Kirk Hinrich To the Blazers?

August 27th, 2008 by Andrew Wamboldt

Victor Bellan, aka Tech N9ne is reporting that the Chicago Bulls and Portland Trailblazers are in trade talks. The Blazers are reportedly offering Travis Outlaw and Joel Pryzbilla for Kirk Hinrich. The Bulls are said to be mildly interested, and seeing if the Blazers are willing to take Ben Gordon instead.

The Bulls, after the trade as stated above, would be in the luxury tax if they were to resign Ben Gordon to the reported approximately $59 million contract.

Not sure why the Bulls would do this one. Travis Outlaw will be buried behind Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni, and Thabo Sefolosha on this team. He does fit one role, that of a three point shooter, but you would think the Bulls would be able to get something a little better for Kirk Hinrich, at least an expiring contract.

If the Bulls do decide to make this trade, they should try to get Portland to trade one of their European prospects. That is Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodriguez, and Nicolas Batum. Rudy Fernandez would be the best case scenario, as he actually appears to have real talent. Rodriguez and Batum have high bust potentials, but it would be nice to have these prospects just in case they might pan out.

If Ben Gordon is the trade piece and not Kirk Hinrich, the Bulls better be getting Rudy Fernandez back. If the Bulls do the trade as is, with Ben Gordon (and the necessary supplemental players to balance the trade so it works under the CBA), the Bulls are just proving that they don’t care about winning, just being good enough to turn a massive profit. At least with Rudy Fernandez coming our way, we would be having some good talent coming our way.

I would personally not trade Hinrich or Gordon in any type of deal like this, except of course if Rudy Fernandez was involved. I think it is in the Bulls best interest to either package these guys with other players in a consolidation trade or to trade them for expiring contracts.

Also, with this rumor and the previous Brad Miller rumor, it looks like John Paxson is focused on getting the Bulls a legit center.

Source: Rumorpress.net