NFL Tickets
The free agent moratorium ends in just over an hour so NBA rumors are flying like crazy. The latest one involves Omer Asik and the Chicago Bulls. It appears that the Bulls will match the 3 year, 24.3 million dollar offer sheet that the center was presented by the Houston Rockets. It sounds like a lot but it makes a lot of sense.
The Rockets tried to poison pill the Bulls but the team is still worried about the ankle of Joakim Noah. He sprained it in Game 4 of their first round playoff series and is still not over it. I think that is a little bit worse than a sprain but I am not a doctor.
This also allows the Bulls to amnesty lightning rod power forward Carlos Boozer next offseason. Heck, they could still amnesty him this offseason, but that makes little sense. Boozer was never given a fair shake in Chicago, but his production in the playoffs is alarming. He isn’t getting any better either.
I believe this puts the Bulls into kind of a two year dead period. This coming season will involve getting Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah healthy. The season after still does not look like a good season, but in 2015-2016, the Bulls will have 29 million dollars in Noah and Asik coming off of the salary cap. Nikola Mirotic should have some valuable basketball experience under his belt by then.
If this plan seems overly conservative, that is because it is. I also fear that this how the Bulls plan on playing out the next two years. Instead of being proactive, they would rather be reactive. That is why they are stuck in this position. Instead of using assets to pick up a trade exception or a pick, they just let them walk. They could have been a part of many NBA rumors, but they chose to let things pass them by.
Re-signing Asik does not mean much in the scheme of things. There are plenty of other reasons to be mad at the direction of the Bulls. Maybe the team will get involved in more NBA rumors once they match Asik. It would be hard to believe, however.
Riley Schmitt is a writer for Rant Sports.
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