Chicago Bulls Confidential

Quite often, around the web as well as in real life, we NBA fans discuss potential trade ideas. Unless you've just gone 82-0 while winning every game by 48 points, you have an imperfect team, and therefore devising ways to improve it is a sensible plan. We hope that what we predict, conclude and endorse is in some way representative of the thoughts of our team's executives, that they recognise the same flaws that we've identified, and that they find a competitively priced way to fix them. And if we think they're wrong, we start moaning.

However, when we compile these ideas, we often just churn the same names out over and over again. The needs of a team can be made painfully obvious over an 82 game season, and the national and international press do a thorough job letting us know the availability of all NBA players. By identifying our needs and sourcing the players that fit them, we do our best impressions of a little Dutch boy and try to plug the hole in the dyke, often without due care and attention to the needs of the other teams in the trade.

Our shortlists of tradeforable players are often the same. For us Bulls fans, it used to read Pau Gasol, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant; it now reads Carlos Boozer, Amar'e Stoudemire and Chris Bosh. Our free agency lists are much the same, except with the added enticement of hometown boy Dwyane Wade.

But are the players that we DON'T want similarly conformist?

There are 502 players in the NBA at this very moment, and the Bulls are in a position to obtain pretty much any of them. Due to a combination of their good young cheap players and their big expiring contracts, the Bulls could land pretty much anyone they wanted right now, with the exception of the few untradeables in the league today.

But there's a few we won't want. For various reasons, ranging from salary and playing style, to attitude and criminal history, there's a few players out there that it just wouldn't make sense to acquire, no matter what the cost. Here is my non-exhaustive shortlist. [Note: purely for argument's sake, the Bulls' current depth chart will be disregarded.]

1. Stephen Jackson - Since acquiring Jackson back in January 2007, the Warriors have nurtured along a volatile player, who has seen to it this summer that he's worn out his welcome. Part of the Warriors reasoning for acquiring Jackson was that he had a shorter contract than his outgoing predecessor, Mike Dunleavy Jr, but the dysfunctional Warriors put paid to that reasoning last November by offering Jackson a midseason three year extension that paid him $27,769,500 over that time, the most they could offer him.

Their reasoning for this wasn't clear. Supposedly, it was a reward for Jackson's loyalty, but what form that loyalty took is not immediately obvious. Jackson never signed with the team as he was acquired by trade, and less than a year later, Jackson has publicly demanded to be traded. Twice. This doesn't sound like the actions of a loyal man. So unsubtle is his tirade that both the Warriors and the NBA have taken action; the league fined him $25,000 for his public trade demand, and the Warriors suspended him for two preseason games after he deliberately tried to foul out of one.

Right now, he's what you might call.....petulant. His history of gun crime and his actions during the brawl in the Palace don't help to dispel that truth either.

Even if he wasn't petulant, there are other issues surrounding Stephen Jackson. As a player, he's a good shooter and a talented playmaker, but he's also highly inefficient, leading the league last year in turnovers and shooting his usual 41%. Jackson is a good defensive player and a fine ball handler for a forward, but even when he knows his limitations, he tries to exceed them to no avail. A thirty one year old player with all that baggage and with $35 million remaining over 4 seasons is not worth acquiring, even if the price was little more than Jerome James. Not even the inclusion of Anthony Morrow would change that.

(Now, Anthony Randolph, that's a different story. Of course, we're dealing only in hypotheticals here.)

2. Zach Randolph - Believe it or not, the Grizzlies' acquisition of Randolph from the Clippers makes some sense. It's not often you can say that about a team trading for Zach Randolph - I have no idea why the Clippers acquired him in the first place - but it makes some sense for the Grizzlies. Kind of.

Memphis are a team that's not going anywhere in the short term, having won 68 games in the past 3 years, and they're also a team that doesn't want to be where they are. They play to some of the smallest crowds in the NBA, and the owner Michael Heisley is stuck in a lease that he doesn't want to be in. He's been trying to sell since 2006, to no avail. Even when he thought Christian Laettner and Brian Davis were going to buy it, they didn't.

