According to Chris Broussard on True Hoop, the Chicago Bulls are trying to trade Kirk Hinrich, and they are using Tyrus Thomas as a sweetener in trying to get rid of Hinrich.

As for the Bulls, Kirk Hinrich is ahead of even Tyrus Thomas on their list of players they’d love to trade. In fact, Thomas is being offered around the league as a sweetener in any Hinrich deal. But with two years, $17 million left on his contract after this season, there’s not a great market for Hinrich.

It makes sense that the Bulls would like to move Hinrich. His contract could prohibit the Bulls from signing a free agent to a max contract if John Salmons opts in to his contract for next season, which could prevent some of the players from coming to Chicago in free agency this summer.

A trade that is thrown out in this article is Kirk Hinrich and Tyrus Thomas going to Houston, as the main components of a trade for Tracy McGrady, who is an expiring contract. However as Broussard writes, teams aren’t in a rush to trade for Hinrich’s contract, which is probably considered a bad contract around the league with the way Hinrich has played this year.

Broussard throws out the idea of Houston wanting Joakim Noah, as he writes:

Chicago, which has definite interest in McGrady, also has the combination of young talent and expiring contracts the Rockets are looking for. There is a Bulls player Houston covets, but it’s not clear who that is. Since the Rockets surely realize that Derrick Rose won’t be traded, logic suggests it’s Joakim Noah.

A package of Noah, Brad Miller and Jerome James (the latter two have expiring contracts) would work financially, but sources say the Bulls have no desire to part with Noah.

The Bulls would obviously want to take no part in getting rid of Joakim Noah for a half season rental of Tracy McGrady.

It appears that Chris Broussard is misinterpreting what the Bulls intentions would be in trading for Tracy McGrady are. If the Bulls were to trade for Tracy McGrady, they wouldn’t be trading for McGrady the player, they would be trading for his expiring contract. Therefore there is no reason that they would throw away a good young talent in Noah to have marginal cap space benefits for next season. If they are going to trade for McGrady, it will be some combination of expiring contracts, and a long term contract that they wish to get rid of (Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, or John Salmons).

I think the Bulls best bet might be to try to work out a package around John Salmons. Salmons has played better than Hinrich this season, and has at most, one less year left on his contract than Hinrich (and a smaller contract at that), and Salmons may even choose to opt out after this season, which would leave Houston, in this scenario, with no contracts going past this year.

Salmons could also choose to opt out if the Bulls keep him, but a trade like this where the Bulls package John Salmons with definite expiring contracts for another definite expiring contract would allow the Bulls’ front office to sleep easy at night, as they would have certainty that they will be able to offer someone a max contract in 2010 free agency.

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Tags: 2010 free agency, Brad Miller, Chicago Bulls, Chris Broussard, Houston Rockets, Jerome James, Joakim Noah, John Salmons, Kirk Hinrich, Tracy McGrady, trade, Tyrus Thomas

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