With two big trades, Bulls look ahead to future

The buzzword for the Bulls once Thursday's NBA trade deadline struck was "flexibility."

By sending John Salmons to Milwaukee, they assured themselves of having around $20 million to spend on free agents this summer.

Pretty good, but not the kind of flexibility that would cause every NBA contender to sweat this summer. The Bulls needed to unload Kirk Hinrich or Luol Deng to create enough room to sign two top-level free agents and that didn't happen.

Listening to general manager Gar Forman speak Thursday at the Berto Center, they didn't want it to happen.

"We didn't want to gut the nucleus of our team," Forman said. "Our goal is still to win this year and get as high a seed as we can. We know our fans want us to be a playoff team."

We're free to speculate on whether the Bulls (27-26) would have jumped at the chance to trade Hinrich for, say, three expiring contracts from the Lakers. No team was ready to take on the two years and $17 million remaining on Hinrich's contract, so he's staying.

"We didn't want to lose Kirk Hinrich," Forman said. "He is a real glue guy for us. He's a leader. When Kirk plays, we have success. I think we're 1-8 (actually 1-6) when he doesn't play this year.

What Forman said has merit. The Bulls have gone 17-9 since Dec. 26 and looking at the upcoming schedule, it's not far-fetched to imagine this team being 10 games above .500 before mid-April.

Officially, the Bulls made two moves. Salmons goes to the Bucks for power forward Hakim Warrick and small forward Joe Alexander. Tyrus Thomas was sent to Charlotte for guards Flip Murray and Acie Law, along with a conditional first-round draft pick.

Asked about Thomas' well-publicized problems this season, including a one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team on Feb. 6, Forman stuck to the numbers. There was a good chance Thomas, the No. 4 pick in the 2006 draft, wouldn't be back next season, so they got something for him while they could.

"The reality of it was his cap hold this summer was going to be so large that it was going to be a problem for us as far as trying to attract free agents," Forman said. "So there was a likelihood he wasn't going to be able to remain with us.

"We feel fortunate that we were able to get a first-round pick and get a piece in Flip Murray, who is a proven NBA player who can help make up for the loss of John Salmons."

Warrick, 27, fits into Thomas' role as an athletic power forward. The fifth-year pro from Syracuse has been a better scorer than Thomas (12.7 points for Memphis in 2006-07), but is not nearly as good with rebounds and blocked shots.

Murray, 30, is not as tall as Salmons, but typically fills the scoring role off the bench. The Bulls will be his eighth team in eight NBA seasons.

Alexander and Law don't figure to play as much. Alexander was the No. 8 pick in the 2008 draft, but was hurt at the start of the season and played most recently for the D-League's Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

The Bulls expect Warrick and Alexander to be available to play Friday at Minnesota, but they aren't sure about Murray and Law. Because these trades brought the roster to 16 players, forward Chris Richard was released.

Forman said the Bulls kicked around several ideas but were never close to doing anything else. It's possible they tried to get involved in a three-way trade with Houston and Sacramento to bring Tracy McGrady to the Bulls. But that would have meant Hinrich and probably center Brad Miller departing.

"We feel good today because we kept the nucleus intact, our starting lineup intact and yet gained the type of flexibility we wanted to gain to make the next step in that process this summer," Forman said.

The free-agent targets are well known. The approximate pecking order figures to be LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer.

Flexibility won't convince a top-level free agent to join the Bulls, but the chance to play with Derrick Rose might.

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<li><a href="/story/?id=360381">Meet the new Bulls<span class="date"> [2/19/10]</span></a></li>

<li><a href="/story/?id=360379">Forman: We've got a lot of factors working for us<span class="date"> [2/19/10]</span></a></li>

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