The Chicago Bulls have won 14 games so far this season, which is far more than anyone projected them to have through 40 games. Considering their preseason win total was 21.5, it’s safe to say they are overachieving in the first year of their rebuild.
The problem for the Bulls is that they don’t really want to overachieve. This is a team that was built to get a top pick and try to land a superstar in the upcoming draft. Right now, they would hold the seventh spot in the draft lottery, which doesn’t offer them much hope for one of those top three choices.
As is always important to remember, players don’t want to tank and don’t actively participate in it. They play hard and try to win, because that’s what professional athletes do. Coaches, for the most part, try to win as well. Tanking is an effort from the front office to build a team bad enough to lose a ton, but with enough flexibility for the future and maybe some young guys that can be pieces of that future core. So, the way to fix an overachieving team is to sell off pieces.
We will see this from a number of teams at the trade deadline, as the bottom-dwellers of the NBA jockey for ping-pong balls by trading away veterans and the like for little immediate return. In Chicago, the return of Nikola Mirotic sparked a lengthy winning streak and while that’s been an interesting story to watch, he still apparently wants out and the feeling is apparently mutual.
The most recent information from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggests that Mirotic is indeed on the trading block, although he can’t be dealt until Jan. 15 and must accept a deal per his contract, and one team in particular has his eye.
The Bulls are still planning to trade forward Nikola Mirotic, which can’t happen until Jan. 15 or without his permission, based on his contract. Mirotic has been intrigued with the Utah Jazz, whose coach, Quin Snyder, has a reputation for maximizing offensive talent.
This report doesn’t note anything regarding potential interest from the Jazz, but just notes that Mirotic likes the prospects of heading to Utah to play for Snyder. The question for Utah is what they would have to give up to land Mirotic and whether they’ll be part of the playoff push themselves and should be buyers at the deadline. Utah could certainly use some added offensive pop off the bench, but Mirotic makes $12.5 million per year, so it’s not as though they can just send a second-round pick for him and slot him into space (of which they have none).
That means they’d need to be able to package together some contracts to make a Mirotic deal work (again, this is even if they want him), which is possible, but would require some work.
Chicago won’t be alone as sellers, as the Hawks are also expected to put a trio of veterans on the trade block in hopes of holding onto their spot as the league’s worst team. The trade deadline this year might not feature a ton in the way of blockbusters (although that can change quickly), but expect plenty of shuffling as teams at the bottom ship off veteran help to teams fighting for playoff position.
