McDermott Trade Costs Bulls Cap Space
By Joel Brigham | Senior NBA Writer
The Truth Behind the Doug McDermott Trade
When it was first announced on Thursday night that the Chicago Bulls had made a trade that would send the No. 16 and No. 19 picks in the draft for the rights to Creighton forward Doug McDermott, the initial response was pretty much this:
“Oh good. The Bulls traded two first-round picks for one so they can amass as much cap space as possible in a potential free agency push for Carmelo Anthony. Let all of us in Chicago rejoice!”
The truth, though, is something quite a bit different, and that truth became clear once it was made known that forward Anthony Randolph and his $1.825 million salary would also be coming to Chicago in the deal.
According to Mark Deeks of Sham Sports, by adding that money to McDermott’s $1.898 million cap hold as the 11th pick and a roster charge of over $500,000, the Bulls actually added money to the payroll in this deal rather than create more space for Anthony by consolidating picks. All told, Chicago has about $1 million less to offer Carmelo in free agency (assuming they amnesty Carlos Boozer) than they would have had they drafted Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris themselves.
So why make the trade, then? The way Gar Forman spoke at the introductory press conference, the deal was made because Chicago really, really liked McDermott. He’s been on their radar for years and is, quite frankly, a pretty perfect player for their team this year. He’s mature and accomplished enough to help right away, plus he can score the ball in a variety of situations, and putting up points was an area in which Chicago was dead-last in 2013-14.
Denver apparently sensed Forman’s desperation and moved the trade beyond just the No. 16 and No. 19 for the No. 11 and got Chicago to take back a dumb contract and send the Nuggets a future second-round pick. The answer to why the trade was made is pretty simple: the Bulls wanted him and were okay doing something silly in order to get him.
This doesn’t mean, however, that Randolph is in the team’s plans, and Forman has referred to him as a sign-and-trade piece despite the fact that Randolph already played in New York and they were so interested in him that they let him walk away to sign with Denver. Who traded him Chicago. Who now thinks there’s an outside chance that he can be used as part of a sign-and-trade package for Carmelo Anthony.
It doesn’t seem likely, and it’s even tougher when one considers that his contract cannot be aggregated with another player’s contract in trade for two months. Deeks has explained in depth that there is a sneaky way around this, and that Randolph could actually be included in a deal that would send him back to New York along with other Bulls players, but the hard part is dealing with New York’s perceived disinterest in Randolph (and Boozer, for that matter) more than it is about dealing with the money.
Randolph is a very small expiring contract, so unloading him shouldn’t be an entirely impossible task, and now that McDermott is on the roster, trading Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and his $3+ million salary next year is a little more palatable, as well. Amnesty Boozer and do something with Taj Gibson, and Chicago could have enough money to sign Carmelo outright.
If they can convince New York to do a sign-and-trade (if Chicago is where Anthony ultimately decides is the place for him), they probably lose the same players but then keep their mid-level exception, which could potentially be used on Euro-stud Nikola Mirotic.
Obviously, the sign-and-trade looks as though it would be the better deal for both teams, but it’s impossible to know how all of this will pan out. What we do know is that Chicago absolutely did not create cap space by pulling off the McDermott trade. Rather, they have $1 million fewer to offer Melo as a result, at least for now.
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