Why the Chicago Bulls WON’T Be Able to Trade for Nikola Vucevic

Why the Chicago Bulls WON’T Be Able to Trade for Nikola Vucevic

at the 2021 NBA trade deadline the Chicago Bulls made a bold move in pivoting from being a rebuilding team looking to develop their young talent and pushing to start winning now and building around Zack LaVine who they knew likely would leave the organization as a free agent if they did not make Swift moves to get him the requisite talent and that kicked off by making one of the biggest trades of that deadline when they acquired Then star big man niik lavich from the Orlando Magic in exchange for Wendell Carter Jr in two first round picks and while a lot of bull fans praised the move at the time as V was coming off the best season of his career the Bulls desperately needed a starting caliber Center you would people talking about how this was finally a franchise acting like a big Market team and being aggressive and getting big names that is until it didn’t work and while I do think vich gets more blame than he deserves for the Bulls failures and is often a scapegoat and easy target for Bulls fans because of the amount the Bulls had to trade to get him but the fact of the matter is it did not work the Bulls lost the trade and there’s no no getting around it but here we are over 3 years later after the trade and the Bulls going into a critical offseason that will Define their future an offseason in which we were promised changed the question now remains will vuvi be on the team going into next season and I’ve seen a lot of bulls fans and even some of you in the comments saying well Vu has to go getting rid of him needs to be a priority over even trading Zack LaVine or letting demard de Rosen walk well simply put it’s not that easy and if anything the guy is most likely going to remain with the bulls next season among the mid3 and that’s going to be Nicola vuich so Bulls fans better prepare themselves for that and I’ll explain why in this video so what’s going on everyone you’re listening to Bull Central here hope you’re all doing well now I’m sure most of you saw the news by now that the Bulls have found and hired their new lead assistant to replace Chris Fleming and Wes unel Jr who was the head coach of the Wizards for two seasons before being fired this past season for their abysmal start I didn’t think this news warranted an entire video for itself so I thought I would touch on it here briefly but as you all know it was reported that Billy Donan was looking to hire a new lead assistant who had head coaching experience initially was believed that Josh longstaff would take on that role until he got a job to be lead assistant over in Charlotte and while I’m sure some were kind of looking at this like really the guy who was coaching that horrible wizards team and got fired two seasons into the job well I think we can all agree that the Wizards that Wizards roster was absolute crap and no coach was going to be taking that team to a lot of wins and so in short I actually like this hire is a pretty well-respected coach throughout the NBA with extensive experience as an assistant he spent six years on Mike Malone’s coaching staff with the Denver Nuggets before taking the job with the Wizards before that he was an assistant with the magic The Warriors and the Wizards before that obviously grew up around the game as his dad is a Hall of Famer so I’m not saying that this is a game-changing hire but it’s better than what I would have expected when I initially thought there was no chance the Bulls would be able to land a lead assistant with head coaching experience so a good move we’ll see what he brings from Player Development and Leadership standpoint now back to Nica vuvi and the desire for fans across Bulls Nation for the franchise to do everything in their power to trade V which again I don’t think is entirely fair but that’s where fan sentiment is right now now here’s the problem when it comes to trying to trade vo if you thought there was no market for Zack LaVine you can essentially double that for vvi and the lack of Market there is for him right now in a trade see while vui’s overall salary is much less than Zach’s where V is making half the amount that Zach is at $20 million and despite the fact that V only has two more years left on his deal compared to three that Zack LaVine has you have to understand that one vuvi is 33 years old he’s actually going to be 34 by the time the season kicks off he’s clearly declining as a player overall and more importantly you have to look around the league and see which teams are in the market for a starting center because even as much as some might say well V should just come off the bench for some other team he’s not going to do that he’s still too good he’s good enough on offense to not be a player that should be coming off the bench and even further to that I mean teams aren’t going to be willing to trade for a $20 million a year player to come off the bench if you trade for vich you’re going to have him start on your team and so really when you look around the league looking at the standings from this past season from top to bottom in each conference go through each of the teams and ask yourself is that a team that would be in the market for a center and a center that fits their timeline because sure you could say well the Wizards could use a center after trading Daniel Gafford yeah maybe the Hornets who have never really had a good big on