So what can Brown do for the Bulls? He makes John Salmons expendable, so I look for the Bulls to trade Salmons before the trade deadline but (hopefully) not Hinrich. If they can package him with some combination of Jarome James and/or Ty Thomas and/or a draft pick to get a post player, that would be gravy. But I’d settle for an expiring contract that would give the Bulls more cap space for the summer.

Here is one option I have not seen yet on the boards but would work for both teams and therefore have much better chance of actually happening.

Josh Howard ~$11M for Salmons + Jerome James, ~$12M. Howard might do well with a change in scenery. Otherwise his expiring contract give the Bulls ~$4.4M additional to throw at a superstar. Salmons may give the Mavs what they are not getting out of Howard.

John Salmons, Tyrus Thomas & the bulls 1st or 2nd round draft pick to sweeten the deal for Al Harrington & Wilson Chandler from New York. That way the Bulls can keep Al Harrington 10 million dollar this summer so they can have enough money to sign Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire or David Lee. Then the Bulls are set next year with a starting line up that looks like this:

Starters 2010-2011:
PG: D. Rose
SG: K. Hinrich or W. Chandler
SF: L. Deng
PF: Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire or David Lee
C: J. Noah
Bench:
J. Johnson
Taj Gibson
W. Chandler or K. Hinrich
1st or 2nd round draft pick player they choose
and other free agent solid players

John Salmons has one year left on his deal at 6.5 mil after this season. Realistically, you probably want to try and move Hinrich because of the larger figures, longer contract and quite frankly he and Salmons bring about equal value to the team.

I think we should only consider a move middle of the season if we can get:

1. Chris Bosh in a sign and trade (Toronto knows their losing him, I propose Tyrus, Salmons, First round pick and Jerome James to make the salary work). Toronto gets an expiring contract, two starters and a pick for someone they are going to lose for nothing.

2. Andrew Bynum for Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas (The Lakers have a better chance to win a championship with a floor general/defender like Hinrich and an athlete like Tyrus playing with Kobe. Point guard play and getting scorched by good PG’s is their only weakness. Gasol and Bynum often can’t play together against fast teams and Lamar Odom brings as much to the table as Bynum does).

3. (Riskiest one, means much less if we dont land Lebron,Wade or at least Joe Johnson).

Tyrus Thomes,Kirk Hinrich,James Johnson, Jerome James and a draft pick for Al Jefferson and Ramon Sessions. (Minnesota had one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players for over a decade and accomplished zilch. You can’t do it with just one great player, now they are trying to do it with just one kinda good player. They are destined to be lottery bound for the century at this pace. This gives them three starters and an expiring contract. We get an all star caliber post player and a decent backup for Rose. Then we would just need to add Dwayne Wade in the offseason and we would win a championship in the next 2 years and probably many after that. Noah, Al Jefferson, L. Deng, Salmons/D.Brown, D. Rose is a very good starting five. Insert Wade into that mix, or if not Joe Johnson and it’s lights out Eastern conference.

Starters:
PG: D. Rose
SG: K. Hinrick
SF: L. Deng
PF: A. Stoudemire (All Star)
C: J. Noah
Bench:
B. Miller
D. Brown
J. Pargo
L. Hunter
Arron Collins
Taj Gibson
J. Johnson

OR

Starter:
PG: D. Rose
SG: K. Hinrick
SF: L. Deng
PF: Taj Gibson
C: J. Noah
Fire Power off the Bench:
Al Harrington (offense)
W. Chandler (offense)
B. Miller
J. Pargo
L. Hunter
J. Johnson
D. Brown

PG – Rose, Farmar
SG – Joe Johnson, Brown
SF – Deng, James Johnson
PF – Lee, Gibson
C – Noah, Bynum