So, what was your favorite moment of the Dikembe Mutumbo era? I'll just call this one official, the Bulls are sending Mutumbo to the Rockets for Eric Piatkowski, Adrian Griffin, and Mike Wilks. Piatkowski is the only one who is going to crack the rotation, the other two are looking like merely cap filler.
Reportedly the Rockets are paying Griffin's salary, meaning he can be waived without financial consequence to the Bulls. He is known as a defensive-minded small forward with little offensive game, sort of the oddball for the high-powered Mavericks when he started 48 games for them in 2002-03 (and 34 in 01-02). Given the choice between him and Chris Jefferies, I would rather have Griffin. However if either of them got off the IR this year that would be a bad sign. Wilks is a NBDL alum point guard. Pretty hard to see him beating out Pargo and Duhon, although looks like he'll be getting a shot.
As for Piatkowski, as I said a few weeks ago he fits what the team was looking for. As one of the active leaders in 3pt%, he has only one definable skill but at least he excels at it. Lets hope his down year for the Rockets last season can be attributed to injury. This trade is another solid move for GM John Paxson. While the golden rule states never trade big for small, in terms of skill sets Pax traded Shotblocking for Shooting, the latter something that the team was sorely needing. Salary wise Piatkowski is signed through next season for around $3m, which will hurt the cap space for next summer, albeit slightly. And lets not forget perhaps the most important reason for this trade: Mutumbo didn't want to play here.
In my utopian view of next season, expect Curry/Chandler to cause defenses to collapse leaving the Polish Assassin (that is his nickname, right?) open to launch some threes. Well, a boy can dream, right?