With how crazy the NBA off-season has been (Elton Brand to the Sixers! B-Diddy to the Clippers! Mickael Pietrus to the Magic...okay, not so much) the Bulls haven't got much national coverage considering their cluttered roster and the players they have yet to re-sign. Even after the Knicks lured away Chris Duhon, the Bulls still have a cluttered backcourt with five players vying for ample playing time that realistically, only two players should get. And who knows if Tyrus Thomas can really be a starting power forward in the league? Can he get it? Will he ever?
However, the most recent big development in the off-season has been the problem with Luol Deng, another restricted free agent. Deng's management has apparently told the Bulls that if he doesn't receive a long-term deal in the next few weeks, he will sign the team's qualifying offer for a little under $5 million, then become an unrestricted free agent next year and get the hell out of the city.
It means he'd still be on the team for the upcoming season. But we saw last year how being upset over contract negotiations can adversely impact a team, and Deng could regress even further if he continued to be a negative Ned the whole season.
Of course, Deng put himself in this situation by refusing to sign the deal the Bulls offered him last year, which was $57.5 million over five years, or almost triple what Deng would make this year if he takes the qualifying offer. As time goes on, it's getting harder to justify that decision, because they wouldn't find that on the market this year and it could be tricky next year as well, because there are a bunch of mid-level stars who will hit the market as well, such as Rasheed Wallace, Lamar Odom, and Ron Artest.
Keeping Deng for this year only might be a viable strategy if the Bulls were on the cusp of winning a championship and could afford to rebuild a year from now. But Derrick Rose is probably a year or two away from being an All-Star, Joakim Noah and Thomas haven't developed yet, and we're in the same spot we were a few years ago, except now Deng, Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich have moved into the Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry spot of being "veterans" on the team.
And keep in mind, the East will be a lot tougher next year. The Celtics and Pistons will remain competitive for at least one more year, the LBJ Show over in Cleveland will continue to roll, the Sixers look a lot better after the Brand signing, and Orlando can only get better (assuming Dwight Howard continues to develop at an astonishing pace). Then you still have both the Raptors and the Wizards (both looking to rebound from down years), the still-developing Hawks, the Scott Skiles-led-and-therefore-better Bucks, and so forth. It might not even be a given that the Bulls make the playoffs next year, although that would probably leave me near-suicidal.
So the Bulls are a few years away from being contenders, which is fine. That means they need to give Deng his money, because he could be Rashard Lewis without the 3-point range, but way more accurate inside the arc; hey, that's almost what he was in the 2006-07 season.
Plus, as soon as Rose becomes the Chris Paul or Deron Williams or Jason Kidd-with-a-jumpshot that everyone expects him to be, Deng's production will probably jump a bit. And if Rose doesn't become that...well then, the Bulls took a gamble and lost, like every team who doesn't win the championship does.
If the Bulls fail to re-sign Deng (and Gordon, who is also a restricted FA) then they will be giving them up for nothing, which would be the ultimate failure. I mean, if the ultimate goal in professional sports is to win the championship, then I still think Deng and Gordon are important parts of that formula. Deng is also a big community and character guy, and to losing that would look petty on John Paxson's part.
But again, this is probably just Deng's way of regaining some leverage in contract negotiations, given how he did nothing to do so last season. Paxson could lowball Deng and Gordon because the market is so weak right now, and they might be forced into signing out of desperation. But again, who knows how they would react? Would they still play hard? Would they privately complain and disrupt the locker room? Would the Bulls be forced to trade them before the contracts ran out, like they did with Ben Wallace?
I suppose we'll see in a few weeks, when Deng's deadline for a new deal has lapsed. Personally, I want to see him in a Bulls jersey next season and beyond. He's the best player on the Bulls right now, and even though we should have traded him for Kobe Bryant last year, what are you going to do?
Photo by Nathan Dainty
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Jeremy Gordon
Jeremy is a born-and-raised Chicagoan who attended Walter Payton College Prep and is now a junior studying journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
He has written for The Daily Northwestern, North By Northwestern, and Newcity Magazine. While a diehard Cubs fan, he grudgingly accepts that the White Sox World Series win in 2005 was a good thing for the city, though he still doesn't want to hear any of his friends brag about it.
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