With teams like Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Brooklyn building and adding to their already impressive repertoires. This leaves many Bulls fans to bite their nails in fear of the super teams we will have to face in the 2012-13 season. Now normally, any Bulls fan would say "Whatever man, bring that shit! We got D. Muthafuckin Rose!". But after his ACL injury in game 1 of the first round, now we are forced to say "Wait leave some good players for us guys!".
I'm not saying that the group the Bulls have currently is bad, in fact, I think they are one of the deepest teams in the league, if not THE deepest. But their weeknesses were definitely shown during last years playoffs against the 76ers. No D.Rose = No offense. That's simply it. The entire 6 game series came down to which team could defend more and just barely squeeze enough points out to win each game.
So now we must evaluate the weaknesses, moves some pieces around, and maybe try to bring in new talent to help out.
1. We need a strong 2 guard, preferrably one that can create his own shot. This was somewhat addressed at the beginning of last season with the addition of Rip Hamilton. He's great at coming off screens for jumpers, runs well in the open court especially with Rose, and he's also a great defender, but after last season all he proved to me was that his bones were made of pretzel sticks cuz that dude was always injured. Kyle Korver can play the same role at the 2 and can also slide over to the 3 as well. He clearly has been working on his defending as well and it shows. The Bulls are currently mulling Korver's $5M contract over and questioning whether or not they should bring him back. But to me, its no question. Kyle has starting quality skills and can always be that spark off the bench, keep him. This way you can have Rip/Korver at the 2 and Deng/Butler at the 3. The beauty part is that Korver and Butler can play both the 2 or 3, thus eliminating the need for a moreexpensive Ronnie Brewer who is less capable on the offensive end.
2. The point guard situation. Until Rose returns, there is uncertainty at the 1 spot. Lucas is a streaky shooter and doesn't care if he's not on fire, he'll keep on chucking up the bricks. Watson's decision making is questionable (especially after the game 6 loss to the 76ers) and he disappeared in the post season. I also think hes highly overpaid at about $3.4M a year. So what? Drop them both? Yeppers. Because we are witnessing the return of Captain Kirk! Kirk Hinrich has agreed to come back to the Bulls at starting PG until Rose gets better. Then he can come off the bench or even slide over to the 2, thus adding more depth to that position. He is a great 3 point threat, a great defender and is apparently very excited to be working with coach Thibs. And he's doing it all for about the same amount that we were going to pay Watson. A 2 year contract at about $3M a year according to Bleacher Report. The Bulls also added some insurance with the 29th pick in 2012 draft, they selected Marquis Teague out of Ketucky. Good pick, a slashing point guard who is super quick and works well with defensive big men. Sounds like Derrick Rose to me. Now I'm definitely not saying that he's going to be the next D.Rose, but hope fully he's as good as his brother Jeff (PG, Atlanta Hawks, basically a lame version of Derrick Rose).
3. Maybe the biggest issue the Bulls are going to face this year is the salary cap issue. With big contracts like Rose, Boozer, Deng and Noah. The Bulls front office has to be mighty thrifty or fall victim to the dreaded luxury tax. This means questioning whether or not we can resign Omer Asik, who was offered a pretty big deal by the Houston Rockets, because doing so would put us into the luxury tax and the team gets fined an extra $30M if they are even $1 over that limit.
So there are two options with Asik, who is definitely a valuable asset to the Bulls frontcourt and defensive second unit. One would be to match Houston's offer (a 3 year deal, about $25.1M), and hope for a chance to trade him before that third year where his salary would balloon. Or they can just let him walk and sign a cheaper free agent. Tough decision indeed. Asik is good and his tandem with Taj on the defensive end is unmatched in this league, but Asik by himself and on the offensive end, is not worth the amount of money the Bulls would be spending.
Free agency is still just in its beginning stages, and no moves are final yet with any teams. But stay tuned for further news, and updates. :)
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