And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post Podcast. We are about 30 hours from the start of free agency. Maybe there'll be a quiet 30 hours.
Maybe we'll hear more rumblings. The phones will be off the hook. But one team made a big decision ahead of free agency. So as a special prize, that team gets almost a standalone episode of The Low Post Podcast.
And that team is your fighting Chicago Bulls, who on the eve of free agency or free agency Eve Eve, inked Nikola Vucevic to a three-year, $60 million extension, which is actually a pay cut for Vuce after an okay year for him and just a bulls year for the Bulls. Just a bulls year, bullsing around, almost in the play-in, out in the play-in, almost advanced out of the play-in, didn't quite advance out of the play-in. The Bulls have a lot of balls in the air. Colby White's a free agent.
Io DeSoon is a free agent. Pat Williams is about to be extension eligible. DeMar DeRozan is about to be extension eligible when the calendar turns to July. Zach Labine makes many, many millions of dollars playing basketball for the Chicago Bulls.
Pat Beverly is a free agent. The skeleton key to last season's Chicago Bulls is a free agent. I might even be forgetting someone. And if you bring all of these players back, or all of them except Pat Beverly because they only have the baby non-bird rights on Pat Beverly, you are within spitting distance of the luxury tax.
Something that the Bulls' ownership has been loathed to pay when the team was good, let alone when the team is mediocre. And if you bring all those guys back next year, and I have rough estimates for what DeMar will make and what Pat Williams might make on an extension and Colby White on his next deal, you're going to be brushing right over the tax probably again, depending on exactly where it falls. That number, I think, will come out tomorrow. The current estimates for 24-25 will come out tomorrow or the next day.
Nick Friedel, veteran, creator, originator of the Bulls' stock Midwestern beat, you're shaking your head. So I'm going to let you be Eeyore. And I will be Eeyore's slightly more optimistic cousin who doesn't exist in the Winnie the Pooh universe because I'm not quite Eeyore, as Eeyore is the Bulls fans who are ready to throw the whole team into the river in Chicago and start from scratch. Okay, Eeyore, take it away.
Like, you and I have been having these roles playing them for about a decade now on this exact discussion about this exact team over and over. If I'm a Bulls fan listening to the introduction there, Mr. Lowe, I'm going, oh my God, are you kidding me? The thing that got me, before we get into all the different layers, it is a Chicago Bulls summer, which you and I have experienced many times, Arturis Karnasovas, after the draft the other night, gets up there and says, you know, Arturis, I deal with the magic.
It's finally over. Jed Howard, the pick is conveyed. And Karnasovas goes, yeah, that deal worked out pretty well for us. And my first thought, in fact, I sent it to a few of my old friends still within the organization was, you need to cut this tweet out and this quote out.
And frame it. And you need to put it up next to Gar saying that the Bulls were going to conduct a nationwide search for Tom Thibodeau's replacement. I forgot about that one. That was a great one.
There have been some whoppers over time. But Karnasovas coming out and saying, the business deal worked out great for us. I sat there looking at my phone going, oh, no, this is not good. Things have not gotten any better.
And Zach, the Bulls live in the same place they've been living in all along after Derek got hurt. And they couldn't figure out which direction they wanted to go. And it is a place known very well in Chicago as basketball hell. Well, it's more purgatory than hell.
I mean, hell is like the Wizards. Well, I guess the Wizards were kind of purgatory. I don't know what's hell. Hell is the Kings until last season.
That's hell. Picking like seventh and fifth and missing every single time almost. That's hell. This is purgatory.
I forgot about the nationwide search. I remember making many jokes. Garforman has popped up in a high school gym in rural New Mexico because he found a coach that figured out how to get six guys on the court and once and not get caught. Maybe that will be the next coach.
Oh, it's Fred Hoiberg. The guy that was just sitting there all along. Joker. I just can't believe it.
I mean, oh, God, it started flooding back to me. I like Garforman shows up at a local YMCA in Alaska in like the Groucho Marx disguise because he doesn't want to see. We want anyone to find out that he's found this coach in Alaska that's found out how to play a hexagon in three zone that is shaking up the YMCA circuit. What a moment in time.
They thought they had hired Steve Carey 2.0, by the way. I think Fred's a fine coach. Fred is a great guy. Fred is not built for the NBA in that sense.
Well, what he was really not built for. So you're right to bring up the Derrick Rose thing. Of course, all of Bulls history pivots on that ACL tear in the last minutes of game one against the Philadelphia 76ers in 2012. And that's a flashbulb.
