Beverley suggests a price for potential return to Bulls
Did Patrick Beverley price himself out of a return to the Bulls?
During this week's edition of the "Pat Bev Podcast," the veteran point guard tossed out a potential salary number for next season.
"My game hasn't dropped, so I don't think my number that I make this year should drop," Beverley said on the podcast. "I made $13 (million), but the money's going up, so my 13 this year would be 15 next year.
"Chicago was impressive, man. I enjoyed every bit of it. Hopefully the chips wall where they fall, we can run that back. Run it back. Got to run it back. We'll see."
Beverley, 34, made $13 million this season, but the Bulls only paid a small amount of that, since he was traded from the Lakers to Orlando at the deadline, then released. The Bulls signed him as a free agent during the all-star break.
Including the play-in games, the Bulls went 15-10 with Beverley in uniform, a 49-win pace over a full season. When Lonzo Ball was injured midway through the 2021-22 season, the Bulls lacked someone who could guide the offense, so there's no doubt the West Side native helped in that regard.
"We locked in fast. It was fun. That stuff was fun," Beverley said. "Shout out to the Bulls for giving me the opportunity. Obviously they don't know me from a can of paint, they only know me from what they see on the court.
"To have an organization like that to take a chance on a city kid like me, for us to achieve some type of success finishing out the season, it's always a good thing."
There are a couple of roadblocks to the Bulls running it back with Beverley. For starters, they've got multiple issues to resolve this summer.
Center Nikola Vucevic is an unrestricted free agent, guard Coby White is a restricted free agent, they already have two high-salaried players in Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, and the Bulls need to be thinking about ways to upgrade the roster.
The Bulls are also limited by collective bargaining rules when it comes to re-signing Beverley. Their best chance might be to apply for a disabled player exception for Ball. If granted, they could sign a player for one season at 50% of Ball's salary, roughly $10.2 million.
There's not much cap space available around the league, but the non-taxpayer midlevel exception is expected to rise to $12.5 million. Whether any NBA team is willing to use all of that on Beverley is a question to be determined.
"It's going to be a good summer," Beverley said. "I'm super excited. We'll see what happens with the Bulls, but it's a lot of people out there that might want that Pat Bev juice for their team. So I'm excited about that, I really am. I just want to be on a good team that wants to win."
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports