Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes...

Irony Can Be Pretty Ironic Sometimes




Airplane 2: The Sequel

— MOVIECLIPS.com

I spent two years screaming that Carlos Boozer and his albatross of a contract were the biggest limiting factor on finally being able to piece a Championship team together around Derrick Rose.

For the first time, we finally have a specific Boozer trade rumor, and...

I dunno.

I can't really get my head around this Andrea Bargnani rumor. It makes little sense. Yes, he could be a "stretch" power forward whose perimeter shooting might give the Bulls' offense another dimension. Maybe he'll decongest the lane for Derrick Rose by pulling opponents' power forwards out to the perimeter. But he adds no more to the mix defensively than Boozer, and he's a 7-footer who rebounds like a good shooting guard.

And while Bargnani is making a little less per year than Boozer, it's still not nearly enough to get the Bulls under the cap. And if he exercises his player option, he'll delay the Bulls having cap space by another year after Boozer would have been gone - and he takes the amnesty option off the table, which the Bulls currently have with Boozer. (You can only amnesty a player who was on your roster at the time the lockout ended.)

The only thing I can think of at this point is that Bargnani won't be any WORSE than Boozer, but his contract may be slightly less untradeable than Boozer's. Maybe the Bulls feel like Bargnani might be movable for an expiring contract, where Boozer is not.

Further, since Taj Gibson has a history of producing much better as a starter, you could more easily justify bringing Bargnani off the bench as a scoring anchor for the second team so Luol Deng doesn't have to do it forever.

I suppose if you look for reasons this makes some sense, you can find them. But Boozer has played well enough this year that I don't feel all that compelled to move him just for the sake of doing it.

Is it possible this is just the first chess move in a broader gambit?

Stay tuned, I guess. Gar Forman is the top dog. The head cheese. Numero uno honcho...