Chicago Bulls using Arron Afflalo trade to sign Carmelo Anthony?
By Josh Hill
The Chicago Bulls haven’t been a team in recent years to make splashy moves, as the last big deal they made was to trade Luol Deng to the Cleveland Cavaliers and prior to that their biggest non-internal move was to sign Carlos Boozer to a $75 million contract back in 2010.
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But after a few straight years of failing to get back to the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bulls are sensing that they need to kick it into high gear with the win-now attitude and we saw them start to make ripples in the water this week with talk that they’re involved in trade discussions to acquire Arron Afflalo from the Orlando Magic.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the Bulls are not only targeting Afflalo to make for a fuller roster, they also want to continue to strengthen their sales pitch to Carmelo Anthony.
"League sources said targeting Afflalo, who averaged a career-high 18.2 points on 45.9 percent shooting last season, serves two purposes. It signals to primary target Carmelo Anthony the win-now mentality the Bulls must have with Joakim Noah turning 30 next February and Derrick Rose coming off back-to-back knee surgeries."
Adding Afflalo’s contract will meant he Bulls will have to for sure shed serious dollars from their payroll, but it could all be woth it in the end. A core of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Nikola Mirotic, Arron Afflalo and Carmelo Anthony is pretty hard to argue with and already sounds incredibly hard to beat.