Everybody remembers where they were because you could feel the axis of the NBA potentially tilt on that moment. And it did because they were set up to be the one true rival to the Heels. And the Pacers kind of rose up and filled that void as best they could. But that team, that Indiana team, although it was quite good, did not have the upside of the Bulls.
You're also correct to bring up Hoiberg in the sense of, you and I talked about this a lot. It all comes back to what I think with every passing year and every passing Miami Heat advanced deep into the playoffs becomes a fork in the road moment that gets starker and starker and starker. And it's when the Bulls decided we do not want to be in the Supermax business with Jimmy Butler. We don't think he's good enough to lead us to a title, to a finals, to 55 wins, to whatever measure of like, we're in it, we're in it, you choose to use.
And we think bottoming out with this Levine done marking in our own pick that became Wendell Carter Jr. because we got bad on purpose that year. We think that increases our title odds to a better place than like Butler plus Miratif plus cap space plus all our own picks. And you understood it at the time, right?
Because we didn't quite know that Jimmy was going to be this, but we knew Jimmy was really freaking good and a really good two-way player who profiled as a really good postseason player. But you also understood that it was razor thin, the margins, the championship odds between those two divergent paths, and that it really could go either way depending on a lot of variables. Like, is Chris done good? Is Zach Levine the guy?
Is Markin in the guy? Well, now he's kind of the guy or a guy. Health and all that. And more and more, it looks like that first path is a road not taken that Bulls fans will remember forever.
But let's go back to the road that has been taken, which is this road of trading a whole lot of stuff for Vucevic, a trade that is undeniably a bad trade for the Bulls, no matter what happens from here on out. Not talked about in the discussion of that trade, because Franz Wagner is so good, because they got another pick, is Wendell Carter Jr., who is better than Nikola Vucevic on his own as a two-way center, and is quite a good player. But that's past. Here's where we are now.
And it just leaves you thinking, I don't, so here's why I'm, I guess I'm Rabbit. Rabbit's always cranky, but he's like got a good heart to him, and he's not like chronically depressed like Eeyore, just like cranky. Eeyore's a good heart. Let's throw that out there right now.
Eeyore's my favorite. Eeyore's a great heart, but Eeyore needs to see a therapist. I think Rabbit just gets mad when his garden doesn't grow, and he's just like cranky when people misbehave. So like, I'll be Rabbit.
Three years and $60 million for Vuce is correct. That's a fine deal. Fine. It's a fine place.
If you look at, if you look at comps, like a lot of starting centers make more than that. Probably Pirtle will get about that from either Toronto or somebody else. Nurkic makes 18 a year for the next three. That's a roughly equivalent player.
Jared Allen's 20 a year. Obviously, he's a much better defense player. He's more upside. We won't talk about Wendell Carter Jr.'s contract because it will hurt people's feelings in Chicago.
Steven Adams is like 13 a year for the next two. That's kind of a bargain. He's hurt a lot, though. Valanciunas is $15 million on expiring.
Mitch Robinson is $15 million in descending for the next three. I think it's about right. And Vuce, although he has never become the three-point shooter that he was purported to be, that the Bulls thought he could be, he's an okay three-point shooter. He spaces the floor for their slashers.
He's a good post-up player against switches. And he shot 59% on twos last year, which is a career high by far. His floater game was on fire. And in the wake of the Lonzo Ball endless injury problems, the closest thing the Bulls have to an identity, and they do not have one.
That's the thing about the team. They're very hard to watch. They have no organizing principle. There's nothing that they stand for.
But the closest thing they have to something that they can hold on to is like, I guess this is an organizing principle, is our center can really shoot. And that provides room for DeMar DeRozan and Zach Levine to play the your turn, my turn game, and for Patrick Williams to be a screensetter and roller, and Derek Jones Jr., who declined his player options. He is the closest thing without Lonzo that they have. Not him necessarily, Vucevic, but the space he provides to an organizing principle for the team.
So I think the deal is fine when you add up all the potential salaries for everybody else. Three and any combination you want, he's two on that guy off, they're mediocre across the board. They're like literally mediocre, like plus or minus of zero, minus one, plus one, whatever. Their bench with the crazy on-off numbers for Caruso and Dragic when he was playing for them was the only thing keeping them afloat early in the season.
