I apologize for this, but I’m short on sleep and over-caffeinated, so maybe this was inevitable. In short, I have discovered my favorite hypothetical trade involving getting Kevin Love to the Chicago Bulls.
It started with this proposal from Steve McPherson of Grantland, A Wolf Among Wolves, Hardwood Paroxysm and others.
Then I got ahold of it, and … well …
There are some obvious problems with this. This would leave the Bulls with one point guard, a pair of rookies as the only bigs behind Love and Joakim Noah, and a wing rotation consisting of Tony Snell, Toko Shengelia, Robbie Hummel and Ben Gordon. Plus three minimum-salaried veterans the Bulls would have to sign to fill out the roster. It also takes pretty much all the Bulls’ assets: Jimmy Butler, the rights to Nikola Mirotic and a draft pick likely would go to Minnesota, and the Carlos Boozer piece* would likely need another pick.
*For the record, the Gordon/Boozer part of the deal stems from a need to clear room under the tax line in order to sign free agents.
But the reason I like this trade a lot is that it gets the Bulls Love, and it leaves about 8 million in cap space open for this summer. Obviously, that’s not enough to sign Carmelo Anthony or Lance Stephenson, but it should be enough for a decent wing guy. Plus I would enjoy watching Tom Thibodeau find a way to win with Noah, Love and not a whole lot else.
But hey, this isn’t happening anyway. What do you guys think?
Or we could just amnesty Boozer and bring over Mirotic and keep all those guys…
Dude, you’re high. No way would the timberwolves take those offers.
What are the rights to Mirotic worth? If he has a lot of value to other teams, then this idea is pretty interesting. I wouldn’t think you’d need much more than he and Taj (who also has + value) to make this work, presuming that the Timberwolves are ready/willing to let Love go. The Boozer part of this shouldn’t cost us too much if we find the right team – Charlotte or Phoenix for expirings, and both of these teams could actually use Boozer, (maybe we’d have to add a pick or Dunleavy). We’d be getting at least 1.5 years of Love on his current contract (I think he has a player option after next season), and have options going forward.