Bulls Could Target Tanking Rival’s Former 1st Round Pick in Trade

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. With reports that their most-hated rival is potentially planning on going in the tank, it would behoove the Chicago Bulls (8-10) to take full advantage, especially on the heels of a potential new lease on the season.

Despite still sitting two games below .500 and sitting 11th in the Eastern Conference, the Bulls are still just two games back of a guaranteed playoff spot.

“Nobody’s pulled away from nowhere. We still got the opportunity to pull together a great run,” DeMar DeRozan said via NBC Sports Chicago’s Rob Schaefer. “There’s still time. It’s not even December yet. There’s a lot more basketball to play and a lot more things to figure out. And I got the utmost confidence in this group of guys.”

The Bulls could bolster that confidence with a trade for Detroit Pistons forward Saddiq Bey.

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Bulls Could Bag Bey

“Detroit has taken early calls on Bey from inquiring teams, reported Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports. “The Villanova product was recently demoted from the starting lineup before bouncing right back into Dwane Casey’s opening unit.”

Bulls Get:

• Saddiq Bey

Pistons Get:

• Dalen Terry

The Pistons, Marc Stein of “The Stein Line” reports, may be ready to tank again, drafted Bey with the 19th overall pick in 2020, the same year the Bulls drafted Patrick Williams. Detroit’s 6-foot-8 forward has been healthier missing two games in his career before this season.

He started all 82 games last season.

Bey has built a somewhat misleading reputation as exactly the kind of two-way, 3-and-D player the Bulls’ roster currently lacks after knocking down 38% of his threes as a rookie. His efficiency and attempts from deep have waned dramatically since then but the Pistons signing Bojan Bogdanovic could have had as much of an impact this season as anything.

Bey’s defense is also not quite what one might expect for a player of his size and skill set.

But he was still doing plenty of good things for the Pistons — who don’t defend as a team as well as the Bulls do — before going down with his ankle injury three games ago.

Besides, the 21-year-old Williams has come on strong and would form a potent duo with Bey.

Wiliams is averaging 12 points on 77.2% true shooting while knocking down 58.8% of his 3.4 looks from beyond the arc with 4.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists over the last five games. Even with that, he is but one player and still isn’t being trusted to close games.

Williams is also not the player the Bulls should look to trade for Bey, 23, who would almost certainly be a move made to bolster this current group as much if not more so the team’s future.

This brings the impressive energetic rookie Terry, 20, squarely into focus.

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Would Bulls Bite the Bullet?

The Bulls are light on contracts and players that teams are willing to trade for without severely diminishing themselves. Both the aforementioned Williams and Coby White would both shown an ability to contribute at the NBA level and have gone through plenty of ups and downs.

Terry is going through what most rookies do in the NBA: waiting.

He’s had to bide his team on a veteran-heavy team with playoff aspirations that also happens to have a plethora of players at his current ideal position albeit mostly lacking his skill set.

“They have four guys who can play the point even without Lonzo [Ball] in there,” a rival executive tells Heavy Sports’ NBA insider Sean Deveney. “They want to play him, there are a lot of people in the organization who feel like he can play now, but they have to sort out that logjam first. He can defend at an NBA level now. But he needs playing time.”

Bulls general manager Marc Eversley said on draft night that Terry probably profiles as a wing long-term – Bey is ready now.

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Not Without Risk

Making this deal would go against a lot of what the Bulls have been about since last season ended pushing the themes of continuity and chemistry. But they may also realize that a similar postseason fate awaits them

Ball may not make it back in time to impact the playoffs and there are they will have to make a financial decision on the Bey fairly soon.

Fischer notes that Bey will be extension eligible next offseason and the dip in his production. But the Bulls are heavily invested in this current group and have already spent the last four years waiting for White and the last three for Williams.

Putting Terry in this deal would expose them to similar pitfalls as previous trades hamstrung the Bulls’ ability to deal further.

They could offer lesser parts since Detroit is tanking. But they would presumably have to attach draft picks (which they are light on) to assets like forward Derrick Jones Jr. (who can’t be traded until December when Detroit may be ready to deal Bey), big men  Tony Bradley and Marko Simonovic who have played less than Terry, or the popular Javonte Green.

Terry may be their best hope to add a player with Bey’s ceiling for such a relatively low cost.

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