Bulls Deal Tyrus Thomas to Charlotte
The Bulls have been rumored to be looking to deal Tyrus Thomas for several weeks now and finally pulled the trigger sending him to Charlotte in exchange for a future first round pick, Acie Law, and Ronald “Flip” Murray.
Given that Thomas’ deal was up at the end of this year this is not much of a deal from the Bulls standpoint as it has no bearing on cap space this summer. Apparently the earliest they can get the pick from Charlotte will be 2011 and it is also lottery protected meaning if the Bobcats are in the lottery that year they will not have to give up the pick until 2012 assuming they give up this year’s pick to the Wolves that they have dibs on but is also lottery protected. Basically the Bulls were looking to just get something for the disappointing Thomas who has never been remotely close to living up to all the hype around him coming out of college.
The Bobcats are not giving up a lot to get the rights to Thomas. Losing Murray will hurt a bit as he was their top scorer off the bench at 9.9 points per game, but Law barely saw the light of day in Charlotte. Thomas is averaging just under 9 points per game at 8.8 but it remains to be seen if he will fit into Larry Brown’s offense. Thomas is a guy who clearly would thrive in an up-and-down offense like that of Mike D’Antoni’s. He simply does not have the basketball skills to be a half court player in the NBA. Thomas is all about having superior athletic ability and little else to go off of.
The Bobcats see this deal as an investment in the future and hope Thomas will somehow blossom into the type of player he was billed as coming out of LSU. It seems unlikely though as he has proven himself to be a great rebounder and shot blocker but his offensive game has shown little to no improvement over the years.
