but may be necessary at least for the next season, and from there on out you'll just have to eat that money. Either way, assuming the Bulls sign Gordon to a 5 year $50 million contract, the Bulls will have about $21.8 million committed to players before free agency starts. Assuming that the salary cap doesn't change (although it's likely to go down for next year, we'll just assume it returns to where it is now for the next year) and stays at about $58.7 million, then the Bulls suddenly have $36.9 million to spend on free agents. This also assumes that John Salmons will opt out of his contract, which will likely happen. After the Bulls finish signing the big free agents the Bulls should then go ahead and give Salmons an offer as well since they'll have Bird rights there.

The big question at this point is now who the Bulls sign. Do they go after one more superstar to compliment Rose, then go after a group of good role players that'll get about $4-$7 million per year, or do they go after two superstars and take on maybe one more role player? There's a good chance that many of those free agents will return to their old teams, but if the Bulls can manage to lure away LeBron James, you'll likely want to go with the role players. However, it will be hard to take LeBron away from the Cavs, and if he does go he's likely to look for the huge market in New York rather than the big market and better chance of winning in Chicago. The best two chance the Bulls have are Dwyane Wade due to his Chicago connections, and Chris Bosh since he's likely to want out of Toronto. If the Bulls can sign both of these two it's likely going to take about $32 million off of that cap surplus, leaving the Bulls with about $4 million to spend on role players.

Going with the one superstar leaves the Bulls with two major options. One is Dwyane Wade, who will likely ask for anywhere around $18-$20 million for the first year. This will allow the Bulls to spend about $17 million on role players to put around him and the rest of the remaining team who they do not resign after the outside free agent signings. The other option is Chris Bosh, who will be harder to build around, being a softer big man, but can score in many different ways. He'll likely want $14-$15 million for the first year of his deal. This will leave the Bulls with about $22 million to spend on role players. Seeing as Gordon, Rose, and Noah will likely be the only Bulls players around at that point, along with their two first round choices, the Bulls will be able to use the money to add quality role players at that point.

If the Bulls draft, say, BJ Mullens and Chase Budinger with their two draft choices, then that will give them something that looks like this:

PG: Rose
SG: Gordon
SF: Budinger
PF: Noah
C: Mullens

Throw Bosh in there and you have a nice 3 man rotation at the 4 and 5 spots. From there you need a backup point guard that is solid and then a backup wing player, or a backup combo guard along with a backup small forward in order to have a rotation set. Then you'll need backup from there, players who can step up if someone is hurt or if someone is in foul trouble. With $22 million to spend on guys making $3-$7 million at this point, there should be no problem in not only filling these spots, but getting guys to make the rotation bigger and giving guys rest. If they are able to bring back Salmons after all the signings and maybe even get Shaq back for another year or two, then they will be a very deep team with some very strong punches.

This is only one course of action that has been taken here. Over the next two years there are many paths that the Bulls can take in order to improve their team. They should realize this golden opportunity and do anything they can to take advantage of it. This won't give them a perfect team, but they can surely be a contender by making the right moves and by not having particularly bad luck in the process.