The Bulls may also want quality rotation guys instead of just future assets; Chicago and Toronto had initial discussions on a Taj Gibson-Patrick Patterson swap that would give Chicago yet another stretch power forward and trim its tax bill, but those discussions appear to have led nowhere so far. Speaking of Toronto ...
THE RAPTORS AND THE WIN-NOW DILEMMA
A lot of signs in Drakeville point to stasis for the clear No. 2 team in the East. They're 14-2 in their past 16 games, and would be easy favorites over any potential No. 7 or No. 6 seed. Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross are on poison-pill deals that make them hard to trade; the Raps love Patterson, their most tradable, mid-sized contract; and Masai Ujiri, their GM, doesn't appear to be in love with any of the available power forwards who might displace Luis Scola, per several league sources.
But the Drakes are masters at keeping the marketplace guessing, and they have extra goodies to deal at a time when winning at least one playoff series is something like an organizational mandate. Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan will never be better. The Scola-Valanciunas starting front-line has been flammable on defense, and it's unrealistic for now to count on DeMarre Carroll and James Johnson filling those minutes as small-ball power forwards; Carroll's recovery time from knee surgery is uncertain, and Dwane Casey, the Raps coach, hasn't trusted Johnson.
You can understand why Ujiri might be wary of trading a first-round pick for Anderson, Young, Gibson, Kenneth Faried or Markieff Morris. None of those guys changes your life as a franchise. They bring baggage, holes in their game, or salary concerns for a team that will be capped out if they re-sign DeRozan. Those players don't catapult you into the conversation with the best Western Conference teams. Horford is a different story. It would take almost everything in the Toronto's arsenal to get him, but if they manage it, the Raps would have a good chance of re-signing him, sources say. Still, such a bold move is unlikely.
But even those non-Horford guys are better than what Toronto has, and that incremental improvement might be the difference in a quarter, a game, or a series for a team with ugly postseason demons. Toronto cannot flame out in the playoffs again -- not with its grand ambitions in free agency. If the Raptors advance to Cleveland, Toronto will need to switch the LeBron-Love pick-and-roll as often as possible; Scola isn't up for that.
A small boost might be worth it if it costs only one of the following three assets: Patterson, the Knicks pick and Toronto's 2016 first-rounder.