NEWSLETTER
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve seen that Alex Caruso has been shipped off to the contending Oklahoma City Thunder. Up through the trade deadline, Eli and myself (and just about every rational Bulls fan) knew trading Caruso was the right move for the long term. However, it wasn’t supposed to happen like THIS!
Don’t get me wrong, I think Josh Giddey is a very intriguing young piece to add to the Bulls core, and also probably signals a semi-rebuild. Even Adrian Wojnarowski is speculating he might be seen internally as a Lonzo Ball replacement. But getting ONLY Josh Giddey for a piece that was garnering massive trade deadline offers seems like a miss. It seems like an even bigger miss when you take into the equation that OKC has a billion draft picks. But I digress. We’ll take a deep dive into what this deal means more tomorrow. This is an Alex Caruso appreciation post.
We’ll Miss You, Alex Caruso
Similar to DeMar DeRozan, thinking Caruso needed to go wasn’t anything about him. It was about the state of the roster. Caruso is an AWESOME basketball player. He’s one every contender should want, and at just under $10 million per year he’s a bargain for the Thunder. He’s the ultimate hustle player, he’s an elite defender, he’s a very good three-point shooter, and he has moments where he can take over a basketball game.
Remember when he just decided to single-handedly beat the Raptors in the beginning of the season?
He’s a championship player. The Bulls are nowhere near a championship team. He was a luxury the Bulls couldn’t afford to have. And to Arturas Karnisovas’ credit, he did realize that at the end of the day and move on, he just likely didn’t get enough back.
But, again, I don’t want to get too into the particulars of the deal now.
In a vacuum, I wish Caruso could be a Bull for the rest of his career. He’s that easy to root for, and he was that much of a fan favorite. He did all the little things right, he could guard any position (just ask Kevin Durant), and he was a fantastic teammate.
Hopefully, he goes to OKC and kills it. It’s a perfect fit for him and the Thunder, too. It’s really too bad the Bulls could never build a team that deserved him and he made sense for. But now he’s in that spot, and provided that the Bulls are indeed headed for somewhat of a rebuild, I’ll be adopting the Thunder as my team next year.
That is until maybe DeMar goes elsewhere and then I might have a pretty tough decision to make.
