Well, there are a lot of questions going on these days with the Bulls.. Who's out, who's in, right? In my humble opinion, im gonna share what i believe the route the Bulls organization should go with...

Lets start off with our key free agents, Mr. Deng and Mr. Gordon. Luol Deng should be kept, and i hate to say this but... Ben Gordon is out. No sign and trade or anything like that... Just let him walk out. Now, i know that there are some who think that Too much was invested for him, and we'd be losing a pick and blah blah blah.... I really like Gordon on the bulls, not only what he does on the court but how he handles himself off the court... That being said, as of today, the bulls backcourt is loaded and room needs to be made. With Rose now joining the team, I cannot see a Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose as our starting future backcourt. Ben will be coming off the bench making like what? 8-10 mill a year? Too much for a bench player.... That money will need to go to players like Deng, Thomas, Noah, and eventually Rose, who will most likely be making lots of money...

Why not sign and trade Gordon for a big guy? Well, in my opinion, i dont want to see another person coming in and taking time from our guys, Noah and Thomas. These guys need to develop, and develop fast. It's time to let them get their minutes, develop, and get more experience. Thats our future, so let them play! Thomas has shown that he can post some nice all around numbers when he gets lot of minutes out there...

Kirk Hinrich should be kept for a year, then traded away.... I wouldnt mind seeing Rose start right away, but Rose is still young and needs a lot to learn. One year coming off the bench shouldnt hurt him.

Free Agents.... I would like the bulls to go after 1 veteran big guy. Malik Allen came to my mind. I dont want this guy taking minutes from Thomas, Noah, Gooden, and even Gray.... I just think we need an insurance type of guy incase one of our bigs goes down.

To sum up, Deng, Rose, and Allen are in... Gordon, Duhon are out.

Starters....

Hinrich- 29 mins: 11pts, 6 ast.
Sefolosha- 20 min: 8pts,
Deng- 35 mins: 18-19pts
Thomas- 26 mins: 11pts, 6.5 rbs, 1-2blk
Noah- 28 mins: 9pts, 7rbs

Bench....

Rose- 19 mins: 9pts, 4.6 ast (After all-star break, i would like to see Rose get 20+ mins) 12-14 pts, 5-7 ast
Hughes- 18 mins: 10 pts
Nocioni 22 mins: 10pts (playing both F postions)
Gooden 28 mins: 12pts, 8rbs (playing PF and C positions)
Gray?- 0-10 mins... (depending on match ups)
Allen
Curry

As far as points per game goes... They could be higher IF and When Rose begins to take over the team... He is a guy that can and will break down the opposing defense, and he should be able to create easier shots for everyone...

In the near future, i would like to see Hinrich moved for a back-up for Rose and a scoring back-up for Sefolosha:-) Im not a big fan of keeping Hughes after his contract is over.... Maybe if he becomes more of a slasher instead of a chucker, then he might be a keeper... But i doubt it will happen.

On the last note, i do believe it would be great to bring an established All-Star type of player... But for what? The Bulls aren't ready to compete until Rose, Thomas, and Noah are veterans. Rose is soooo perfect for guys like Thomas and Noah, so i dont think our front court should be moved. As far as having a leader on the team, that would be great.... But i will say this: the Bulls will have their leader when Rose takes over the team. There is almost no question that he will be the Bulls best player in the future, and everyone will look up to him... This could be by the end of this year, or who knows, maybe 2-3 years from now. I just really think it depends on Paxson, what types of moves he's going to make, and how much playing time Rose is going to get.

We got our future SuperStar! Now we just gotta be a little patient.... Questions, comments, concerns?

Oh my god, I might have vomited in my mouth a bit. Let Rose sit for a year? Thabo, Tyrus, and Noah in the lineup? Get rid of Gordon?

That team scores 75 points a game. Ugh.

+1

So we should keep Gordon?... bringing him back for a year would be nice, but then we still have a loaded backcourt. I dunno if paxson is gonna move Hinrich so soon... Having Rose as our single pure point guard... I dunno but at the same time, i wouldnt be upset if it happened. Also, what happens if Rose goes down for a long period of time... No point guard.... Gordon is gonna be running the team? Hughes, Thabo?... I dunno about that...

As far as points per game goes... You do have a great point. Points could be hard to get... But we shouldnt forget that Thomas should be much improved, and the same with Noah. Thabo also showed that he could be a nice spot-up shooter. Plus we have a new coach, and new playbook. One thing that i liked was that VDN said that he will try to put everyone in good positions, and try to hide everyone's weeknesses. He will adjust to our players. On the other hand, when skiles came in, he didnt really adjust to the bulls players... I mean c'mon... How many times did we see Ben Wallace in a pick-and-roll? It boggled a lot of people's mind when we would see that.... New playbook, improved players, and a guy that can break down the D in Rose... Our Offense will be okay... Not the best, but okay.

Furthermore... It's all about defense. Defense will generate our Offense. I have no doubt in my mind that players will play harder than last year. Our defense fell down the charts big-time last year. We pretty much kept the same players, and our defense just became pathetic at times. What happened to taking charges?? In my opinion, guys didnt want to play for Boylan, and they grew tired of Skiles, and lack of communication. Im pretty confident that players will want to play for VDN

Dude, Derrick Rose is going to single-handedly make Ben Gordon a premier scoring guard in this league.