When you add all that up, it's not about the Vuce deal. It's like, what is the team doing long-term, medium-term? And I kind of think what they're doing, Nick, I'm a little afraid of this, and I want to hear your thoughts on it. I think they're betting on this notion that the NBA, because of the collective party agreement, because of the way the stars are spread around the league, is entering a period of, by its standards, of parity.
The NBA has never had anything close to parity before. And catch a break in the draft, and we didn't have any draft picks this year, but catch a break in the draft. Like, why can't we get on a run in the playoffs? I think in a conference with Boston, Milwaukee, and Philly, not going anywhere, and some other teams rising up, that that is not quite delusional, but very hopeful.
Your thoughts? The 2023-24 Chicago Bulls, not quite delusional, but very hopeful. Mr. Lowe, if that is the case, then they're the league leader in fool's gold, because this team isn't very good.
And there's a hard reality that Mike and Jerry Reinsdorf have to face as they look out in the roster construction with Karnasovas and Eversley. It's that they have made decisions that are bad. They have made decisions that lead you to look at a team that is going absolutely nowhere. I thought that was the most honest and telling part of what you were saying, Zach.
They have no identity, and they aren't that much fun to watch. So what are we going to do? We're going to run it back and hope that parity hits within the league, and we can sneak through this very tiny line like we're MacGyver, trying to carve out a path for ourselves in a league that has completely blown by a conference, especially that has blown by the Bulls. They're not good enough.
And the only reason, the only reason that Karnasovas and Eversley are getting absolutely demolished every day is because the Bulls waited so long to finally move on from Garn Pax. The fans, they don't even seem to care how bad things are, or I should say, how mediocre things are right now because Garn Pax aren't there anymore. So as I watch the Bulls and I see the summer unfold and the lack of picks, and then you buy the second rounder to get back in, I see a team that is going absolutely nowhere. And I cannot believe that this new front office that everybody was so hyped up about when they were the number one seed in the Eastern Conference for a couple months is not getting crushed because they built a team that is just good enough to not be good enough at all.
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Visit activate.esbn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up for Activate now. Well, that was, I mean, I'm not going to go back and take the victory lap for how I was bearish on the DeMar Vucevic transactions when they happened.
But I do think in their defense, with Lonzo, this team was good. I'm not sure they ever had a pathway to be great, but they showed me enough in those first 45 games two seasons ago with Lonzo healthy and Lonzo providing them an organizing principle, an identity, something that they stood for as a pace, three-point shooting, hit ahead, chaos engine of a team that could then settle into a half-court Vuce-friendly game, either when Lonzo was on the bench, or when that just suited the game, that they had found something with the Lonzo Caruso just stealing the ball from people pairing on defense. Like that team, again, I'm not sure that they could be great, but if you had told me they all stay healthy sometime in the three or four-year window, they make a second round in there in game seven, they get really lucky and make a conference finals. Like I would have been mildly surprised by the conference finals, but just mildly.
Like I think, again, my prediction when they put this team together was that they would never win more than one round in a playoff series. So again, I'd have to be mildly surprised, but that was when they put the team together. The proof of concept of those first 45 games, I think was meaningful. And I think they would have been good.
And the Lonzo thing is a basketball tragedy. And we don't know when or if really we'll see him play again. And honestly, like I was talking about the March this morning, the luxury tax thing that I brought up for, I think most pertinently next season, like one pathway to that is if they petition for relief on Lonzo's contract is like a potentially career ending, whatever, whatever the salary cap mechanism is, you know, he only has one year left after this year, so maybe they never do it. But that is one thing.
And I do think that I'm not one of these people who clings to Lonzo as a difference between this mediocrity and like a championship team, but it is like a meaningfully different team with a healthy Lonzo ball. Maybe they should have known better than to expect a healthy Lonzo ball. I think the Pelicans knew something, but here we are. And that is where I push back on any Bulls fan.
And there are lots of them, Zach, and you hear from them all the time that say, oh, well, if Lonzo was just healthy, Lonzo ball had knee problems. I mean, this is not new. You have just gotten out of almost a decade worth of will he play or won't he play with Derek. It colored everything in that organization.
It hung over everything that organization did. And you get into another agreement with another guard who's had all kinds of injury problems. That's the part that shocked me that I'm sitting there watching this unfold. I'm going, wait, wait, wait, wait, what?
Lonzo ball? I mean, we all know he's good, but can he stay healthy? No, in New Orleans, that was a problem. In Chicago, it's now an even bigger problem.
