Grade the Trade: Raptors chain themselves to overpaid star in misguided pitch

Laying out a terrible trade

The Chicago Bulls are in a similar position to the Toronto Raptors this offseason in that they moved off of a couple of key players to get younger, but haven't yet completely embraced a rebuild, and project to be stuck in the middle of the Eastern Conference, too good to reach the bottom but with no real hope of the playoffs.

The difference between the Raptors and Bulls is that Chicago hasn't found its star of the future like Scottie Barnes in Toronto. That likely means their best path forward is continuing the teardown, moving off of Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic and embracing a path down to the cellar.

The problem is that Zach LaVine followed up a breakout season with a couple of injury-riddled ones, and has both clearly lost a step and is likely to be battling lower-body injuries the rest of his career. That's unfortunate for a role player; it's a disaster for a supposed star who is making $43 million this season and is owed another $95 million over the next two seasons.

That's why the Bulls have been unable to find a trade partner for LaVine. He is a ball-dominant guard of slightly above-average efficiency who has never demonstrated he can scale up to playing on a great team alongside other stars -- his fit with DeMar DeRozan was anything but smooth -- and he is one more injury away from falling off completely. No team is willing to take on his contract without being significantly compensated.

No team, that is, except the Toronto Raptors. Colin Keane over at The Sporting News recently proposed a trade between the Bulls and Raptors that would send LaVine to Toronto to team up with Barnes and Quickley.

Here is what the deal would look like:

The Chicago Bulls would instantly get off of LaVine's salary for the next two seasons, getting back an expiring salary in Bruce Brown and a fairly-compensated stretch big in Olynyk under contract for one more season after this one. That's a massive amount of salary relief for Chicago, allowing them to focus on their rebuild.

What's more, both Olynyk and Brown would likely have trade value by the deadline, opening up even more value for Chicago. This would be a no-brainer, A-level trade for Chicago - but does it make any sense whatsoever for the Raptors?

Let's see why Keane thinks that Toronto might be open to such a deal.