The Offseason 2017

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Highly unlikely they get 1 or 2 next year. The Nets will suck yes, but they'll be better than last year and it's unlikely they'll be the worst team.

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Well that's outta nowhere really, but fair play to OKC for rolling the dice.

Houston must be raging. It was a one horse race all summer then yesterday Melo extends to include Portland and OKC onto the list of teams he'll go to and bingo.

The West gets stronger and the East becomes an even bigger joke. Honestly there'll be guys making the East All Star Team this year that wouldn't start for most of the bad teams in the West.

It's early July 2014, and Carmelo Anthony has made up his mind. He's going to sign with the Chicago Bulls and turn down the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.

Why Chicago?

The Bulls, he thinks, are a "perfect fit" for a few reasons. Among them: Chicago seems to be one scorer away from contending for a title, and Anthony believes he can fill that void. He also likes the team's culture and its no-nonsense approach to winning, spearheaded by head coach Tom Thibodeau


he idea of what might have been is hard to shake almost two years later.

Carmelo Anthony steps off a bus in front of the United Center as the 2014 summer free-agency period begins to heat up. He's flanked by his agent and members of his inner circle, along with another member of the traveling party: Tom Thibodeau.

The now-former Bulls coach walks with Anthony past Michael Jordan's statue and into the building that Jordan made famous. Images bearing Anthony's name adorn the large building as the recruitment of one of basketball's most popular free agents kicks into high gear.

At the time, Thibodeau, along with many members of the Bulls' front office, believed they had a legitimate chance to land Anthony. They thought the All-Star forward could be the missing piece to pair with Derrick Rose and push the Bulls past LeBron James in the East playoffs. A meeting hours later at a swanky downtown hotel only raised hopes. The Bulls felt they had done everything they could to land Anthony. But they also understood that they could not offer him the five-year, max-money guarantee his team, the New York Knicks, could.

In the end, Anthony chose the guaranteed dollars, albeit a few million less than the full max, and the comfort he and his family felt in New York. But as the Bulls take on Anthony on Wednesday at the United Center, it's interesting to think about what might have been.

First and foremost, if the Bulls had found a way to land Anthony, it's at least a safe bet that Thibodeau would still be in Chicago. The former coach was a huge fan of Anthony's, and the two seemed to share a genuine mutual respect. With Anthony in the fold, the Bulls would have found a different, dynamic scoring option to use when Rose wasn't in a rhythm or was out with injury.

But there are a lot of factors to consider for the Bulls -- pros and cons that could tip the scale in either direction. With Anthony in the lineup, Jimmy Butler likely doesn't get the opportunity to take the dramatic leap from a defensive-minded swingman to an All-Star and max-contract player. Are the Bulls better with Butler, at 26 years old, as a core piece or with Anthony, at 31, leading the way alongside Rose and his star-crossed knees?

While you ponder that question, this is a good time to remember that Anthony has his own knee problems. His 2014-15 campaign was cut short after persistent knee issues forced him to have surgery. Would he have been able to play through the pain for a Bulls team that went without Rose and Butler for long stretches?

Now that you're thinking about that question, consider that after missing out on Anthony, the Bulls made a hard push to sign Pau Gasol. The 35-year-old has revitalized his career in Chicago while giving the Bulls a solid offensive presence to lean on night after night. Although the Bulls could have found a creative way to do it all -- and rest assured, they thought they could make the Anthony-Gasol free-agency double work -- is it a sure thing that Gasol would have signed on the dotted line if Anthony and his hefty salary were also on the books?

Of course, the biggest what if of all is whether Anthony's presence would have made the Bulls good enough to get over the massive LeBron hump that has tripped this team up in postseason after postseason. Anthony would have made the Bulls better, but we'll never know how much better. Would he have created enough success to fix the tension between Thibodeau and Bulls executives Gar Forman and John Paxson?

All these questions will never get an answer. But here's what we do know almost two years later: Both the Bulls and Anthony will always wonder what might have been because neither party has found success since their basketball flirting began.