Bulls Rumors: Latest Buzz Surrounding Dion Waiters and E'Twaun Moore
The NBA's free agency period began on Friday, and the Chicago Bulls have remained dormant throughout the first hours that have seen numerous players receive some big contracts.
This is a team that is already going to look a lot different next season after the trade of Derrick Rose, Justin Holiday and a 2017 second-round pick to the New York Knicks for Robin Lopez, Jose Calderon and Jerian Grant.
On top of that, center Joakim Noah also looks destined to join the Knicks. According to ESPN's Chris Broussard, Noah and the Knicks are "nearing" an agreement on a four-year, $72 million deal.
Noah also instagrammed this on Friday:
According to ESPN's David Aldridge, the Bulls were interested in trying to acquire small forward Solomon Hill, formerly of the Indiana Pacers. But Hill signed a four-year, $52 million deal with the New Orleans Pelicans, via ESPN's Marc Stein and The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski.
There are some rumors still lingering that the Bulls could be in play for a transaction or two soon.
ESPN's Dave McMenamin reported early on Friday that the Bulls were one of numerous teams interested in free agent shooting guard Dion Waiters.
This is a position that is completely up in the air for the Bulls. With the uncertain future of Jimmy Butler in Chicago and while E'Twaun Moore is a free agent, the only certainty at the 2 is the unproven Denzel Valentine, who The Bulls just drafted in June.
Waiters would be the perfect kind of player to bring in off of the bench should the Bulls keep Butler.
With the Oklahoma City Thunder last season, Waiters showed he could come off of the bench to support Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
He's a decent three-point shooter at around 35 percent and isn't afraid to put the ball on the floor and go to the hoop. That kind of fearless mentality could be welcomed to a Bulls team that will need to find another source of offense.
According to Darren Wolfson though, the Bulls were one of three teams that were "coming hard" at Moore on Friday.
Moore has spent the past two seasons in Chicago and 2015-16 was one of the finest of his five-year career. Averaging 21.4 points per game, Moore averaged 7.5 points behind Butler, the second-best output of his career.
A lot of that had to do with the evolution of his three-point shooting. Moore shot 45.2 percent from beyond the arc last year, which was almost eight points better than his second-best season.
If the Bulls miss out on Waiters and lose out on Moore, then they'll have to scramble to ensure that they have a deep enough backcourt to last a whole season.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com
