Giddey trade still a win for Bulls despite OKC championship

The NBA Finals has created a lot of chatter on social media and one topic in particular that has come up was some asking:

'Do people really think the Chicago Bulls won the Josh Giddey and Alex Caruso trade now?'

Well, I know the Oklahoma City Thunder were just crowned champions but my answer is yes. More detail? I think this is one of those rare trade scenarios where both teams won.

I think for Josh, he wouldn't have had the ball in his hands in OKC, which he needs. He's not a three-and-d and space the floor type of guy, especially at this point in his career where he's young and dynamic. You want to utilise him, he needs the ball in his hands, and when you've got SGA sitting there as an MVP candidate - no offence to Josh — but if you're the coach, you've got to put it in SGA's hands as your high usage guy.

Which then doesn't have Josh playing to his strengths, right? I mean, they were playing Josh at the four spot at certain times last season. So, I think that you bring in Caruso, who's happy to play a role off the bench. He's happy to play 15 and 20 minutes, be an all-league defender and then you send Josh to an organisation that's rebuilding.

Then it's like, 'here's the keys Josh, go do your thing'.

So I think it was a win for both teams, which you rarely see in a trade. I think Josh, this early in his career, it's a bit unfair for him to have to play a role like he was in OKC. Maybe it will be one day, but in his older years, and then also there's the elephant in the room. If they would have kept him on the roster, they've got to pay him. Considering a few of there other young talent which will be due for big pay days within the next three years, it would be hard for Giddey to earn the most in OKC.

OKC is building for the long haul. They were the second youngest team in the NBA Finals history, which is a very, very scary number when you think about it. I think they're 26-years-old on average.

If they keep most of that band together, they should be a dynasty for the next five or six years, quite easily. And they've got picks, so they're really set up well, and they should be commended with how they've set their franchise up.

When the trade first happened I didn't know how Josh would fit with Chicago when they had the roster they had a the time.

They still had Zach LaVine, they still had DeRozan at that time, they still had a bunch of guys, right? Is Josh he going to get enough usage?' But they put the ball in his hands pretty quickly, moved LaVine off the ball, moved DeRozan to play the natural three.

And I liked it for OKC. A lot of people looked at it as like-for-like, talent-wise, but you can't look at it that way. They brought in a guy that they knew will fill a role, and it won't be too expensive to fill that role. Brought some toughness for OKC off the bench, and someone who's happy to defend and if he doesn't take a shot for the game, he doesn't care. Whereas Josh is, not that Josh cares about shots, but he's still developing, and he needs the ball in his hands to develop.

Let's say OKC locked him up for five years, Josh Giddey that is, and said 'you're just a role player, go stand in the corner and watch SGA do his thing'. He's not going to get better as a basketball player. Josh's is now in a big market, a great city, a great club, that's going to live or die by the way he plays.

He had a sensational end third of the year, he played really high-level basketball after the All-Star break, so if he can continue that form into next season, he's going to be knocking on the door for an All-Star game in a couple of years.

With Josh also coming up to restricted free agency, it'll be very interesting as he's been rumoured to be worth around the $30 million mark.

At the moment, Chicago are negotiating against themselves. Does Josh take a little bit less to get that money guaranteed? I've never been a restricted free agent but I've been in a situation where I had an extension and we could discuss it only with the team you were with, I always tried to get it up a little bit more than what they were offering and took it and I think it's a similar situation, but his agent will know whether other teams have money for him.

I think it's a pretty dry market right now for someone to have $30 or $40 million spare in free agency. And the way the salary cap is right now in the NBA with the aprons, teams are panicking about staying under those aprons.

Restricted free agency is a chess game. And your agents holds the pawns to figure out the best strategy and route.

I've seen guys that were restricted free agents that another team says 'we've got a certain amount of money for you, don't take that restricted free agency offer, take the one year deal. So, they knock it back, then that other offer isn't there later on. I had a teammate as well that signed an offer sheet elsewhere and didn't want their home team to match it, he funnily enough made some negative comments in the media about his home team hoping they wouldn’t match the offer, and then they still matched it. There is also risk. If you don't have it from someone else and don't take it from Chicago and say you'll just go into unrestricted free agency, then you've got injury concerns, you've got form concerns, are you going into it next season where a lot of the cap space is further gone — there's a lot of moving parts.

I think it's going to be a pretty tough negotiation between (Chicago and Giddey), because I think they both have leverage in this situation. But I think Chicago does have to probably keep him after making that trade and building around him, moving off all the other guys out on that squad, I think they'd probably like to see him around.

An example of those unrestricted free agency situations — Jared Jeffries was with the Wizards and I'd heard from a lot of people that New York offered him a bigger deal than most thought

he was going to get and that the Wizards could match. But if the Wizards matched it, it was going to screw their cap up big time, and I think it was back when they had Gilbert (Arenas) and a few other guys around there. Then New York did it really just to mess with Washington, and then Washington didn't match and the Knicks got him and didn't really need him.

There's been cases like that, where teams have tried to mess with other teams' caps and it just kind of blew their roster up.

Hopefully Josh's agent will find one or two teams that are willing to maybe put that deal out there, if they don't get to where they want to get to with the Bulls, then you have the other teams an insurance policy, and then the Bulls have a decision to make.

NBA Champion Andrew Bogut is a columnist and contributor for Basketball.com.au. He is part owner and assistant coach of the Sydney Kings.

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