So I refuse to take that leap with the front office and say, oh, well, if he had just stayed healthy, all the writing was already there on the wall. The DeRozan move was really solid, but now where is that taking you? The Vucevic deal was awful. And I think what pissed me off are all my friends that are still there in Chicago.
And if you're Karnasovic, you can't come out and be like, oh, well, we really screwed that one up because now you've re-signed him and you've got to move forward. But you're playing with fans' intelligence when you come out and say, oh, the deal really worked out for us. No, it didn't. That deal was awful.
The Magic got the best of it from the moment it happened, and it's gotten worse now because Wendell is better. Wagner has the potential to be really, really good as an all-star. We'll see with Jett Howard moving forward. But the issue for the Bulls in the next couple of years is I don't even see how they get back to where they need to be to be even in that conversation for a top five or six seed in the East unless they start bottoming out again.
And that, Mr. Lowe, is the issue to me. When you start looking at what do the Bulls do, well, they max out Levine and they gave him that extension. Where are you moving him?
Where is he going? If you're a Bulls fan, you're looking at a return that you come back and you go, okay, let's start fresh one more time. We can do it. That was my point all along with Levine.
He's a nice player, but he's not a difference maker in the sense that you're going anywhere. And everybody would say, we can't just give up an asset for nothing. Okay. What are you getting back in any potential deal that makes you feel good about the direction that you're now moving forward in without?
Well, and Levine has had injury issues. And I think one of the good stuff from last season is after starting off looking a little less explosive and not finishing at the rim. He looked like Zach Levine across the board on offense for the last half of last season. They've also had some injuries.
Like Pat Williams broke his wrist in the first game two seasons. Was it two seasons ago? He missed most of that season and then came back for the playoffs. Caruso and Levine got injured in the playoffs the year they lost to the Bucs.
So that said, they do strike me as a franchise that's clinging to small samples of success as proof of potential for larger success and higher level success. Like, I don't want to really hear about the record with Pat Beverly. Like, I just, I don't care that you had a small brief bit of success with Pat Beverly. I don't know if they can bring back Pat Beverly.
They don't really have a good mechanism to do that. He's going to have suitors because when he goes most of the teams, they tend to do pretty well. And I don't, like the Bulls are like kind of small sample size champions in their own minds, I think. And I don't really care about that.
Except for those first 45 games of Lonzo, which have now vanished from the record. But you bring up a good point. The Vucs extension signals they are not interested in bottoming out. I don't think that's going to become like a killer trade asset, to say the least, if they do decide to pivot.
I don't think that's a deal you can look at to say, well, we'll get a whole bunch of pick equity for this. I don't, and you look across the board, I think Pat Williams, I still am on, I'm in on Pat Williams. I'm never going to be on Pat Williams. I think Pat Williams is 21 years old.
And he averaged 10 points a game last year, shot 41% from three and can defend. And he's not as good defensive as people. I'm in. Caruso's on a great deal.
So great that they probably can't extend him. I thought Kobe White had a solid year last year. But you just look around and it's like, if they wanted to trade DeRozan, they waited too long. He's an expiring contract now.
And he's extension eligible in July. And I don't know what's going to happen. I would bet that there is an extension with DeMar, like in the three years, $90 million range. But I don't know.
Obviously, they can't trade Lonzo. There's no point in trading your best young players. I don't know what better you can get for them. Maybe that is a workable path.
I don't know what that is. And it just leaves you coming back to Levine. And I don't really know what the point of trading Levine is. If you clearly are not going to rebuild and bottom out, you'd have to trade him and say, okay, we can, I guess the good part of trading him in this scenario is we're mediocre either way.
So like if we have the exact Levine experience, in one sense, it gives like, if we can trade Levine for veterans that can help us now, that's fine. If we decide to trade Levine for a pick heavy package, like some team really throws a lot of picks at us, maybe that's fine too, because we think if we have DeMar and Vucevic, we're going to kind of stay afloat where we are now. So it gives you bold standings on all the teams on my flight out to LA because the Vuce deal broke while we were in the air. And I just, I don't have a lot of, a lot of great Levine deals that kind of suit both the Bulls and the theoretical trade partners.
Do you have any, do you have any at all? Zach, before I came on the pod, I texted two of my good friends from Chicago, Cody Westerlin and Sean Hyken. We all covered the Bulls together in years back. And I said, guys, is there any Levine deal that you can think of that makes sense?
