My gut is telling me Kurt Thomas and Mason, though I now want Shaq/Henry.

Edit: That is, if Shaq would be willing to take a couple days off to rest (maybe 1 out of 3 or 4 games). If not, just get Thomas and hope Asik is a good deal.

Also, I'd be up for James Johnson to Portland + Picks for Rudy and keep Alexander on the roster for JJ's role.

This may or may not have to do with my extremely like of Joe Alexander.

With Watson in, I have a hard time seeing it being Rudy, sadly... it's a toss-up at this point, but I voted.

Ha, Quin you and I both picked the same two... (Mason, Jr and Kurt Thomas). They seem like the easy bets.

Especially since they fill such good roles for possibly cheap.

And man, Rose is going to dish a dollar a game at least.

Yeah, I have a real hard time seeing Rose not take a giant leap with the depth of this roster.

I DID find a comment on CSN Chicago last night rather comical. It went something like "and with a point guard like Derrick Rose to distribute the ball, Ronnie Brewer's point totals could take off."

Right... because he didn't play with Deron Williams!

He might only wind up as #13 on the roster, but Thibodeau described John Lucas III from our Summer League team as "an ideal NBA 3rd point guard".

you should take off chris richard and add samardo samuels

Done, Samuels' play in the SL deserves him a spot over Richard.

Whoever wrote that didn't really think that one through. But the Jazz are/were a half-court team. The Bulls are a transition team. I fully expect Brewer's scoring to increase.

The team pace of the Jazz is pretty much identical to that of the Bulls over the last three years, and they scored quite a bit better at that pace (106, 104 and 104 PPG those years). I wouldn't expect much of an increase either as every staff Thibodeau has been a part of has played at a significantly slower pace than the Bulls have of late (no team where he was a member of the staff ever finished higher than 15th in pace).

Thibodeau has also been an almost exclusive defensive assistant on all those staffs. Are you saying you think the Bulls will be a half-court team?

Thibodeau hasn't really run the offense though has he? His side has been the defense. Force the other team into the half court and turn them into a 1 and out miss with your team getting the rebound.

Yeah, you're trying to shut down the other team's running game so that slows it down, but a one shot and out philosophy with Noah grabbing the rebound can feed into the break very well.

I wouldn't say there's a single team in the NBA that I'd call a strictly "half-court team" right now. There isn't really a single team that grinds the game to a halt like some of those old Knicks/Heat teams did.

Besides, every team has to play a large percentage of their possessions in non-transition situations, even the Suns. Granted the Warriors play a lot faster than the Trailblazers on average, but that by no means means that Portland can't play fast if the situation suits them.

Utah does have a good half-court set, but they've also been in the top-10 in pace for each of the last three years. You can't really argue that Bewer's scoring is going to spike because of an improved pace when the Jazz were already a fairly quick-moving team.

With the exception of a few out-liers on either end, there just wasn't that big a difference in pace between most teams last year. Houston was 5th at 96.6 possessions per game and Cleveland was 25th at 93.5. So basically two thirds of the league was within three possessions per game of each other. The Bulls will likely fall somewhere in that range.

I don't see a need for any more significant pieces on this team. We have more than enough for a quality rotation, adding anyone else that needs minutes is probably not smart. I'll say Kurt Thomas because he'll get a ton of DNP's, and probably a summer league guy like John Lucas as our 3rd guard to sit on the bench.

Changing Samuels back to Richard, since Samuels is now a Cav.

maybe we should add chris paul to the list too

Remember this poll?

lol. i didnt say trade ROSE for him...

Tracy McGrady and Bouldin. Bouldin as a 3rd pg. Tmac as another ball handler/scorer.

I'd love to trade for Rudy if he's willing to come. He'd be an excellent addition. He's a very crafty athletic player who can hit the 3 with the best of them.

I don't get the Bouldin love. I like what John Lucas brought waaaaaay more than what Bouldin did.