To sell the franchise, the Grizzlies need to be worth more. To be worth more, they need to be more successful for as little long term liability as possible. To be better for less, the Grizzlies need to make short term improvements, acquiring talented players without giving out loads of salary. That's what acquiring Randolph represents; for all his many documented flaws, he's very talented, and he has only two years remaining on his contract. It's a big contract, but it's also nearly up.

The Grizzlies didn't give up a single basketball asset to get him, and for merely the cost of Quentin Richardson (and Darko Milicic before him), and for an outlay of roughly $25 million over two years (when Richardson's incumbent salary is subtracted), they acquired a 20/10 player to plug the hole in a power forward rotation that only otherwise featured Darrell Arthur. Players such as David Lee and Paul Millsap might have been better options, in both the long and short terms, but with no long term money to spend they were also not realistic options. Randolph represents what the Grizzlies needed; more importantly, Randolph was also what the Grizzlies were able to get.

That's the theory, at least. It's believable if you want it to be.

The move was made to look a bit weirder by the subsequent Allen Iverson signing, which triggered all the talk about "who will pass the ball," "how is it going to work long term," et cetera. If they knew that was a possibility, they probably wouldn't have traded for Randolph. But the answer to the future question simple; it isn't going to work like term. Yet it's not supposed to, either. The deal scratched Memphis's itch for talented players that don't cost long term money, and even if it wasn't the most soothing scratch in the world, it was better than pouring a pint of smelling salts on the itch would have been. I think I've lost control of this simile.

(It would have made even more sense had Marko Jaric been included the deal. But never mind.)

However, none of that applies to the Bulls. Ownership don't need to sell, nor do they want to sell, and we don't need short term improvements either. Not for that cost, at least. To us, Randolph would be a highly inefficient power forward with bad defense and an incredibly lengthy criminal history, who also is the most expensive player in history to have never made an All-Star game. None of those four things are immediate needs.

3. Baron Davis - Two of the previously mentioned teams share a common bond. Davis unexpectedly left the Warriors last summer to join the L.A. Clippers, signing a 5 year $65 million deal, and then returned the worst season of his professional career. Baron shot 37% in 65 games, scoring 968 points on 959 shots, Willie Green-like scoring efficiency on Devin Harris-level shot attempts. He also shot only 31% from three point range, a tolerably low percentage were it not for the five attempts per game that it came on.

Amazingly, despite being that mediocre of a shooter, Davis is 38th all time on the career three point makes list, only 100 makes shy of being 25th. He's never been a good shooter, but he's never stopped trying to be either, and for all his effectiveness in the open court, Davis is inefficient for a score-first player (with a career true shooting percentage of .502%). Baron is a great ball handler, can and does pass, and he can run offenses to good effect (as long as said offense has a second option better than Al Thornton), but he has struggled with his health since his first three season, and has playing over 67 games only once in the last seven years.

For all his talents, that's a commitment of $53.75 million over the next four years for an inefficient 30+ year old scoring guard with perpetual health problems. Not for me, thank you.

4. Ben Wallace - He only earns the minimum now, but that's not the point.

5. Rashard Lewis - Lewis is not, has never been, and may never be a bad player. He is known primarily as a three point shooter, but he's a versatile offensive player with an off-the-dribble game, and a reasonably effective post-up arsenal that he doesn't use enough. He is a willing and capable passer, and in spite of the ever-increasing fondness for the jumpshot (and the occasional really bad turnover), Lewis is a very capable scorer.

Unfortunately, from now on, he will always be synonymous with his own salary. In the 2007 offseason, Magic general Manager Otis Smith outbid himself by about seventy jillion dollars, and gave Lewis the biggest six year contract in the sport's history. A 33 year old Rashard Lewis is going to be earning $22.7 million in the 2012/13 season; for comparison's sake, that is more than Derrick Rose, John Salmons, Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, James Johnson and Taj Gibson will earn this year combined.

On the basis of the payday alone, trading for Lewis is impossible to justify. The contract has not prevented the Magic from continuing to spend money - although it probably would have done had they not made the NBA Finals last year - but it certainly would do for the Bulls. And, since this is a Bulls based piece, he's on the list.

