The Chicago Bulls also caused one of the largest transactions on the second day of the Free Agency – but it made us suspicious. DeMar DeRozan’s trade has a clear winner.
Even before the Free Agency, DeMar DeRozan was considered one of the best available players on the market and in particular one of the biggest names – his last of four appearances in the All-Star Game was a few years ago, but the 31-year-old is here still a valuable player offensively.
At the same time, it was considered very likely that his time with the Spurs would be over after two years. That has now happened – DeRozan is another and perhaps the largest domino in the rebuild of the Spurs, who also bid farewell to long-time veterans Patty Mills (towards Brooklyn) and Rudy Gay (towards Utah) on the second day of the Free Agency.
DeRozan was sent to Chicago via sign-and-trade, where he signed a new, fully guaranteed three-year contract for $ 85 million. In contrast to the departures of Mills and Gay, San Antonio actually got some back on this transaction.
Spurs and Bulls: The Trade in Detail
| Team | Receives |
| Chicago Bulls | DeMar DeRozan |
| San antonio spurs | Thaddeus Young, Al-Farouq Aminu, first round pick (2025 or 2026), two future second round picks |
The trade from the perspective of the Spurs
In principle, one can only congratulate the Spurs here. At this price in particular, it would have made little sense to hold DeRozan, even if the financial possibilities had been there. San Antonio has some interesting talent, but it’s not staffed well enough to play up in the West for years to come.
In such a mediocre situation, paying lavishly to aging stars is inadvisable, which is why DeRozan could have been let go without much grinding of teeth. But now there were also veritable assets back – especially the three (!) Picks catch the eye. And there could be even more, depending on how the Spurs plan to deal with Thaddeus Young.
The forward played like a potential Sixth Man of the Year for a long time last season before moving into the starting five for Nikola Vucevic after the trade. On a per minute basis, it can be argued that he added value comparable to, or even greater, to his team than DeRozan.
San Antonio could trade Thaddeus Young for additional assets
If the contracts are included, this argument is even clearer. Young plays on an expiring contract and earns $ 14.2 million, DeRozan now makes an average of nearly $ 30 million annually by the time he is 34 years old.
Young should be easily tradable if the Spurs are to take this route, and could bring them more draft capital this season. Even before the trade deadline last year, a number of contenders expressed their interest in the versatile “Thagic Johnson”, which should happen again this season.
San Antonio made a strange decision on Tuesday with the expensive signing of Doug McDermott (3 years, 42 million dollars), which actually didn’t look like a rebuild, but all other transactions of their previous free agency point to a rebuild: Jock Landale and Zach Collins are primarily projects, although Collins was also paid dearly.
The veterans are now almost all gone, and sooner or later it had to happen. Chicago has now given the Spurs jump-start for their rebuild.
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