With the Chicago Bulls winning 9 of their last 11 games, many fans are both excited and worried.
A young team is showing impressive progress, much earlier than expected, and that’s worth getting excited about. However, the Bulls have gone from having the #1 pick to having the #9 pick since the return of Nikola Mirotic.
That sound you hear is my visceral reaction to seeing the Bulls at No. 9 in the draft lottery standings pic.twitter.com/sQXS1IVUuI
— Ricky O'Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) December 28, 2017
Mirotic has returned from his face injury looking better than we’ve ever seen him, he’s led the team in scoring at over 17 ppg during this 11 game stretch and he’s doing it effortlessly and confidently.
With 48 games left in the season, there’s still plenty of time for the Bulls to get their #tank back on. The best way to do that is to trade away players who are helping them win now that aren’t apart of the future plans. That list currently includes two players, center Robin Lopez and Mirotic, who are both free agents after the 2018-19 season. None of the Bulls young bench pieces are untouchable, but I don’t see GarPax dumping Portis, Valentine or Nwaba as a throw-in in a trade. The best way to get value (say, a mid-teens/early twenties 1st round pick) while expediting the tank process would be to package Mirotic and Lopez together, rather than selling them off in separate deals.
Having said that, there’s one major obstacle standing in the Bulls way… the full no-trade clause they gave Mirotic in his contract that he signed in September.
There wasn’t a free agent bidding war that forced the Bulls to dish out a no-trade clause in order to ensure Mirotic would sign with them, he didn’t sign until the day before training camp. According to multiple reports, it was essentially the Bulls competing against themselves for his services. There is no excuse for Mirotic to have the contractual right to block being traded.
Now, ironically, the Bobby Portis punch debacle could end up helping the Bulls in the long run. Despite their apparent reconciliation, hope remains that the incident impacted Niko to the point where he would waive his no-trade clause if the right trade was presented to him.
But that could change at any moment, and he isn’t eligible to be traded until January (another weird clause in his contract). Maybe he really has forgiven Portis and moved on. Maybe he isn’t lying through his teeth when he talks about his love for the city and the organization that took a chance on him in the draft. I don’t think this is a cut-and-dry situation that many are making it out to be.
Regardless of what happens this season with Mirotic, it will be his decision, not the Bulls management’s. The process is just as important as the results, and GarPax did not execute this part of the process correctly.
