To Seattle: Ira Newble, Adrian Griffin, and Donyell Marshall
To Cleveland: Delonte West, Joe Smith, Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, and a future 2nd round pick from the Bulls  
To Chicago: Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Cedric Simmons, and Shannon Brown

First off, I love this trade for Cleveland. Hughes never fit next to LeBron, and his contract almost matches Wallace. So taking Big ben on is no loss finacially. If nothing else, they are taking a flier on Wallace to see if he can still be a contributor on a winner. The beauty for them however, is they get Delonte West, Joe Smith, and Wally Szczerbiak too. Now, it is a three-horse race in the East. Drew Gooden for Joe Smith is basically a wash. Smith is more consistent, and will probably be a better threat in this year’s  playoffs because of it, bit Gooden is younger. On a team with so little young talent outside LeBron, it is tough to give it up. Szczerbiak goes from the outhouse to the penthouse. Spot him up in the corner and let him wait for LeBron to draw his man in, he couldn’t have asked for anything better. West, while not a great point is certainly more than capable of splitting minutes with Gibson. He hasn’t fit into Seattle’s new style, and has admitted to feeling lost, so this change of scenery could be the be huge for him. I’m not sure where Wallace really fits in. He’s fills the same role as Varejao, and only slightly better. Maybe teaming Z and Ben to start and then come off the bench in tandem with Smith and Varejao will work, but I wonder if they’ll be able to keep everyone happy. It certainly looks like a decent front line. It certainly is worth the risk. They were bogged down by Hughes’ deal anyway, and wasn’t benefitting at all.
Seattle is right up there with Minnesota as organizations who should be ashamed of themselves. They didn’t even get a pick. The tanking that is taking place is just bad for the league. Ownership doesn’t want to be in Seattle, so they are just biding time and stockpiling lottery balls until the city lets them leave to Oklahoma City. If I was Blake Griffin, an Edmond, OK native, and playing like a madman at OU, I’d declare this year figuring that there will be a 50-50 chance the Sonics take him if they don’t get a chance to take Beasley. As much as I like Durant, it is going to be hard for me to ever like that team for what they are doing to Seattle.
On the Bulls newcomers:

Hughes makes $12M this year and is owed more than $26M after through 2010. I’ve never minded him as a player, but he didn’t really fit in well next to LeBron. I wonder where he fits here. He’s going to be here, but he plays the same position as BG and Thabo. It appears be a very clear sign Gordon is on his way out if not next summer then soon after.

Gooden is making $6.4M and another $7.3M next. He’s not the post threat they have been missing. His jump shot isn’t as good as that of Smith, and isn’t nearly as smart of a player. Statistically, at least, he has regressed this year. That said, he’s a capable player who will fill some of the rebounding void by Wallace leaving. He won’t tip three or four balls to teammates per game to keep possessions alive like Wallace did when he wanted to, but he’ll be good enough to keep them from being manhandled.

Simmons is making $1.6M his year and has one more guaranteed year next when he will make almost $1.75M. He is another try hard big man who has no offensive skills. I guess now that they have Mike Brown on the staff, they figure they’ll get him a full class to work with.

Shannon Brown was another player who never fit in with Cleveland. When he played this year, it wasn’t like he stunk, but he couldn’t get minutes from the Cavs less than impressive stock of guards. If nothing else, he is an expiring contract.

Overall:

It is a lateral move at best, but at least they don’t have two major free agents and two recent lottery picks battling for minutes. I don’t think they will be better off in the short-term by giving Thomas and Noah more minutes. At this point, it will expose them more. The games where they haven’t played are those where the other team has big men who would just foul them out or embarass them.

Hughes is the wildcard. He’s never been a highly regarded for his basketball IQ and better known for his poor shot selection than his impressive skill set. It is very possible that once he assumes the starting SG position that he will have a statistical resurgence. The Bulls need scorers and he showed in Washington that he can score. I wouldn’t be surprised if he looks good over the final month and a half. The problem is the front court appears to be awful, and even if his scoring punch gets them to catch Philadelphia, I’m just not sure he will be a difference maker in getting the Bulls into a better position to be more than just a one-and-done in the playoffs.

