It's been a busy few weeks for John Paxson and the Bulls. Signing Ben Wallace to a free agent contract made Tyson Chandler expendable, so they traded him to the Lower Mississippi Watershed Hornets for the expiring contract of PJ Brown and JR Smith; a man whose anti-authoritarian attitude may have been enough that Chicago decided to keep him at least a time zone away from Scott Skiles, which was made possible today by trading him to Denver for Howard Eisley and two second round draft picks.
Whew. Deep breath.
Apparently Howard Eisley will be waived, and if PJ Brown's expiring contact isn't included in a deal over the next nine months he'll apparently be politely bid a 'bon voyage' at the end of year.
So in sum, the Bulls exchanged Tyson Chandler and his $9M/year deal for Ben Wallace on a $16M/year deal, without taking on any other salary commitments that might interfere with their ability to re-sign Hinrich, Deng, et al and/or be a player in the next couple summers' free agent markets.
The upside of this immediate set of deals (leaving aside for a moment the presumably significant benefits of resigning the better of the Bull's current players on rookie deals) rests heavily on Ben Wallace's contributions over the next ~4 years exceeding those of Chandler. If Wallace continues to be the player he was a couple years ago, this is a no-brainer. His stats have shown gradual decline, however, and we'll have to hope for the Bulls' sake this is not part of a larger, ongoing trend. Chandler has been something of a disappointment, even before people in Chicago were disappointed with his performance in the first year of his new long-term deal. I'm sure some folks in Chicago were impressed they got out of his contract so easily. He's only 24, however, and its not out of the question that in 3-4 years he won't be better than a 36-year-old Wallace. We can keep an eye on each career, and grade Paxson accordingly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment