Bulls finding trade options tricky to navigate as deadline nears
The Suns recently added a bunch of first-round draft picks in a trade with the Jazz with the hope of dealing for disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler.
That won’t be easy, however, considering guard Bradley Beal would have to agree to waive his no-trade clause to go to the Heat as part of the deal.
So what if that situation continues to remain a stalemate? Might the Suns instead try to add Bulls center Nikola Vucevic in exchange for center Jusuf Nurkic, who has made it known he has no relationship with coach Mike Budenholzer and hasn’t spoken with him in weeks?
On the surface, it’s a fit, but the Suns can’t aggregate salaries and can’t trade for a player making more money than one they send out. Vucevic makes about $1.5 million more than Nurkic.
So while a deal that would bring Nurkic and a draft pick to the Bulls for Vucevic sounds great, the reality is that these are among the obstacles executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas is trying to surmount.
The Sun-Times and other outlets have reported Karnisovas has been looking to trade guard Zach LaVine, Vucevic and guard Lonzo Ball since the offseason. He has been looking to deal LaVine even longer.
And with the trade deadline Feb. 6 approaching, those aren’t the only three players Karnisovas would consider dealing. Besides rookie Matas Buzelis (not that he’s completely untouchable), Karnisovas would be willing to part with anyone on the roster if he thinks it would make the Bulls a better team in the long term and help them keep their top-10-protected draft pick this summer.
A source reiterated that Karnisovas has come down on what teams thought were unrealistic asking prices earlier in the season, but that doesn’t mean he is willing simply to give players away.
The Sun-Times also has reported that what happens with Butler carries a lot of weight because that’s the first trade domino that has to fall. That has led to some frustration around the league for teams trying to get non-Butler business done.
The other issue Karnisovas is trying to navigate is that many of the ‘‘haves’’ looking to add talent have the same financial issues the Suns do, while the ‘‘have-nots’’ are burrowed in their foxhole with visions of Cooper Flagg and the No. 1 pick dancing in their heads. That limits what Karnisovas can try to do.
Then there are a few younger teams that are climbing, such as the Pistons, who would love to add a veteran such as LaVine. The issue there is that the Pistons don’t have top-shelf contracts to send back in return because they are so young.
That doesn’t mean the Pistons won’t be involved in a major trade, however. They have salary-cap space and can be a third or fourth team involved if a blockbuster goes down, so they might be players in this one way or the other.
So where does all this leave Karnisovas and the Bulls? Better off than they were a few weeks ago, but not by much.
On Jan. 12, the Bulls had the third-easiest remaining schedule in the league. Most of that light lifting, however, was taken care of in the last eight games. The Bulls went 1-7 in that span and will enter their game Monday against the Nuggets with the 10th-toughest schedule left.
They still sit 10th and in the last play-in spot in the Eastern Conference, but the 11th-place 76ers have closed the gap to only a game, thanks to their victory Saturday at the United Center. Realistically, the best the Bulls could do is to finish with the seventh-worst record.
If Karnisovas can unload some talent in the next week, that would make it easier.
If only it were that simple.