Luol Deng: The Fall Out

Following the trade of All-Star forward Luol Deng, The Chicago Bulls have officially become a mess. In an effort to save money and get under the luxury tax The Bulls traded Luol Deng for Andrew Bynum and picks. At first sight the trade doesnt seem horrible, but when you look into the details you find the Bulls really messed this one up. They got the rights to The Kings 1st round pick, which sounds phenomneal because the Kings are a bad team who show zero signs of improving; however, everything is not as it seems. The pick is top 12 protected in 2015, and top 10 protected in 2016 and 2017 at which point it turns into a second round pick.  This seems very likely unless the Kings who are the Cleveland Browns of The NBA make a miraculuous turnaround. The other two picks are second rounders which belong to Portland, and in the NBA second picks don’t mean very much.

This move which attempts to help the Bulls build toward the future seems like it will end up fruitless and instead put an even darker cloud over the future. The only glimmer of hope and good,and by glimmer I mean glimmer, is that the Bulls will fall out of the play-off race and land a lottery pick which could potentially be Chicago native Jabari Parker; or the Canadian sensation Andrew Wiggins; or that The Bobcats pick which is unprotected in 2016 becomes a top pick.  Both of these situations are highly unlikely.

What is more likely is that the bulls will be left with a very disgruntled coach who lost his favorite player, and defensive leader.  Derrick Rose (who previously stated he doesn’t want to take part in any rebuilding) will definitely be pissed off . My prediction is that this extreme set-back, coupled with the fact that the Bulls couldn’t get Derrick Rose any help when he was healthy, will lead him to leave the Bulls once his contract is up.  Sadly, the Bulls at that point would be in the NBA equivalent of limbo.

The Derrick Rose injury at the beginning of the season is the push that set this all in motion. That injury not only set the Bulls back but for the foreseeable future as well. There is nothing guarunteed now, there is no certainty in The Bulls organization.  We don’t even know if Derrick Rose will come back as the player we all remember him as. All fans are left to do is watch with their hands over their eyes and pray we get some luck.