6. Eddy Curry - Everything the Knicks currently need Curry to do, he did for us back in 2004/05. (Well, except for rebounding. He's never done that.) Curry scored highly efficiently, and was even a decent defender for that one season, but most notably he showed up in the best shape of his career. So dedicated was he to the weight loss that he even shaved off his braids. Things looked promising.

Nevertheless, despite having one of the best young centre prospects in the game, John Paxson wasn't convinced by Curry's future and traded him the Knicks. (There was a small story about his heart in there somewhere as well, but it barely got a mention in the local press. Satire.) Since then, it's all gone wrong for Curry, and only part of it was his fault.

Last year, Curry played only 12 minutes in the NBA. He missed the rest of the season with knee injuries, and yet in his time away from the game, those injuries were quickly forgotten. In those few months, Curry's daughter and ex-girlfriend were murdered in front of his other son, his house was foreclosed, his hefty borrowing made public, and he was named in one of the more embarassing sexual harassment lawsuits in NBA history. To have all that happen in one season is more than slightly terrible.

In amongst all that, his weight has ballooned. Trying to come back from all that weight gain has only led to more injuries, as Curry is currently out of action with a torn plantaris muscle. The Knicks won't let him even practice with the team until he's in better shape, which is hard to achieve when you have a torn plantaris muscle as well as a heart condition.

And so that's how Eddy Curry lost a year of his life.

Given a new team, a new start and a new right knee, Curry could go to any team and be as lethal as ever offensively from within five feet. Even though he never developed the weaknesses in his game once he left here, every team needs the inside scoring that he brings, in some capacity. And we're no different. But no team needs the rest of it, and unfortunately, the rest of it comes with him.

7. DeSagana Diop - Last year, Diop re-signed with his former team, the Dallas Mavericks, for the value of the full mid level exception. The Mavericks were totally on board with their own addition, for about 8 minutes, at which point they realised how drastically they had overpaid for an average backup centre. Christmas had barely even rolled around before the Mavericks traded Diop the Bobcats for Ryan Hollins and Matt Carroll.

Dallas got only 34 games for their $32.4 million.

Like most of the players on this list, Diop is an able body and a decent basketball player. Unlike some of the players on this list, Diop has no criminal history or tendency to get a bit weapony. But like all of the players on this, Diop is overpaid badly for his services.

[Note: for as long as Phoenix is paying Ben Wallace $10 million not to play for them, he is considered overpaid.]

Diop is about to start his ninth season in the NBA, and barring disaster, he'll have at least three more to go after that. That will make a total of 12 seasons in the NBA, which is more than even the most hardened of journeyman. In those eight completed seasons, Diop has played 509 regular season games, with 83 starts, totalling 7,410 minutes. But do you know what DeSagana Diop's regular season career high in points scored is?

Ten.

Yep, he's never scored more than ten points in a regular season game. He scored 11 points in a playoff game once, yet that's it. That's his best. After being picked 8th overall in the 2001 draft, spending 8 years in the league, and being given a total of 8 years of salary by the Dallas Mavericks, Diop has scored more than 8 points only 8 times in his entire career. And that's all yours for only $6.4 million a season through 2013.

Is he a good defensive player? Absolutely. But is he good enough to overlook the huge salary and the complete dearth of offense? No.

8. Hedo Turkoglu - Turkoglu's breakout at the age of 28 gives hope to 27 year olds all over the world. He went from being a decent player to a bankable star, at an age where most players have long since stopped improving. Turkoglu managed to put together the skills he's always flirted with, and become a viable number 1 playmaking option on a very good team. This was largely unprecedented, particularly from a man who used to live off of Tim Duncan's kickouts.

Unfortunately, because of it, he's now become overrated. And because he's become overrated, he's now overpaid to go with it. One always follows the other.

Turkoglu is a decent shooter and a good playmaker, an elite one for a small forward. But he's not THAT good at it, and he's not THAT good of a shooter. He's not that good of a clutch option, either, and his PER last season of 14.8 is below both his career average of 15.1 and the NBA's average of 15.0. PER is far from the sole arbiter of everything, but it's a pretty good measurement of a player's overall performance, and it doesn't take more than a quick glance at Hedo's career PER to see that eh may be the poster child for the Fluke Year.

