This is what we want. Being with Skiles, two Mich. State guys, he can be cured. The Bulls winning/working enviornment will bring out the best in Randolph. Do it Pax. We get our big man for not a ton, keep the core. Portland pairs Oden with Conley and get a versitle player in Noc, we get our frontcourt player.

Nocioni/#9 wouldn't work financially. We'd have to involve someone else and I'm not willing to trade any of our key players to get a headcase. The only headcase I ever like was Artest and we got rid of him super fast.

How far up do you think the Bulls #9 pick and Nocioni would be able to move us in the draft?

i read rumors that we may offer the pick, and duhon or victor for Nick Collison. Though i think we can get a Nick collison type player just by using the pick

I seriously hope that was only a rumor. Collison is okay but I'd rather take a cheaper version of him at #9.

General manager John Paxson will weigh whether the Bulls' top need—a large, interior scorer—can be met with that first-round pick or whether he needs to scour the trade market aggressively to land an established NBA player.

"That will be an option I'll certainly explore," Paxson said.

Of course, it takes two teams to tango in the trade market, so that option could be easier said than done.

Still, it's a safe bet Paxson will inquire on longtime Bulls favorite Nick Collison's availability now that the Sonics jumped to No. 2 and will land either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

I like Collison, though I'm not sure he's worth the 9th pick. I would trade something like Duhon and Noc for him though, and then hopefully use the 9 on J. Wright or Hawes.

I think this lineup would be pretty sweet:
PG- Hinrich/FA or 2nd rounder
SG- Gordon/Sefolosha
SF- Deng/Wright
PF- Collison/Thomas
C- Wallace/FA or 2nd rounder

Randolph and collison are both great choices because they are VETERANS

With Hibbert pulling out, only Yi and Hawes meet our needs. Neither are the perfect fit, though i like Yi a lot on a front line with wallace/tyrus and deng to help cover his D liabilities for the next 10 years.

But it is very unlikely Yi will last till 9 and even more likely that neither one will help us anytime soon.

We need a veteran.

Nocioni is an attractive trade piece. Duhon is a VERY VERY attractive trade piece (3.2 mil expiring contract AND could probably start at PG for a lot of teams) plus khryapa.

Nocioni could be resigned for 5-7 million a year. Duhon and Khryapa's expiring contracts add up to just over 5 million. Bam! That's close enough to Randolph's salary and it wouldn't take that much to get collison.

Collison fits a lot more with the Bulls style of play, but is like a drew gooden in that he technically is a low post scorer, but at best a 3rd or 4th scoring option. Randolph is a dominating player, could be an all-star, but much more a gamble. Could he handle being the 2nd or 3rd option on the team? Playing D?

Honestly, it seems pretty clear that Lewis is out of seatle and being filled in for by one kevin durant, so I think they might try to keep Collison and wilcox and ray allen and make a run at this thing. But Portland, its addition by subtraction, giving their young core a chance to play and grow together. Randolph just eats minutes and shots for the young guys. SO they are selling low on him. Probably just looking for cap relief. Noc and Du and Vic's 5 mil in cap relief, could get this done. Plus, they have major needs at the 1 and 3. Perfect!

Either way, these trades would shore up the starting pf, and leave us with only 1 glaring need--backup pf and c--which could easily be addressed by the #9.

We could get lucky and nab Yi, but if not, what about Noah?

Sure Joakim isnt our low post scoring answer, but what team wouldnt want an anderson varejao as their 10th man? I would. Check out this roster, because it spells '08 championship baby

Hinrich/Thabo
Gordon/Thabo/Griffin
Deng/Thabo/Griffin
Randolph/Tyrus/Noah
Wallace/Randolph/Noah

Look, if anyone in the nba can straighten out randolph it is skiles.

Skiles sure did a great job of straightening out Tim Thomas.

Seriously, Skiles is a great coach with most types of players. Guys with attitudes, guys who are ready to mold, guys who are hard workers. But the only kind of guy Skiles doesn't seem to mesh with is the guy with a lot of talent who thinks he's too special to fit with the rest of the rules. We've seen several of those guys come through here and wind up out of here pretty darn fast.

Randolph can be had—with a ton of baggage

So, what's the price of success?

That's a question many teams, including the Bulls, figure to be asking themselves with the results of the NBA draft lottery Tuesday awarding the No. 1 draft pick, certainly Ohio State's Greg Oden, to the Portland Trail Blazers.

His selection means the first low-post domino to be available this coming off-season—and they could include Pau Gasol, Jermaine O'Neal, Amare Stoudemire and Kevin Garnett—certainly will be Portland's Zach Randolph.

He sounds like a perfect match for a team like the Bulls, a 6-foot-9-inch, 270-pound player with a rare, classic post-up game and outside shot. He averaged 23.6 points and 10.1 rebounds per game last season, but with Oden and last year's No. 1 pick, LaMarcus Aldridge, there certainly is no room for Randolph in Portland. His time there was rumored to be up anyway, no matter whom the team would get in the draft.

