The #1 pick in a loaded draft is hardly nothing.

The #1 pick in a loaded draft is hardly nothing.

That's far from guaranteed to be #1. And it's not nearly enough for Butler.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

The Nets pick this draft is a guaranteed Top 3. Their pick the following year will probably also be Top 5.

Huh? Even the worst record in the league isn't guaranteed to be top 3. That's not how the lottery works. That Nets pick has like a 70% chance of not being the #1 overall pick.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

Unless 3 teams overcome insurmountable odds and all land in the Top 3, Brooklyn will be there. But that's just not going to happen. There's probably like a <1% chance they end up drafting #4, but that would be the worst case scenario.

Right. Obviously we both know how it works. I'm just saying shakes was clearly misrepresenting the value of that pick.

Trading Butler for both picks would likely have given them a 50%+ chance of picking #1 overall in either of the next two years, and a not-insignificant chance of picking #1 overall both times.

That's extremely valuable for a luck-of-the-draw pick in Butler.

That's far from guaranteed to be #1. And it's not nearly enough for Butler.

Trae Young will be a bust. Book It!

This is the most loaded draft since 2003. The top 6 or 7 players are all projected all stars. Butler at his age and coupled with the state of the franchise is hardly worth more than a 20 year old future all star.

Trae Young will be a bust. Book It!

Lonzo Ball
Markele Fultz
Josh Jackson
Jason Tatum
Dennis Smith Jr
Jonathan Isaac

All better assets than Jimmy Butler for a non contending team.

While I agree that they aren't winning with Jimmy Butler, so trading him for a score of high draft picks and spinning the wheel is probably the way to go, let's chill out on the "better assets than Jimmy Butler" stuff when talking about guys still in college.

Trae Young will be a bust. Book It!

NBA TRADE DEADLINE: BULLS' TRADE WITH THUNDER RETURNS PLAYERS WHO HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY TERRIBLE THIS YEAR

https://www.google.com/amp/www.sporting ... puatr39xfx

Bump. 4 years/$32MM for Felicio, the most average, replaceable player in the entire league. Fuck GarPax. Can't wait to see the 4 year/$80MM they give fucking Mirotic. Goddamnit

Bulls sources are now using Gar Forman's name as a metaphor for bad GM'ing

One summer after the Chicago Bulls signed Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo to a team that already featured Jimmy Butler, only Wade remains, as a dysfunctional 2016-17 campaign — save for a two-game flicker of hope of in the playoffs — gave way to what could be one of the worst rosters in the NBA.

So, get used to more reports like this one from the Chicago Sun-Times, citing an anonymous Bulls source on Cameron Payne after the point guard broke his right foot for the second time in three years:

“We knew the second practice [after he was acquired] that he couldn’t play at [an NBA] level,” the source said. “The only reason it took two practices was because we thought maybe it was nerves in the first one.
“Any [Bulls] coach who says differently is lying. … We got ‘Garred’ on that one.”

Any time the name of your general manager, Gar Forman, is being used within the organization as a verb to describe making terrible decisions, you know your franchise is in trouble. Sorry, Bulls fans.
Forman, of course, acquired Payne along with Anthony Morrow and Joffrey Lauvergne at the trade deadline in February for beloved longtime Bulls forward Taj Gibson’s expiring contract, Chicago’s 2014 lottery pick Doug McDermott and a 2018 second-round pick. Lauvergne left for the San Antonio Spurs in free agency, Morrow remains unsigned on the open market, and Payne just broke his foot again.
Just for fun: Do you want to know how Forman moved up to take McDermott at No. 11 three years ago? He traded the rights to the Nos. 16 and 19 picks. Those two players: Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic.
Payne played all of 11 games for the Bulls after the All-Star break. When Chicago was desperate for a point guard after Rondo’s season-ending thumb injury in Game 2 against the Boston Celtics, they couldn’t turn to Payne. The former lottery pick played all of four minutes in the playoffs, as coach Fred Hoiberg turned to the likes of Isaiah Canaan, Michael Carter-Williams and Jerian Grant instead.

In 88 appearances over his first two injury-plagued NBA seasons, Payne has averaged five points, 1.9 assists and 1.5 rebounds in 13.2 minutes per game, while shooting 37.8 percent from the field. His player efficiency rating was a robust 5.5 last season. And this wasn’t Forman’s worst trade of 2017.
On draft day, the Bulls GM dealt Butler, a three-All-Star with two years left on his contract, for two-time slam dunk champ Zach LaVine, who is still recovering from knee surgery, as well as underproducing 2016 No. 5 overall pick Kris Dunn, a No. 7 pick in 2017 that he used on underwhelming forward Lauri Markkanen. The trade was widely considered a steal for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Soon after making that deal, Forman sold the draft rights to the No. 38 pick for $3.8 million to the Golden State Warriors, who proceeded to draft Oregon’s Jordan Bell, who the defending champions saw as someone primed to learn under fellow versatile forward Draymond Green. Selling off a draft pick for cash isn’t the best look when your team is entering what expects to be a long rebuild.
It is precisely these circumstances that led Bulls fans to crowdfund a #FireGarPax billboard in Chicago — blending the names of the GM and vice president of basketball operations John Paxson.


Those two helped build a 62-win team that reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2011, when Forman even earned Executive of the Year honors, and granted the Derrick Rose-led Bulls were plagued by injuries in the years afterward, but they have made few deft moves ever since.
Things got so bad last season that Bulls players openly suspected the front office of employing assistant coach Randy Brown as a “spy” inside the locker room, fracturing an already fractured team. Now, before 2017-18 training camp even begins, anonymous sources are blasting Forman in the media.
It should be another interesting season in Chicago, only with fewer reasons to watch actually watch the team play, especially if the Bulls reach a buyout with Wade as expected. You will remember Forman signed a 34-year-old past-his-prime Wade to a two-year, $47 million contract last summer.

Have a terrible night and die in MANY fires.

First of all the source for that is Cowley. He's most likely just projecting his own dislike on GarPax rather than having a source at all.

And second of all, if he does have a source, I sure hope Gar is able to track down the culprit. That kind of disrespect is exactly the kind of thing keeping the Bulls from playing better. Just like last season's failure to against Boston is entirely reducible to Butler and Wade being malcontents and had nothing at all to do with the makeup of the team. Cameron Payne is perfectly capable of being an NBA starting point guard. That's what GarPax liked in him from the start, and if he fails, it will definitely be down to lack of faith from other players and coaches on the team, not his actual quality. GarPax can't fail the team, the team can only fail them.

I'd add that it's very difficult to criticize the majority of the moves the 2011 NBA Executive of the Year has made, so simple jealousy is probably the most likely reason for such criticism.

This is going to reach a head pretty soon.

Yeah GarPax sucks for not being able to acquire much for 2 rotation guys. I'm sure you and others expected a kings ransom for them. anything less is an indictment on Them like always.

He got back a player who is significantly worse than the player he traded 2 draft picks for and he gave up a 2nd round pick to get him. It's ridiculous to defend Gar for this trade.

Nah McDermott would've been well on his way to being the next Kyler Korver but for Jimmy Butler's insolence and disrespect of the offensive genius of "The Mayor." Coach Hoiberg definitely would've coached him up given his long history of developing talented NBA professionals, and there were no better picks that the Bulls could have used their two first rounders on. What, you think Harris or Nurkic would have been much better? Anyone criticizing that pick by GarPax is simply biased against giving them a fair shake.

This is going to reach a head pretty soon.

There will be a high level of acceptance for mediocrity all of a sudden.