NBA Trade Rumors: Chicago Bulls continue to hear Kirk Hinirich and Mike Dunleavy trade chatter
By Josh Hill
The NBA trade deadline is fast approaching and it’s looking more and more like the Chicago Bulls will be sellers when that date arrives. After jettisoning the contract of Luol Deng to Cleveland and saving roughly $20 million, the Bulls continue to hear chatter about guards Kirk Hinrich and Mike Dunleavy.
When the team traded Deng, some cynics, such as myself, joked that the team might as well just blow up the roster to save cap space. That appears likely now though as CBSSports NBA insider Ken Berger keeps hearing Kirk Hinrich’s name mentioned with the Golden State Warriors and Mike Dunleavy’s name mentioned with the Houston Rockets.
These talks began earlier in the week when the Bulls traded Deng to the Cavaliers and apparently haven’t died down since. There’s no guarantee that the Bulls will trade both guards before the deadline, but if they do it will just be another sign of them dumping fuel overboard.
Chicago’s strategy seems to be getting as low as possible in cap space so that the team can make free agent runs this offseason. Derrick Rose has privately spoken out against rebuilding, but that’s what the Bulls look prepared to do. But with Rose and Joakim Noah coming back in 2014-15, along with Nikola Mirotic coming over from Spain and whatever draft picks the Bulls end up with, the team may end up coming out of this looking alright.
In the meantime, Hinrich and Dunleavy may end up wearing new uniforms before the season is done.