And the general consensus was no. Then Cody threw out there, oh, what about the Knicks and a pick and some pieces? And so long as Tom Thibodeau is still the coach for the Knicks, Zach, if Zach Levine ended up on the Knicks, that would truly shock me because Tim's going to add him with the Timberwolves all those years ago. And that didn't help.
No, no, no way. There's no way. Tim's watching Levine play defense. I know Zach's got a little better on that front, but watching him play defense, he would lose.
All the way, all the way. So I don't think there is one. And that, that is the single biggest indictment aside from the Vuce of his deal to me is that they should have traded Levine once he became an all-star and in full disclosure, I never thought they should give him the first extension because I always thought that this is exactly what you did. You were right.
You were, you were, I'm not saying you were right, but that is a position you did take out. Absolutely. Because I always thought that this was the end game when you have Levine on your team as one of the guys that you have to pay. That you're going nowhere.
That there are nights in the middle of March where he can drop 50 on Charlotte and everybody goes, whoa, Levine, what a score. Oh my God. You really are. You really are.
You're like a combination of if Eeyore had a smiling sense of sarcastic humor. Eeyore's just sad. You are like a meaner Eeyore. You know what they called me in high school?
I was ogre. And that was before Shrek came out. And then Shrek comes out and my friends stole, they stole a cutout of Shrek after I broke my leg playing football in high school and they shoved Shrek in our locker room and they would all have to high-five it on the way off. So Eeyore and Shrek I can deal with.
But the whole point of all this is that Zach Levine is never going to be a player where you have to pay him that much money. Who's going to be a difference maker for a team that can contend for a title? That was the general consensus all along as I watched him, as I watched his limitations on defense, and as I see it now. Because Zach, I didn't want them to bring back Levine because I never thought they could win.
They haven't won a damn thing with him. The point though is that they bring him back and instead of moving him in the third year of that $80 million deal, they say, oh no, no, no, Levine, we're going to build around Levine. He's going to get even better and we're going to be better moving forward. And guess what?
That's not the case. And with Alonzo Ball, we're healthy or not, Levine is not the type of max out player that is going to make you that much better. And that's the saddest part. The Bulls have these guys that are solid players and they have nights.
And moments during the season, you go, whoa, it's coming together. It's going to happen. But never, ever did I think I would defend Garam Pax. But Garam Pax would sit there always and say, we don't want to build a team that we think is just good enough to get to the second round.
So finally, years after it probably should have happened, Mike Reinsler finally makes a move and Jerry and they say, all right, Garam Pax, it's time for somebody else. And Tarnas Overson-Eversley have built a team that if they maxed out, it's going nowhere past the second round. And that is so sad to me as somebody who knows how rabid that fan base is and how much people care about this team all over the country, all over the world, anywhere you go, they're Bulls fans. This team is just the definition of mediocre.
And as you and I sit here and try to figure out, all right, what do they do to go forward? They just gave us 60 million. They've got Levine on the max deal. Maybe they bring back the Rosen.
They're going nowhere. They are going nowhere. They've got a guy who's got knee problems and may not ever play again. And they all were self-inflicted wounds.
They could have gone different directions. They didn't. And they've made the bed that the previous front office wanted no part of, was vilified for, and now they're in the same situation. Well, you're turning me into the in fairness guy, which is a plot twist I didn't expect on this podcast.
In fairness, I've already gone through the Lonzo stuff and how good they were with Lonzo. In fairness, the Vucevic trade, the initial one for getting them to Chicago, was I think mostly lauded in Chicago and in basketball punditry. And in Orlando, was mostly met with disappointment. Now, I had a completely different reaction than that, but in fairness to the Bulls, I think that deal was initially like, there was some happiness in Chicago about that trade.
I did not share it, but it existed. On Levine. So, you want some teams? Let's do it.
The problem... It's never good when it's like... Oh, God. I was like, what's coming?
It's over now. So, in fairness, in fairness, Zach Levine is a damn good player. Oh, see, here we go. No, no, no.
Because you just went through telling me about how you can't get anywhere with him. Whatever. He's really good. He's a fantastic scorer at every level.
He deserved to make the all-star team when he made it. He shoots the hell out of it from three on really difficult shots. And, like, in the right circumstances, I think could be an even more impactful player than he is in his current circumstances. He is a really, really dynamic offensive player.
Something... And you look at his numbers, and you're like, these are real shooting percentages? Like, oh, my God, these are high numbers. Something between...
