Taj Gibson
Chicago Bulls big man Taj Gibson has been involved in trade rumors for quite some time now. The reason he’s placed towards the end of this piece, though, is due to the fact that the Clippers may not have the quality available to bring him to L.A. The Bulls have had their struggles early on this season, which have primarily come on offense under new head coach Fred Hoiberg, and they still rank 24th in offensive efficiency despite their recent improvement.
Another issue, which is where Gibson enters these discussions, is that their frontcourt is completely jammed. With Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah, Nikola Mirotic (who has now moved to small forward), promising rookie Bobby Portis, and Gibson, there’s an awful lot to manage and make work.
As murmurs have been around for a while saying that the Bulls are looking to move Gibson or Noah elsewhere, the Clippers have a little hope to pull this off if Chicago are desperate enough to make something happen before the February deadline if no one else makes a better offer.
Again in December, Adrian Wojnarowski discussed Gibson in an episode of his podcast, The Vertical, and said that the Bulls are still open to trading Gibson in exchange for a wing player:
"Executives around the league, and people have told me, that the Bulls are very determined to add a talented wing player… and I’ve been told that the Bulls are open to…whether it’s Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson…maybe not both of them, but either of them if there’s a deal out there that they can bring in the best possible wing player available, they’re open to it… They need more shooting.”"
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No, Stephenson obviously isn’t the best wing player available and he’s proven that he’s hard to fit into a rotation effectively. Not to mention, he’s far from being a killer marksman. That being said, his passing could help others, while he’s still sound defensively.
Perhaps the Clippers can land Gibson by simply giving the Bulls more in return, by packaging Stephenson with Smith or someone else. Their frontcourt is crowded, but if they want to maintain a big lineup and use Smith at small forward, or perhaps take a scorer like Crawford instead to help their 24th ranked offense, maybe there’s a slight chance this could happen. Even with Gibson’s $8.5 million contract, the Clippers can clear that space by ditching either Crawford’s ($5.67 million) or Stephenson’s ($9 million) salary.
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Unfortunately for the Clippers, though, a small chance is probably as good as it gets for them. Even with Gibson being available, they don’t have much to offer for someone of his calibre and it’s hard to think of a deal that would give the Bulls exactly what they’re after.
If there’s anyway Doc can make this happen (yes, it’s unlikely), he can redeem himself for clearly failing with the Stephenson and Smith experiment. Gibson would be a perfect player to allow the Clippers’ second unit frontcourt to go big, and he has so much to offer defensively and on the boards. He’d stop the bench being as much of a liability as it is at times, and he even has a solid mid-range game, too.
For the sake of total realism, though, a player like Teletovic at power forward will be easier to pursue.
Next: The reasons why Josh Smith should be traded
If you have any players you’d like to see the Clippers pursue if Doc Rivers plans to make a trade, let us know what you think. We’ll have more trade talk and potential targets coming soon.