Trade deadline recap

So after a busy trade deadline, the Bulls managed to make two deals, acquire four expiring contracts, nab a first round pick, and help out their immediate competitors. We can now see that Gar Paxdorf (credit Blog a Bull for the name) is gunning to sign one of the big free agents this summer and the "2010 plan" is now in full-effect as Chicago has enough cap space to sign one max free agent and even have a few bucks leftover. For those of you wondering exactly how much money the Bulls will have to play with, I'll break it down for you:



Next season, the Bulls have six players under contract. Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, James Johnson, and Taj Gibson will combine to make exactly $31,861,826. Let's round that to $31.9 million of total salary.

This season, the NBA salary cap is $57.7 million, but is expected to drop next season, possibly all the way to $51 or $52 million. A maximum contract (for any of the players the Bulls plan on pursuing anyway) is worth exactly 30% of whatever the salary cap is. Let's assume the Bulls will sign one guy to a maximum contract. (Who will they sign? We'll talk about that later.)

Let's say that next year's salary cap is $57 million. A maximum contract would then be worth $17.1 million dollars and this would leave the Bulls with an additional $8 million to play with. But I'm going to guess that the salary cap will drop lower than that, so here's a rundown of the potential cap figures, and how much leftover money the Bulls would have after signing a max player:

Salary Cap-----Maximum Value-----Cap Room Left
$57 million-----$17.1 million--------$8 million
$56--------------$16.8-----------------$7.3
$55--------------$16.5-----------------$6.6
$54--------------$16.2-----------------$5.9
$53--------------$15.9-----------------$5.2
$52--------------$15.6-----------------$4.5
$51--------------$15.3-----------------$3.8
$50--------------$15.0-----------------$3.1

Since John Salmons was set to make just over $5.8 million next season, trading him was clearly a move the Bulls had to make. (Of course, he had a player option for next season that he may or may not have opted in with. They couldn't take that chance.)

[More on the Bulls and the potential free agents to come in the next post, hopefully early next week.]