Some link between those numbers and winning at a high level. They win plenty of games in Chicago. They're, like, not a bad team. But winning at a high level, some chain link there is missing.
One of the chain links is defense, and that's well chronicled. I think he has gotten better at that, and he's... Oh, he's whatever. I think he's still probably below average for a wing, but he's not, like, damaging you.
He's not as awful as it used to be. I think a lot of it is more playmaking limitations. Like, his assist-to-turnover ratio just isn't good enough. His decision-making with the ball just isn't good enough.
It's just okay. And, like, when you're at this high level of usage and ball dominance, it has to be better than okay for your team to win at a high level. And he's just never been in a circumstance other than when Lonzo was there where he could really lock into a role where, yeah, I get the ball a lot, but I'm also cutting for alley-oopers. I'm running the floor.
I'm taking tons of catch-and-shoot threes, which I'm really good at. But in fairness, Zach Levine's a damn good offense player. However, if you are suggesting to me trades to teams designed to pair him with guards who are not good defensive players, I would suggest to you, you are setting up that team to overpay for Zach Levine to not win enough with him on their team. So the Knicks, a Jalen Brunson, Zach Levine backcourt is going to be problematic defensively.
The Blazers, who I loved as a theoretical Bulls trade partner at one point, and I think that point has probably passed, with the Damian Lillard, Zach Levine backcourt, they're going to score the s*** out of the ball, but they're not going to defend anybody. And maybe they'll score so much that it won't matter, but I don't know. You could sell me on a young team like Charlotte, which has a lot of draft pick equity and some big salaries, but a Lomelo-Ball-Zach Levine pairing is going to be chaotic on both ends of the floor. Here's some more.
So those are some that I thought about. Miami, could he be the... Oh my God. Oh my God.
Reunite, not reunite, unite the Jimmy Butler and Zach Levine parts of the original Jimmy Butler trade. Look, you just have to think about it. Just let me, hear me out. Okay, the floor is yours.
Stop laughing at me. You and I just watched the Heat team. I think you're being mean now to me. You and I always get into trouble and piss people off when we get together in these magical moments.
But now you're being mean to me, I think. I think it's crossed the line. Nick, this is now personal. You and I said once, that Miami team for two weeks, grind everything they can out of what they have, and you're going to drop Zach Levine in who...
Can I, can I, can I... Go for it. Remember this? Can I finish?
Can I finish? Can I finish? Can I finish? Can I finish?
So let's say you just think, hey look, we got as far as we could with this team of grindy guys around Bam and Jimmy. We hit our ceiling, we couldn't score enough, and you know, we can't, it's not like a guarantee that we can take that team to the finals every year in these, right? We need more offense. Thus, we're pursuing Damian Lillard at the expense of our defense.
Damian Lillard lives on a different planet than Zach Levine. I realize that. Let's just say this week goes by, and you just get the vibe of like, I guess this thing's just going to linger forever in Portland. Like, we're just not, there is no immediate Damian Lillard acquisition for us.
I don't know that that's the way it's going to go, to be clear. Like, if you told me Damian Lillard got traded in 72 hours, I wouldn't be surprised by that. I don't know what's going to happen. But let's just say that that's the vibe you get.
Is Zach Levine not a workable consolation prize that you could get for Tyler Hero and some picks and say, hey, next to these two guys playing defense, his shot making, his passing to whatever is going to be amplified. He doesn't have the ball enough as much. And if we can't get Damian, maybe that. But I got to say, I think you're right to say no.
I think they would view this the same way they viewed Beal, which is, is he $15 million a year better than Tyler Hero? And I think they would say, if we're adding in picks and all the stuff that the Bulls want, I think the answer would be no. There's the key. If you just said, all right, let's drop Zach Levine and the Bulls just gave him up.
Okay. I mean, it's worth a shot. Although what I would tell you is the first time he blows a defensive assignment next to Jimmy, Jimmy turns around. It looks like, what are you doing?
There could be an issue. But for what the Bulls are now going to be asking, for any team that would make that call. If you're Miami, why? Zach Levine is not the type of player who...
Okay, you made your, you made your point. I just want everybody to hear it one more time. It's been my point for like six years now. He's a really, really good offensive player who has improved.
He's not a difference maker on a team that has ever won a damn thing. So no, I don't think that heat culture is going to be the best landing place for Zach Levine. You could, you could build interesting theoretical trades that I think fail reality tests with the Hawks, considering they have two point guards in the Bulls. I don't know if they have any.
