NBA rumors peg the Chicago Bulls wanting Philadelphia 76ers center Jahlil Okafor, but that may lead to a large trade near the deadline.
The Chicago Bulls are rumored to have their eyes on Philadelphia 76ers center Jahlil Okafor. While that seems a bit odd, given that the Sixers have been apt to bench Okafor for full games at a time over the last month, and since Okafor is the center on the roster who has struggled the most this year and showed the least amount of effort, the Bulls have some specific needs and changes they want to fill.
One of those is low-post scoring, something they would easily get from Okafor. The Bulls can afford to bring Okafor on for the right price, and clearly are looking to make moves at the trade deadline.
The situation the Bulls find themselves in going into February is by no means ideal. They had an impressive offseason this summer, signing Dywane Wade and bringing in Rajon Rondo, but things are not shaping up in Chicago like fans, or the team, hoped they would.
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The Bulls are 25-25 on the season after a very hot start, and could very much be classified as the Bizzaro Sixers in a sense this season. Wade is having a decent season, and shooting the best he’s ever shot from beyond the arc since 2009, but he’s simply not been enough to carry the Bulls to victory.
Veteran presence has been criticized openly on social media by Rajon Rondo. The Bulls are falling apart, and they’re letting us know. But with the team currently sitting at seventh overall in the Eastern Conference, a playoff spot is theirs to lose.
With the Bulls not in conversation as a high lottery pick team, losing for a draft pick makes no sense for them right now, so they truly need to buckle down and improve their chances at a better playoff spot, and start preparing themselves for a very tough first round in the playoffs.
One way to immediately change the course of your team is to bring in players that make sense at the trade deadline. Players that can be transformative, even.
Okafor is not that player for the Bulls. Is he a piece of the puzzle? Sure, one could argue that about his fit with the team, but with his inexperience — Okafor has played just over a full season’s amount of games — it’s easy to assume that he won’t shape up to be great or a player that takes the Bulls from a 7 seed to a 4 seed.
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Still, the rumored talks between the Bulls and Sixers could lead to more teams coming in, and the Sixers could end up being a part of the big trade that happens at the deadline. Usually, once a year, on or right before the trade deadline, there’s one big trade that happens. There’s always the chance multiple teams may be involved to make the salaries match up, and make the pieces work.
Do we recall the trade that brought J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cleveland Cavaliers? This was not a trade deadline move, but it was one with trade deadline caliber. That trade was a part of a three-team deal. Sometimes you have to bring in an extra team to make the pieces work.
The Sixers are not a likely team to get a star in this equation. If I had to guess, I would assume the Bulls would ship out one of their big names — Jimmy Butler was reportedly on the market earlier this season, but I can’t fathom them giving him up, maybe Rajon Rondo leaves instead — to a third team, and the Sixers exchange of Okafor would reciprocate with that third team as well.
You see, the pieces don’t exactly match up with Okafor and the Bulls. The Bulls have a plethora of options to make if they want to make a big move, but the Sixers don’t have a good “big name” player to offer the Bulls that could be transformative, and the Bulls don’t have a player of much value that the Sixers want.
That’s where another team comes in.
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Again, we’re in the early stages of the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, so it’s tough to predict what actually will happen, and a trade involving Okafor and Chicago, as CSN said in their initial report, is not something we should count on happening right now. But the phones have been picked up, and that’s the first step.