Grading the DeMar DeRozan sign-and-trade
How the Kings, Bulls, and Pistons made out
DeMar DeRozan’s sign-and-trade to the Kings ended his long free agency saga. I wrote about why I liked it for all three parties involved over at Sporting News (if you just care about the grades, I gave the Kings a B+, Bulls a B, and Spurs a B+).
DeRozan was the best Bull since Jimmy Butler and will go down as one of my favorites to watch. His style wasn’t for everyone, which was kind of a shame because I felt like he was misunderstood by a large portion of the fanbase. He’s a true master of his craft, and that should continue in Sacramento.
As for the Bulls, this pretty much guarantees that they’ll be a bad team going forward. They created a $17.6 million trade exception that will likely go mostly or totally unused. Those types of exceptions are great if you’re a competitive team looking to add salary. If you’re a rebuilding team that is already only a few million away from the luxury tax, then they’re mostly useless.
This was still a good piece of business for the Bulls. They got to do right by their star and get some second round picks that will help grease the wheels in future trades. For my full analysis, read my story here.
Why is there no discussion about the Bulls needing to involve the Spurs instead of taking that pick? And you realize that Sabonis will be 35 and Fox 33 and Wembanyama 27 when that pick conveys, right? The chances that Sacramento is better than San Antonio is slim. That pick, to me, is almost a guaranteed Top 5 pick right now.
Do you see any chance bulls can trade vucevic? I would rather see him go first over lavine, more movable a contract, lavine can maybe rebuild some value. I dunno who would want either of them at this point though