Today in Ben Wallace trade rumors

I actually find it hard to believe that the Bulls are openly shopping Ben Wallace, despite how bad he has been this season. Paxson always seems so attached to the guys he brought in, but maybe a deal of Wallace means that Pax could be ready to sell off some of the guys he drafted to bring in a big-time player this offseason. Of course, trading Wallace would open up more minutes for Noah, Thomas, and Gray, three guys Pax drafted, so maybe that makes a deal more likely.  Still, I’ll believe Pax traded Wallace, or anyone else for that matter, when it happens. Here are the two latest Wallace rumors:

Wallace to the Jazz for Andrei Kirklenko

If Utah is dumb enough to do this, I’d be shocked. What's in it for the Jazz? Well, Kirklenko actually makes more money annually then Big Ben and his contract is one year longer. While he’s been a head case since last season,  Kirklenko is still much younger (27) and more productive then Wallace (34). It would be hard to imagine the Bulls getting something of value for Wallace- addition by subtraction would be fine by me at this point- but AK47 would be a welcome addition to this team. This trade would create one minor problem, however, because then three of the Bulls five best players would be small forwards. I suppose Kirklenko could play a Shawn Marion-style power forward, but for that to work the Bulls would likely have to move to an uptempo offense. I think everyone pretty much agrees that this trade would be a slam dunk by all accounts if it happened, but in case you need more convincing, I present this picture:



Wallace to the Knicks for Quentin Richardson, Malik Rose, and Fred Jones

This would fall under the ‘addition by subtraction’ category. Q-Rich is almost as bad as Big Ben, and their contracts run out at the same time. Malik Rose’s $9 million contract would come off the books one year before. Still, just ridding the team of Wallace’s attitude probably makes the Bulls better right away, so I’m all for it.

*One of my bosses mentioned that the Bulls may have the worst ‘best player’ in the league, meaning that the Bulls best player is worse then the best player on virtually every other team. First of all, can we all even agree that Luol Deng is the Bulls best player? It’s almost like we don’t even have another option. As far as I can tell, only the Knicks (Zach Randolph?), Milwaukee (Michael Redd, he just plays zero defense) and Memphis (Rudy Gay) are even debatable. It makes sense that it’s pretty hard to win basketball games when you never have the best player on the court.