Watch.

What about defense?...

Thabo is a dark horse in all of this. He's an excellent rebounder for a shooting guard and he plays tremendous defense, I hope he makes it into the starting lineup this year so Rose doesn't have to worry about guarding other teams 2guard.

I agree with all of the above. And I just cant see Rose, a Rookie who is 6ft, 2 and a half inches guarding the Kobes, the TMacs, the Johnsons, the Carters, Durant ect... Not now, not in the future...

If we set up this roster right, we can do exactly that, just with the kids.

Personally, I want to see:

TT
Deng
Noah
Rose
Thabo

As our main starting 5. All athletic, good defense from every position, etc.

The guys I'd like to see on the Bench:

BG7 - Like him or not, 25 minutes per game as a hot shooting backup guard where he plays 10-15 backing up Rose and 15+ backing up Thabo is an excellent use for him.

Aaron Gray - was frankly surprisingly effective off the bench as a backup Center last year, and for a 2nd round pick I'll take it. Some low post scoring ability, decent size, doesn't match up well with a fast team but has his uses if a team forces us more in to the half court.

Guys I wouldn't complain about moving but just don't want them getting 20+ minutes per game:

Nocioni: I'd love to keep him, but I really started hating the small Noc @ PF lineups last year, and his contract is a lot.
Hinrich: He'd be solid in the role Gordon plays, but his contract is a lot. He just seems more useful to other teams right now, since with this team he'd fit in for 10-20 minutes at most in a game.
Gooden: He's an expiring contract. He's therefore useful in that regard more than any other. We still need a backup PF, but he's good enough that he ought to be getting more minutes for another team than he should be getting with us next year.
Hughes: I like him, but not as a starter, and he's getting starters's money. His best value to us is as a "Lebron/Wade year" expiring contract, which other teams (NY) are trying to stockpile.

If the Bulls are going to start Thabo, Tyrus and Noah, I really want to see them keep Gordon and Gooden to come off the bench for when they need some offense. None of those first 3 can create their own shot and Deng is only okay in that regard, we can't expect Rose to perform miracles. Rose/Thabo/Deng/Tyrus/Noah probably can't be expected to average a whole lot more than 60 points a game combined, so you need significant offensive punch off the bench to get up around 100, otherwise you won't win much.

I don't see why everyone is so opposed to the win-now idea? It certainly worked for Boston, and we certainly have the talent. Go get Brand or Redd or Johnson and get this spiff rolling.

Let Gordon go for nothing? Start Tyrus, Noah, Thabo and not try and trade for a stud PF/C b/c defensively. B/C Tyrus & Noah are transformers with the abilty to push a button and morphe into offensive studs. I'm with you that they need PT to get better but we need a scorer and making a deal that ships Gooden out of here and gives us a stud PF/C is the only obvious thing that Paxson still needs to do. Noah got plenty of minutes the 2nd half of last year. As for getting Tyrus minutes, I think we need to ship Nocioni & Gooden out the door and then use Tyrus as the first reserve at the 3/4.

Oh, and by the way, this has got to be the worst threads I've seen since joining almost 2 years ago and here is why. There is no way we can afford to just let Gordon walk out the door. Let him walk out the door b/c we have too many guards when he's our best freaking guard and our best freaking scorer. Are you shitting me? Sure his defense isn't up to par with his offense but you said it yourself, VDN is going to try and mask peoples weaknesses. Maybe he can come up with some different defensive plays for when Gordon is out on the court. Anyway, there is no way in hell we can just let Gordon walk out the door without getting something in return. At the very least we need to trade for an expiring contract and a 1st round pick (top 3 protected). There will be a boat load of teams (especially the Knicks) willing to make that kind of a deal. spiff we could probably ship Gordon & Hughes up for Marbury's expiring contract and a future 1st. Then we could tell Marbury he's not welcome in the building and wait until he comes off the books (or use his expiring contract in a future trade). You could then move Kirk over to the SG along with Thabo and amazingly my plan is better than just letting him go and it free's up cap space and minutes for both Thabo & Rose. Thabo & Kirk can also rotate at PG for the 2nd unit. Under this scenario I'd still like to add a veteran PG or SG who can hit the 3 (Eddie House). Damn under this scenario it would have been nice to have CDR.

As for having a bench player make $8-10 million I see no problem with that if it is a player of Ben Gordon's ability. The guy is flat out on of the best 3 point shooters of the past decade. You just don't find players who can score in bunches the way he can. And we already pay Nocioni $8 million but that seems to be a non-issue.

And one more comment. 19 mintues? Are you serious? You want to give Nocioni, Tyrus, & Thabo more minutes per game then our future franchise player? What a joke. I don't care if he dribbles the ball off his face every time down the court. I still want him playing 30+ mpg and truthfully I'd like him start every game and average 36 mpg the same way Chris Paul did as a rookie in all 78 games he played.

That's what I'm talking about.

.......

i definently agree with both of thoose, there is no way rose plays less than 30 min a game, if he is our future just let him play and learn. tyrus' minutes should be increased heavily, this is his make or break year and rose will make him a much better player. as far a trades i think hinrich, nocioni, and/or gooden will be the main pieces in getting a PF/C that can score, and really help rose along. i think the bulls should do everything they can to bring back gordon and deng.