Getty DeMar DeRozan #11 of the Chicago Bulls looks on.
It could get worse for the Chicago Bulls (22-26) before it gets better. They could need to take that step (or steps) back to reload and set themselves up to climb even higher in the Eastern Conference food chain that currently finds them in no man’s land between contention and tanking.
As their downward spiral continues with a few moments or even games of inspiring basketball sprinkled in, the rest of the NBA has taken notice, keeping tabs on who may become available.
The Bulls have held firm on keeping Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan to this point. Nikola Vucevic is in a precarious spot in his contract’s final year and needs a specific kind of infrastructure around him. But each of the Bulls’ big three comes with pros, cons, and even red flags that make proper trades challenging to formulate.
They do, however, have one of the more desirable utility men in Alex Caruso.
Alex Caruso Would Make Sense For Nuggets
“I think if you’re in a postseason context, I think Alex Caruso might just be a better player to have than Bones Hyland given the Nuggets roster construction,” said Grant Hughes on the ‘Hardwood Knocks’ podcast on January 27. “That’s the type of player that I think matters more than someone this current age whatever of Hyland can do for a playoff team right now.”
Bulls Get:
- Bones Hyland
Nuggets Get:
- Alex Caruso
Caruso is averaging 5.5 points on 56.2% true shooting with 3.3 assists, and 3.0 rebounds while leading the team in net efficiency differential at plus-10.2, per Cleaning The Glass. He has also shot the long ball much better this season, connecting at a 38.7% clip.
The former undrafted free agent out of Texas A&M is in the second year of a four-year, $36 million contract adding to his trade appeal – that is if he can even be had at this year’s trade deadline. There was some thought that, of all the players on the Bulls’ roster, Caruso might be the easiest to fit into the next iteration.
“Caruso could be the one untouchable because of how valuable he is defensively and in the plus/minus category but that remains to be seen,” wrote Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times.
He is certainly a rarity on the Bulls roster.
Stunning defense by Alex Caruso
Caruso is the only player on the team to crack the 93rd-percentile barrier defensively and one of just seven in the NBA to do so while seeing over 1000 qualifying (non-garbage-time) minutes. It is a very similar profile to that of Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, a team that has been linked to the former championship-winning Los Angeles Lakers guard.
Hughes and co-host Dan Favale, who presented the idea, both say they do not necessarily think Denver would make the move and that Chicago only does so under the guise of rebuilding. A duo with current Nuggets guard Bruce Brown would be nightmarish for opposing backcourts.
Nah’Shon ‘Bones’ Hyland Offers Plenty Offensively
“Hyland is just an electrifying, livewire scorer who can just win his six or eight-minutes stints by himself,” Hughes said before giving the downside. “He’s super vulnerable defensively…he’s a sixth-man. And I think those are just easier to find and less valuable than a shutdown, defensive piece like Caruso who can make open threes and make good decisions.
The 26th overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, Highland is averaging 12.4 points on 54.2% true shooting while knocking down 38.5% of his looks from beyond the arc. Highland has also chipped in 3.1 assists, and 2.1 rebounds in a shade under 20 minutes per game.
Bones Hyland’s reaction to this bucket was too funny 🤣
And yet, he is posting the worst net efficiency differential of any Nuggets rotation player this season.
At 6-foot-3 and 173 pounds, his plus-11.8 defensive differential is bad but not surprising.
However, Denver’s offense is also 8.4 points worse with him on the floor this season, a stark dropoff from being 2.4 points better offensively when Hyland was in the game last season. They were only 3.9 points worse defensively with him in 2022, his rookie season, which begs the question of whether it is regression or a sophomore slump.
Either way, Hyland could be the kind of dart-throw the Bulls should take on in the event they do pivot off of this current group. And, thanks to Denver’s $9.1 million traded player exception, they can do this deal 1-for-1 with as little or as much draft sweetener as they prefer.