No team should have to suffer through prolonged stretches without their three best players. Imagine the Spurs without Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili or the Celtics without Garnett, Pierce, and Allen. Certainly Hinrich, Gordon, and Deng are not in the same stratesphere as those Big 3s, but their presence in suits instead of shorts have had a large impact on the 2007-08 season. As a result, Chris Duhon has started sixteen games. Thabo Sefolosha has been brought back from the dead. Tyrus Thomas is seeing minutes at small forward.

Make no mistake, this is not a good thing. The more a team starts Thabo Sefolosha at shooting guard now, the more likely it is that OJ Mayo or Eric Gordon will be starting there later. The more minutes Joakim Noah plays in the middle, the better the chance that DeAndre Jordan is taking part in pre-draft workouts against Roy Hibbert in the Berto Center in June. While many want to applaud Thabo Sefolosha’s emergence during this difficult time, he is averaging 12 points per game over the past fourteen games while playing 33 minutes on average. The team is 6-8 in that stretch. This puts him in a category with Anthony Parker and DeShawn Stevenson, solid rotation players no doubt, but not long-term starters at the shooting guard position for a contender.

I have long thought that if Thabo maxes out, he would be a Raja Bell-type. For this to happen, of course, Sefolosha has to develop a consistent jump shot, not the 39 percent from the field and 28 percent from behind the arc he is currently at. And even if he does, is that what the Bulls want out of a starting shooting guard? I don’t see Steve Nash or Amare Stoudemire walking through that door, I see Kirk Hinrich and Ben Wallace.  The Bulls need a big time scorer at the two guard position. Ben Gordon can provide that, but as most can see he is better off battling Leandro Barbosa for 6th man of the year awards for the next decade. With the Bulls sifting closer and closer to the lottery, they are two and one-half games out of the 8th spot and also only one and one-half games ahead of Charlotte who has the sixth worst record in the NBA. At some point, the question is going to have to be posed whether if this team gets a high lottery pick where do they go. They have gone big in the past two drafts, and spent $60M for Ben Wallace and Joe Smith in free agency. While they still don’t have a post presence, if Paxson was presented with the option of getting a guard with star potential in O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose, or Eric Gordon, has Thabo done enough to sell him that the backcourt is set? Likewise, if a team with cap room makes a sizeable offer to Ben Gordon, is Paxson willing to let him go in either a walk or sign-and-trade? I wouldn’t, but I think Paxson is a bigger fan of Thabo than I am.

Likewise, the injuries have opened up more minutes for the Bulls young bigs. Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah have gotten more consistent minutes with Nocioni manning the small forward spot and relieving some of the glut at the four. While both have had their moments, neither has showed any consistency in their play. Noah will have a game where he picks everything out of the air and drops it in, like he did against Indiana and Charlotte, and then have a road trip where he was invisible. Tyrus Thomas is easier to get a read on, because in games against teams that run, he plays well. He can run, jump, and play in space. It is the style that made him a lottery pick, but against teams like Portland and Utah that have real bigs he gets beat on both ends. Basically for Thomas to have a big game with the Bulls, he needs to face an opposition that does not care if he does.

Much like with Thabo, the Bulls young bigs have showed just enough to make them intriguing. Nobody doubts that Tyrus Thomas is a world class athlete, or that Joakim Noah can spark a game-turning run by diving all over the place and keeping plays alive. I’m not sure, however, that this is enough. Unless the Bulls change course, draft an open-court point guard, hire a coach from the Suns staff and become a running team, they aren’t main cogs of a championship contender. Certainly the possibility is there that the Bulls can get lucky in the lottery and have a chance to get Derrick Rose, pluck Alvin Gentry or Phil Weber from the Suns staff, and make a few moves to reform this team into a free-flowing unit. It is possible, and with each passing game the lottery becomes more and more of a reality as well as the likelihood that Jim Boylan will not be retained as the head coach. Then again, wouldn’t just be simpler to just admit that Thabo, Tyrus, and Joakim aren’t all that good and rebuild the old fashioned way by finding and developing real talent?