So, I was at the bar watching the lottery and praying for a miracle. As the picks rolled down, 12, 11, 10, a sigh of relief came to my face. Then I held my breath as 9 was announced. When we weren't nine I let out a girly yell of excitement at the bar. Then I patiently waited for the 3rd pick to be announced. I really didn't care about 1 or 2 but I knew I would slit my wrist if we drafted Lopez at 3. Well, we got the 1st pick, which unless Paxson decides to trade it to Miami I think we would have to use it on Rose. If Miami really wants Rose and they are willing to trade us some future picks or Wade in a package for their pick and some of our players then I say we should trade the pick. However, if they aren't willing to do that then we need to take Rose and say by to Captain Kirk.

Maybe we could trade Kirk, Gooden, Nocioni & a future 1st for Brand and a Maggette. That would leave us with:

Noah
Brand/Tyrus
Deng/Tyrus
Maggette/Gordon/Hughes
Rose/Thabo

But I'm torn. I think I'd rather keep Gooden, develop Tyrus and Noah, maybe add Diop in the offseason for a defensive force down low and trade Kirk for something else. Maybe an expiring contract and a future 1st pick?

The Clippers would have to be high on cocaine to do that trade. No way you get Brand AND Maggette without giving up one of Deng or Tyrus, if not both.

Hinrich + Tyrus + Gooden + Future 1st for Brand/Knight

Rose/Knight
Thabo/Hughes/Brown
Deng/Nocioni
Brand/FA/2nd rounder
Noah/Gray

You know it's not that I don't like Kirk. I think he was the right pick at the time for the bulls. But he's not a true point guard, that's the bottom line. And the Bulls kept trying to put that square peg in a round hole.

He played much better during those games in which Ben Gordon was out and Thabo took over the ball handling while he started. 38 at Indy, 31 at Phoenix, 27 at Minnesota. Hell, he wasn't even a PG at Kansas was he? Who was their little PG?

Kirk is a good defender, good combo guard to come off the bench for you. But not to start, and not at 11 million a year.

It's another one of Pax's fish ups. Drafting Hinrich works if next year you do a combo of Deng and Iguodola. But he went with another combo guard and it just didn't work.

Um, last I checked, Maggette is free to leave on his own will. He doesn't have to be asked to be traded. The only reason he's in a sign and trade is to get a bigger contract then the Bulls would give him otherwise. Thus, the Bulls really aren't paying for Maggette but they are still giving the Clippers a little bone to chew on.

Somehow I have a hard time seeing Pax trade the organization's man-crush, even if they can draft a guy that's way more athletic and will be considerably better. They've done the safe thing at virtually every opportunity (with the obvious exception of the Tyrus pick, which they're being ripped for so far), I don't really expect that to change.

I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, especially if it gets us Brand, I'm just saying don't be surprised if Beasley is wearing #30 in red next year with the same core around him. Considering the kind of talent Beasley has too, I don't think you can call that a terrible move for once.

Do you really think Beasley is the "Safe" pick here? I'd actually think Rose might well be the safer pick. Especially if you take in to account Pax's history of looking at college team success in drafting guys.

And while I may not like it for cap reasons, if there's not a good offer out there for Hinrich, Hinrich and Rose could well coexist for a year or two in the backcourt if one or two of the other shooting guards was moved. He's able to defend much bigger guards and would be a decent combo guard option off the bench. His contract doesn't expire for 3 more years so that's hard to move in the first place.

Given our roster, yeah, it's the "safe" move. Drafting Rose forces to make trades, which hasn't really been our strong suit.

Well, thats kinda questionable. We made a damn good trade with NY to get a ton for Eddy Curry. Unfortunately, we fucked up the draft picks we got.

That one was essentially a salary dump, getting something for someone we didn't want. We traded Chandler and Wallace too, but none of those involved trading valuable spare assets for a big upgrade somewhere, which we were in position to do for the last several years.

You know just as well as anyone that we didn't have the #1 pick to fall back on in those situations.

That's the thing that's going to be kind of difficult. I know we want to (and need to) trade away some guys to open up minutes, but if we can't get something worthy in return, then we can't afford to just give away a player like we did with Chandler. Then again, teams know we need to get rid of some guys, so they may use that against us. Kinda of a tricky situation.

I could definitely be okay with Hinrich still on the team even if we draft Rose. But it's gonna be hard for minutes to go around, especially if we keep Gordon this offseason.

No, but we had our supposedly great young core and the #2 pick in 2006 draft and the #9 pick in the 2007 draft. It seems like we've been unloading a lot more than adding of late even with a few opportunities to add a major piece without totally killing the roster. I just don't really trust us to massively overhaul the roster.

I think Kirk is staying no matter what. Bye Bye Gordon.

I agree if you switch the names around.