 2012 NBA Draft Diary
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| 2012-06-30 |
Pick 29: Only one pick all night has not been leaked in advance, and it comes from the notoriously tight-lipped Chicago Bulls. That said, it was still a predictable one - the minute it became obvious Marquis Teague was falling that far, it should have been obvious that the point guardless Bulls would take him.
Teague has more upside than a lot of the players who were still available at this slot. That said, his usefulness is extremely limited, particularly in Chicago. If Teague wants to push the ball, Joakim Noah (who runs the fast break better than any other centre alive, particularly as a decoy) and Luol Deng (who runs a lot without being fast) will happy go with him. So will Rip Hamilton, if he's able to take the court. But in the half court, where the Bulls need the most help, Teague will provide little. The Bulls sorely lacked offensive creators even before Derrick Rose went down - now that he has, they have precisely zip. Bar a massive infusion of scoring talent (see also - Kevin Martin trade idea), which they can't afford due to luxury tax concerns, it will be like the Chris Duhon era all over again, and without a Ben Gordon to occasionally bail them out. Whoever plays point guard for Chicago is unfortunately but inevitably charged with being the answer to this problem. And Marquis Teague likely won't be.
The reason for the prioritising of the short term prognosis here is deliberate, because the Bulls need short term help from a point guard, and only short term help. If Teague can run some basic pick-and-pops with Carlos Boozer, and dribble the ball until his hands turn orange waiting for Hamilton to get open off a screen, then he might be all right. But then, surely any NBA point guard can do those things. And surely many other point guards could do so while demonstrating better understandings of time and score, while not driving wildly into traffic, while shooting better than this. There's a very good chance that Teague gets overused and thus exposed next season, which will not be fun.
The long term aspect cannot be completely overlooked. Teague represents excellent value for his draft slot and his physical tools and age give him tremendous upside potential. He can already impact the game for the better through his transition game and good defensive intensity, which, if he gets the right veteran to platoon with (i.e. not Kirk Hinrich), will see him effective in a backup role. If asked to just come in, press, break, hit open J's and not bog down the offense, Teague may succeed. But this would be easier to do on a team featuring star wing players who can take more than two dribbles. This is absolutely not the case in Chicago, where the point guard exclusively dominates the ball.
If this pick was a pancake, it would be a good pancake, or at least a pancake with potential to flourish into a good all-around breakfast. But I don't like pancakes.
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Bulls might waive Nate Robinson to save money (and possibly for another reason, one for which I have no evidence)
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| 2012-12-19 |
[...] The move would be, of course, patently ridiculous. Even if the season was a wash, you don't waive a most vital contributor to save on what, by NBA standards, is a nominal fee, and by no standard is the season proving to be a wash in the first place. Nate is third on the Bulls in PER, the only man who can consistently create a shot off the dribble in Rose's absence, arguably the team's best ball handler, its only creative backcourt player, and one of its best shooters. He's even being masked defensively by the Bulls's meticulous defensive system, and is thus a hugely important player to a team whose season is still important. There are absolutely no basketball reasons why Nate should be cut on the basis of his performance thus far, and the justification offered - that Marquis Teague is showing "signs" - is an unbelievably tepid excuse. Teague has not yet even had the Bulls career of Acie Law, who at least managed three good games to Teague's two. Excited by his future as they may be, there is absolutely no reason why Teague should play ahead of Nate if the Bulls want to win games.
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Marquis Teague is still unsigned, and you're probably not going to like why
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| 2012-08-01 |
Of the 30 first rounders drafted in June, 29 have signed their rookie scale contracts. There are to be no international draft-and-stashes in the first round this year; 29 are signed and ready to play in the NBA next year, while the other one should be.
The 30th player, the lone unsigned warrior, is Marquis Teague. He was drafted 29th overall, and while the 28 ahead of him (and Festus Ezeli behind him) have all been signed, Teague still awaits his first NBA contract. He has not been renounced, a la Travis Knight back in the day, but he also has yet to sign.
[...] Often times, first rounders sign rather late deliberately, as the team is trying to maximize its cap room. When unsigned, rookie scale players are charged to the team's cap as a cap hold equal to 100% of the scale amount, which is therefore less impactful on the cap than the 120% they usually then go on to sign for. This process opens up a smaller but possibly important amount of cap room, which is why players such as Anthony Davis and Jeremy Lamb didn't sign until much later than may have been expected. The Bulls, however, do not have cap space and have not done all summer. They thus gain no benefit from this, and thus it can't be the reason.
Another reason may be Teague's value as a trade asset. From the minute a first rounder signs his rookie scale contract, he can't be traded for 30 days - therefore, if you want to trade the guy in a big summer time transaction, it is often best to not sign them and let the recipient team handle it. Unsigned picks also have a salary amount for trade purposes of naught, which is usually more valuable for salary aggregation purposes. However, with the Bulls not seemingly in the running for Dwight Howard, or indeed for anyone, it doesn't appear to be the case that they are leaving Teague unsigned with the intention of trading him later.
If Teague was going to be renounced in a Knight-esque way, it would have happened by now. If the plan was always for him to not join the NBA immediately, it would have been known long before now. Instead, we have had only silence. Then, then, leaves one other theory. Sources confirm the depressing truth - the reason the Bulls haven't signed Teague yet is because the Bulls don't want to give him the 120%.
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Note: Non-US teams that the player
has played for are, unless stated otherwise, from the top division in
that nation. If league or division name is expressly stated, it's not
the top division. The only exceptions to this are the rare occasions where
no one league is said to be above the other, such as with the JBL/BJ League
split inJapan.
In the event where more than one agent is listed, this is because the
player has more than one agent. This is rather commonplace - a lot of
times, a player will sign with a big agency, and they will have both primary
and secondary agents from within that agency to handle their affairs.
(Where that happens, the primary agent is listed first.) Also, foreign
players tend to have both American and domestic agents. Where the details
of such are known, they are listed.
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