Is Josh Giddey turning into the new Cameron Payne?
I watched a lot of Josh Giddey with the Thunder last year, but I wanted to give it at least 10 games before I made a fresh evaluation of his fit with the Bulls.
It hasn't gone well for him, and I wrote about why over at Sporting News.
Giddey is better than Cameron Payne, but there are a lot of similarities in their circumstances. I sincerely hope it ends better for Giddey than it did for Payne.
My fear is his counting stats look fine and I genuinely question whether or not AK looks beyond those. If he did, he wouldn't have given Vooch a $60 million extension or swapped Caruso for Giddey in the first place.
If Giddey maintains his current play (or something similar to it) for the remainder of the year, I think AK would give him somewhere in the $20-25 million a year range, which would potentially be the worst contract AK has ever given a player. It would likely handicap the Bulls for years to come.
Unless Giddey significantly improves over the remainder of the season, I'm not sure there's any way to categorize the Caruso/Giddey trade as anything other than a horrible loss by AK and an incredible win by Presti.
Hey man, Josh still giving you Payne vibes? Lol better luck next time