Bynum: Indirect Center of Attention for the Bulls

With the recent swap of Luol Deng for Andrew Bynum, the Bulls have (potentially) put themselves in position to maybe jump back to the top of the East as soon as next season.  So what exactly does this trade mean for the Bulls, and how does it work? This means two, maybe three huge things for the Bulls.  With the way that Bynum's contract works, the Bulls are going to release him before the January 7th deadline in order to clear over half of his contract off the books.  This means that the Bulls essentially clear $8M off their team salary from this trade, which is kind of a big deal.  Let me expand on that later, but first, the Bulls officially suck now.

With no Luol Deng and no Derrick Rose, the Bulls are a team with pretty much zero offense and above average defense.  If they choose to tank for the rest of the season, they could end up with a very good player in the deepest draft class since LeBron's 2003 class.  Personally, I'd love to see them pick up Jabari Parker. Parker's one of the top three players in the draft class, which also includes the likes of Andrew Wiggins and Julius Randle.  Jabari Parker's from Chicago just like Derrick Rose and also played at Rose's alma matter, Simeon High School, in Chicago which makes for a star pairing match made in heaven.

The summer of 2014 should be huge.  Not just because of the deep draft class, but the star-studded free agent class as well.  The next thing the Bulls would have to do to sign a big-time free agent would be to amnesty Boozer's $15.3M contract.  With Boozer's contract gone and Bynum's contract sliced in half, the Bulls shave off about $22M off the books.  That being said, with Derrick Rose returning for next season alongside Parker and enough cap space, the Bulls should have enough to pull in a big name superstar from the free agency, but who?

Well... Carmelo Anthony seems to fit the bill.  With the way the Knicks are playing and with the lack of a draft pick, the Knicks really have nothing to keep Melo in New York except maybe Billy Elliot.  Melo has stated that he wants to play for a big market like New York or L.A.  The Clippers don't have the cap space to sign Melo and the Lakers... Well, they have a broken down 35-year-old Kobe Bryant and Mike D'Antoni so... nothing there either. With New York and L.A. having nothing to offer Melo, why not go to the next biggest city, Chicago?  If Melo signed with Chicago, they would boast a starting lineup of Derrick Rose, Jabari Parker, Carmelo Anthony, Taj Gibson, and Joakim Noah.  You might say that they don't have a bench that's good enough, but wait, they do!  Up and coming young players like Jimmy Butler, Marquis Teague, and Tony Snell off the bench too?  I'm not even a Bulls fan, but this sounds pretty good to me.