The fact that PER is somewhat slanted against good defense doesn't help Turkoglu, either, for he's not a very good defensive player. He's big, hence the mismatches he creates on offense, but he's also pretty damn slow, and he doesn't rebound well for a forward.

As always, the money is the biggest killer. Hedo turns 31 this season, the first season of a backloaded 5 year $52.8 million contract that pays no less than $9 million in any year, and which gets as high as $12 million in 2014. He is probably not going to be worth $9 million this year, and he's not going to get any better either, therefore the contract will only get worse as time goes on. And it's going to take a whole lot of crunch time step-back three pointers to justify my thug. (Sorry; to justify his salary.)

If the addition of Turkoglu is enough to convince Chris Bosh to stay, then maybe the contract will be validated for the Raptors. But any team trading for it won't have that defense. And that's why it's so highly undesirable.

9. Corey Maggette - Last night's preseason game between the Warriors and the Kings is perhaps the perfect indicator of the career of Corey Maggette. In 24 minutes off the bench, Maggette scored 28 points, going 9-11 from the field, 1-1 from three point range, and 9-9 from the foul line. He also added 7 rebounds and 2 assists on his way to the Warriors' finest +/- of the night.

And the Warriors still lost.

This is not to say that the Warriors lost because of Maggette; they did not. This is also not to say that a team can't win with Corey Maggette, because they can. (They just all haven't so far.) However, it does hint at the truth behind Maggette's impressive statistics; ultimately, they're not as helpful as they should be.

In a bid to get his numbers, Maggette bypasses continuity on offense and bullies his way mercilessly to the hole, racking up the foul shots yet also the turnovers, and being about as predictable as the outcome of Rocky IV. He's certainly a talented slasher and finisher, but he runs up his numbers in blowouts wins and losses, cannot shoot well outside of 13 feet, is not the defensive player that he could be, and is not as effective as his numbers suggest.

More importantly, it's the numbers that got him paid. Maggette is owed $39.7 million over the next four seasons, an average of as-near-as-is $10 million a season. Half that number, and you have a useful role player. But at that price, the attraction is gone.

Lastly, another Warrior.

10. Monta Ellis - Ellis used to be one of the most desirable players in the game. A complete steal with the 40th pick of 2005 draft, Ellis won the Most Improved Player award in the 2006/07 season, and was a 20 points per game scorer while still on a minimum salary contract, posting stats of 20.2 ppg, .580 TS% and 19.0 PER in the 2007/08 season on a 48 win Warriors team.

Eighteen short months later, and now he's cropping up on an amateur English blogger's Least Desirable Trade Ideas list.

If you were thinking of making a similar career change, all you need is to do the following;

a) Re-sign for 6 years and $66 million.
b) Get into a "low speed" moped accident, in direct contravention of the NBA's Uniform Player Contract.
c) Tear the deltoid ligament in your left ankle.
d) Lie about how you did it.
e) Alienate yourself from the franchise.
f) Get suspended for 30 games (a loss of about $4 million), but get lucky enough to not have your bright new shiny contract voided (yet).
g) Sulk for an entire year, a year that you just wasted.
h) Privately demand a trade.
i) Sulk when you don't get one.
j) Sulk more during the offseason as the front office dared to draft someone the same height as you.
k) Publicly declare that you can't play with the new guy.
l) Keep sulking.

Loyalty is probably extremely hard to come by on a Warriors franchise that spent the whole of last year arguing with itself about who to listen to and which direction to take, before finally taking the wrong one. Loyalty is probably impossible to find on a team whose owner is trying to sell, whose previous General Manager served as little more than a scapegoat and waiver wire watcher, and whose head coach wants to be the sole shotcaller. And loyalty is probably non-existent on a team whose former captain wants out, whose star player can't get his own way, whose marquee signing can't get into the starting lineup, and where all three appear on an "undesirable players to trade for" list. In that respect, maybe Monta has a right to feel disenfranchised.

But, dude. You could have cost yourself $66 million dollars. Be thankful it was nearer $4 mil, and stop sulking.

Please add your own additions to the list below.