The Chicago Bulls are putting their money where their mouth is.<\/p>\n
In what will be Chicago\u2019s most critical offseason period<\/a>\u00a0since Arturas Karnisovas took over as executive vice president, \u201cthe Bulls recently offered (DeMar) DeRozan<\/a>\u2019s representative a two-year deal at a high annual salary<\/a>, perhaps as much as $40 million per season\u201d (per NBC Sports Chicago\u2019s K.C. Johnson).<\/p>\n DeRozan earned $28.6 million in 2023-24. That means Chicago is willing to increase the 15-year veteran\u2019s annual salary by nearly 40 percent. With that said, only two teams are projected to have at least $40 million in cap space this offseason: the Detroit Pistons ($60.5 million) and Philadelphia 76ers ($56.2 million).<\/p>\n DeRozan \u201cis seeking a longer-term deal.\u201d<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s hard to imagine he turns down the contract offer, even if the Bulls don\u2019t offer him another year. Unless DeRozan believes the Pistons or Sixers will pay him more than $40 million annually, there\u2019s no reason to. To that point, it\u2019s unlikely that either team would.<\/p>\n Despite DeRozan being a top-tier offensive player, there doesn\u2019t seem to be a place for him in Motor City or the City of Brotherly Love.<\/p>\n With regard to the Pistons, there\u2019s unlikely to be serious interest from either party.<\/p>\n At 34, DeRozan is looking for a long-term, lucrative salary and falls outside of Detroit\u2019s timeline. To that point, organizations like the Pistons usually aren\u2019t looking for a player like DeRozan until they\u2019re further along in their rebuild; when they\u2019re ready to seriously compete in the playoffs. While the Pistons may want to be on that level, they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve won fewer than 25 games in five straight seasons.<\/p>\n Furthermore, as a team that needs to improve their perimeter defense and shooting, DeRozan isn\u2019t a fit.<\/p>\n DeRozan\u2019s on-court fit with the Sixers is also awkward.<\/p>\n They\u2019re a perennial playoff contender that makes more sense for a player with his status. Over the course of his career, DeRozan has been considered an ineffective defender, partly because he\u2019s more explosive vertically than laterally. Furthermore, he\u2019s made just 29.6 percent of his 3s on 1.6 attempts per game.<\/p>\n Ahead of the upcoming free agency period, Philadelphia has been linked to<\/a>\u00a0Golden State Warriors sharpshooter Klay Thompson<\/a> and Los Angeles Clippers two-way playmaker Paul George<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though Thompson has lost a step as a defender and George is a bit streaky from beyond the arc, both offer a skill that the Sixers want. Thompson is career 41.3 percent shooter from deep. George, who averages 1.7 steals per game and shoots 38.5 percent from 3 for his career, is a premier defender capable of guarding multiple positions at 6-foot-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chicago Bulls are putting their money where their mouth is. In what will be Chicago\u2019s most critical offseason period\u00a0since Arturas Karnisovas took over as executive vice president, \u201cthe Bulls recently offered (DeMar) DeRozan\u2019s representative a two-year deal at a high annual salary, perhaps as much as $40 million per season\u201d (per NBC Sports Chicago\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":74514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1608,10,62,3,13],"tags":[350,297],"class_list":["post-74505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulls","category-basketball","category-pistons","category-nba","category-news","category-76ers","tag-demar-derozan","tag-nba-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bulls Offer Lucrative Contract to Key Free Agent<\/h2>\n
Detroit Pistons<\/h3>\n
Philadelphia 76ers<\/h3>\n