But I think DeJounte Murray is, is a shaky fit. It's probably a good fit in the Bulls if he'd have so many mid-range jumpers. He'd be and you'd again find the Trey Young, Zach Levine defense problem. And if you decide, well, okay, well then why not Trey Young for Zach Levine?
I think the Hawks would say, well, Trey Young took us to the conference finals. He's just a better player. What else are you giving us? And I think that, that falls apart.
Orlando, will Orlando ever get aggressive and go get a guard? I don't, doesn't feel like a thing that's going to happen. They can put some salaries together. They can put some picks together.
They can try to fleece the Bulls again. And, but I don't see that one necessarily. I thought about Milwaukee because Milwaukee feels like they're willing to get a little adventurous and try to inject some juice and athleticism and something different into their team. But I just don't think, I don't know what the outgoing salary would be in that case.
And I think it would have to be big somewhere. And their big salary guys have all proven it on the biggest stage. Now they've flopped on the biggest stage this time around, but maybe Chris Middleton's going to be healthier if, if and when he resigns with Milwaukee, which I expect. Maybe Drew Holiday has a better postseason where I just think that's too risky.
I tried real hard with Toronto. I tried real hard with Toronto because I think that's an interesting fit next to Scottie Barnes. In the event that Fred VanVleet were to leave in free agency and you reorient the offense around Scottie Barnes having the ball a lot. The problem I kept running into is, again, I also think even if VanVleet leaves, Toronto is assuming they've resigned Purtle, which I think is likely having, they just traded a pick for Purtle that limits what they can trade for another guy, another veteran like Levine, because I think they can trade the 2028 and 2030 picks.
If you do that and you bring back Purtle, you're not, same with the Bulls, you're not rebuilding, you're not retooling. I just don't know if the Bulls would want Siakam. I don't know if Toronto would give up Ananobi, because I think they view Ananobi as just as much of a winning player, if not more straight up, than Levine. And I don't know that a package of like Trent, Boucher, Thad Young, and a couple draft picks is going to be enough for Chicago.
And that would be, you have Levine, Siakam, and Ananobi coming up on a new deal that's an expensive team, but you can make it work for the time being. And Purtle, we signed in that scenario. There's something, there's an interesting theoretical Toronto fit there that I just, I couldn't, I couldn't find it. Aside on Van Vliet, by the way, I think the reporting that Houston is going to offer him a two-year mega deal is going to be proven accurate.
And for Toronto, if they want to retain him, I keep an eye on the years. Because if he's going to get two and 80 from Houston, I wonder if the Raptors have to go to four, and less money per year, obviously, but four and like 130 or something, where that fourth year is either guaranteed or Fred's option to keep him. I wonder if three won't be good enough if they'll have to go to four. And that's a big, that's a big pivot point for the Raptors.
I thought about the Mavs because the Levine Mavs buzz has been there for a long time, but obviously there's a Kyrie situation there. And that's it. And I can't find a good one. Nick, I'm out.
Did I miss anything? And therein lies the problem, not only for the Levine conversation with Zach, if you're Mike and Jerry Reinsdorf, and you're looking at not only how your team has been built after you made the switch off of Durham Packs, you're the Bulls. We've gone through all these different scenarios here. What do you do?
Are you asking me to answer that question? Yeah. You give Benny the Bull extra popcorn for his popcorn orgies in his hands, and you just hope and cross your fingers that you're going to win 48 games somehow. There's some breaking news we have to react to.
You ready? Let's do it. Chris Haynes, our former colleague at ESPN, now at Leisure Report, and TNT, television star Chris Haynes, tweets and reports. Not just a tweet, there's an article.