The first order of business for the Trail Blazers, now that they can have Oden, will be to see if they can trade for his high school and college buddy, point guard Mike Conley Jr.

That probably would require a trade with the Atlanta Hawks, who have the No. 3 pick and a need for a point guard. They already have floated suggestions they might take Conley.

The Trail Blazers have Georgia Tech point guard Jarrett Jack. Perhaps there could be a deal by packaging him with Randolph and a future No. 1. Big-time agent Billy Duffy has been rumored for weeks to be working on uniting the pair no matter where Oden goes. Duffy is working with Conley and his father, who is acting as the agent for his son and Oden.

The most recent talk has the Trail Blazers trying to trade Randolph to the Washington Wizards, who are in desperate need of interior scoring. Perhaps in a multiteam deal with Atlanta? Antawn Jamison, who's going into his final contract season with the Wizards, could be part of a deal to offset Randolph's $13.3 million salary for next season.

Yes, Randolph's statistics and game are appealing, even if he tends to stop the ball with his back-in dribble. But he still is due an average of $16 million per season for three more seasons.

His salary, though, could take a team out of the potential sweepstakes after the 2009-10 season when LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade can become free agents.

Sure, there have been troubled players who have succeeded, like Rasheed Wallace with the Pistons and Dennis Rodman with the Bulls.

But this, according to newspaper reports over the years, is what you also get with Randolph:

•1995. Thirty days in juvenile detention for shoplifting.

•High school years: Thirty days of house arrest for battery.

•Thirty days in juvenile detention for receiving stolen property, a gun.

•2002. Underage drinking arrest in Marion, Ind., his hometown.

•2003. Team suspension by the Trail Blazers for sucker-punching teammate Ruben Patterson in practice and breaking his eye socket.

•2003. Arrested in Portland for driving under the influence of intoxicants and marijuana.

•2004. Accused by police of lying in an investigation of his brother shooting three men in an Indiana nightclub.

•2006. Suspended by the Trail Blazers for making obscene gestures to fans after a game in Indiana.

•2006. Sued by a Portland woman for sexual assault, though prosecutors didn't file criminal charges.

•2007. Left a strip club without paying the bill while he was on bereavement leave from the team and missed three games after the death of his girlfriend's cousin.

•2007. Earlier this month, police were called to the parking lot of a strip club where Randolph and teammate Darius Miles were part of a gathering and a gunshot was fired.

It all reminds you of the wonderful scene from the Bill Murray movie "Stripes" when the characters played by Murray and Harold Ramis are undergoing the Army enlistment process and the recruiter asks if they were ever convicted of a felony.

Murray pauses considerably and says, "Convicted? Not convicted."

I don't know Zach Randolph and I don't know what he has done or hasn't done. His missteps all could be cases of mistaken identity. As the saying goes, "All I know is what I read in the newspaper."

There's no doubt Randolph will be the first traded this off-season, though it technically could run into July with financial rules. There's no doubt he can give a team 20 points and 10 rebounds every game.

But at what cost? Or what value?

There always are desperate teams, and Washington sounds like one. Heck, with what they have had going on with Brendan Haywood, the self-proclaimed heavyweight champion of Wizards' centers, and Etan Thomas, Randolph could be a relief. Perhaps, like Rasheed Wallace, all he needs is to get out of that brutal Portland environment. It could be all the natural grains and narcissistic runners. That would give any of us plenty of indigestion. It seems there's always a catch.

sasmith@tribune.com

And by the way, that isn't all of his arrests. As I understand it there were other occasions while still in HS and college that he was arrested and let go without being charged, and since there was nothing in the newspapers, no one outside of his hometown knows about them.

Plus remember he was born in 1981, so he was 14 for his first listed arrest.

Randolph, who grew up in Marion, Ind., seems most interested in the rumors surrounding Chicago, as he often brings up the Bulls.

"I'd like the chance to compete for a championship, and if I was able to be with the Bulls, I think I would be able to compete for a championship."

The Bulls were knocked out of the playoffs in the second round by Detroit, during which they had trouble scoring inside.

This season, Randolph averaged 26 points and 12 rebounds in two games against the Pistons, which came after he averaged 29 points and 11 rebounds in two meetings during the 2005-06 season.

A little more rumblings about Randolph:Randolph owns the Pistons.

randolph might be the perfect addition bc he can be had for much less than any of the other people we've been talking about

The blazers want another top pick to add a young sf, they could get a GREAT one at #9. They might do it for even less than we think

Paxson needs to be on the phone non-stop with 3 teams; the Pacers, the Wolves, and the Grizzlies. KG, JO, or Pau...we need one, and we've got the pieces to get something done.