their roster but vvi on those teams makes no sense they’re not going to trade for a 34-year-old big who isn’t going to be part of their long-term future so I was going around team by team and thinking which team realistically could be in the market for a starting center not even just for Nikola vuich per se we’ll put him aside for now but just looking for a starting caliber Center in general and it is honestly so few teams that I almost felt defeated as a bulls fan and learned to accept that V is going to be on this team for the foreseeable future at least for next season maybe they might be able to move for minimal value as an expiring deal next offseason but there is quite literally no market for niika vich this off season in my view there are really only two teams that could be in the market for a center teams where vuvi could make sense on given their timeline and their needs at the five and that’s the Phoenix Suns and the Golden State Warriors now initially I had some other teams in the mix as well I thought well maybe the Pelicans would have some interest because they’re rumored to be shopping around yonis valent chunis and maybe you could see Vu for a valent chunis swap of Val and Vu are more or less redundant players and if the Pelicans are looking to move on from valent chunis what value are they going to extract from Nicola vuich that they weren’t already getting from valent chunis they’re obviously going to be looking for a center that is more mobile athletic and can spread the floor which Vu is none of those and then I also thought well maybe the Hawks if they look to try and trade Clint capella but the Hawks are so bad on offense the last thing you want to do is take away one of your better Defenders and replace him with Vu so the Hawks route so that really just leaves the Suns and the Warriors now if I’m going to be honest I think the Warriors would be the best fit overall and one that would work out for both sides because the Warriors who have shown interest in Caruso in the past they could actually offer the Bulls a nice value package if V comes with Caruso in a trade deal I also think that unlike the Suns Vu would fit well from a playmaking standpoint and acting as a hub on the interior for their overall offense something Warriors value with their heavy ball movement and playing off ball and it would give the Warriors some actual size for once yeah they’ve had Kavon Looney they’ve had some other lower tier Center like Zaza pulia or that one season where they had cousins and then he got injured like they’ve never had an actual starting caliber Center on their roster even Looney fell out of the rotation last season so I honestly like the fit there the best especially when we know the Warriors are still going to be trying to maximize Steph still playing at a high level and trying to win a championship even though we know that ship is sailed now for the Suns the reason I don’t like the fit as much is probably because I’m a little biased and though that if fich is traded to the Suns it likely means that nurkic is going to be a Chicago Bull and if you got frustr vuich in his effort at times then you’re going to be seeing more of the same thing from Yousef nurkic yeah nurkic is a little younger he’s going to be turning 30 this summer he’s on a slightly more favorable contract like vuich he has two years left on his deal but instead he’s making 18.1 million and 19.3 million respectively in those final two years but really it’s pretty negligible and because they have very similar skill sets vuch is a better score but nurkic probably a better Defender and rim protector even though that’s not saying much and so I don’t like it for the Bulls but even for the Suns I mean vich is struggle playing with guys who are ball dominant and play Heavy ISO basketball we’ve seen that with dear and with Zach and you can sense his frustration by as well but if you thought those guys were bad try having him be on a team with Kevin Durant Devon Booker and Bradley Beal and see what kind of opportunities you’re going to get there it’s going to be the same scenario for vuvi if not worse with limited more limited touches and shot attempts and a slow pace style of basketball now I could see the Suns maybe going forward in trying to acquire vich for nurkic because they’re desperate and it’s clear ishia has no idea what the hell he’s doing so he probably sees vuich and thinks hey a bigger name than nurkic scored 18 points per game last season 11 rebounds passes just as well as nerk yeah this is probably the guy that can get us over the top so yeah I would not be surprised if they try and make a push for vuich but yeah I mean outside of really just those two teams you can’t sit here and tell me that any other team around the association is going to be interested in trading for a 34-year-old declining niika vuvi who’s going to be making 20 million for the next two seasons I don’t see it happening so like I said at the beginning of the video I’ve mentally prepared myself that Vu isn’t going to be going anywhere and that change real change to this team outside of maybe trading Zack LaVine for pennies on the dollar is probably unlikely but let me know what you guys think let me know in the comments as always be sure to subscribe and I will see you in the next one

Discussing the challenges in trying to make a trade for Nikola Vucevic and assessing the limited trade market for him

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