that Kyrie Irving is going to meet is expected to meet expected to meet with the Phoenix Suns along with the Dallas Mavericks and possibly other teams when NBA free agency quote unquote I'm adding the air quotes begins because it's already happening on June 30th I'm not saying it's happening with Kyrie I'm just saying free agency is happening you know Nick I don't know I don't know how in the hell the Suns who are just lit the second apron on fire have the wherewithal to actually do this I guess Aiton would have to be involved somehow in a sign and trade I'm just putting this is happening as we're doing this I'm just putting these pieces together so I guess mechanically where there's a will there's a way I just don't understand how anyone even an eager new owner who took the ball and held it in the stands and flopped and is flanked by Isaiah Thomas somehow that's a thing I don't know how anyone could have watched the movie in Brooklyn that you just watched and decide you know what I think we should do that let's do that again that seems like a great idea Kyrie and KD what could go wrong now they have so much talent that I guess how many ball handlers do we need I don't know like why is this just a Kyrie leverage play to make sure the Mavericks give them all the money that was my first thought as soon as you read that tweet and I haven't read Kyrie and his side is trying to push any leverage that it can out of a situation where it just doesn't feel like they have much leverage at all and you know what Nick I can't I can't I'm not going to think about it I'm not this is the end unless it happens of me talking about this because I just it was it was just so much it was just a lot it was a lot it was everything but basketball except for like the glorious 15, 16, 19 games Kyrie, KD and Harden all played together before Harden became like the rational one who was like get me the hell out of here now Ben Simmons I just I shall not cannot will not I just can't I can't I'm sorry I don't know if you have any basketball analysis of this they already have Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant I just sure sure there isn't a single human being that you could have on this pod anymore who would understand who would understand all of this at any other level other than make it stop in theory I understand the idea of if we have Booker, Durant and Beal let's leave Kyrie aside if we have Booker, Durant and Beal all we need our center to do is set screens roll to the rim dunk and play defense we can I'm just saying I'm speaking as like son's guy who thinks this might be a good idea we have that in Jock Landale doesn't do it well enough to merit a $32 million max salary why not turn that into another wing ball handler shooter whatever I get that general idea even though I already have all these ball handler shooters some of them get hurt a lot I just first of all Kyrie's not wing he's the point guard and brings more size issues I just don't want to live that movie again I'm going to assume this is just a leverage play move on that's 100% what it feels like and I also throw this in there if you're KD and you live the last few years I cannot believe as close as that relationship was and may still be even after the breakup may still be that he would want to put himself in that situation again that part of this it's not the Kyrie and his representatives having a leverage play here it's Kevin who is very well aware of all the things that transpired and the things that were said and how it imploded at the end that part of this would really really surprise me if he was ready to get back into that kind of soap opera Dallas you know the Dallas fans are all mad at me because I said on the last podcast I next questioned Dallas I just didn't want to talk about them anymore I said I'm suffering from massive fatigue what I really meant by that is I actually feel like every third low post podcast for the entire last season was about the Mavericks somehow I talked about the Mavericks a lot I think the Lucas second banana thing is super interesting I go deep into how that pairing can work and how they need to run more pick and roll together I think it's really fascinating that they have like a lot of young players now that they're going to be counting on some of whom I really like I'm a big I'm a big relatively big Josh Green booster I just what I meant by massive fatigue is it's kind of like there's just a limited number of things they can do given Kyrie's free agency and what they gave up for him I'm kind of assuming they bring him back let's talk about them when they kind of remake their team in the summer and they start doing that with Lively which is interesting and Ole Max Prosper which is interesting I thought they had a great draft night and let's see what they do in free agency but I just this is a doozy it's a doozy it's a doozy that I do not wish to live again that is way too much way way too much if Kyrie goes to the Suns oh no you have to go apartment hunting down there Nick let's pull the curtain all the way back because when Kevin went to the Suns I was like hey I'm ready I'm ready to go and they were like no no no no we don't think it's it's enough right now we got a lot of people on the west coast with Beal that didn't really change things but Zach Lowe if the Suns and Ispia and his never ending amounts of cash above burning up the second apron can somehow get Kyrie Irving to Phoenix let me tell you something you and I will be having some drinks somewhere in Scottsdale you can have your one Bud Light and we can enjoy the moment that will be 100% the most fascinating team that we've seen since Brooklyn I'm fascinated already like I am as Howard Beck said to me two days ago on this podcast I am I think a Suns optimist I think everyone thinks the Suns are going to be really good next year but I think the Suns are going to be awesome if those guys stay healthy I'm not even that that worried about the depth in the eating question but I think the Suns are fine as is like I'm not I don't mean to like laugh at the Suns and laugh at this whole situation but I go deep on the field thing I think the Suns are going to be really really good and Phoenix fans can go listen to the podcast I did reacting to that I thought I was probably on the optimistic side of that too but anyway we got 30 hours left time to buckle up I guess thank you for coming on and talking about the Bulls and wearing your Chicago Cubs hat there and I'll see you soon I miss you buddy it's always good to be with you and as usual we're just going to make so many people in Chicago happy when they listen to us look you're just me you're not nice you need to be nicer I think you need to take today and just think about your approach to life and just be a little nicer Nick Friedel thank you sir I love you too see you later