Hughes trade leaves little room to re-sign Gordon

UPDATE, Thursday, 1:30 p.m. -- The Hughes trade is about to become official. He's headed to New York for forward Tim Thomas and center Jerome James, two players who won't help much, along with obscure guard Anthony Roberson.

Thomas and James both have contracts that expire in 2010, which keeps the Bulls in line for a run a Chris Bosh. But this trade does nothing to trim next year's payroll. The Bulls still have around $67 million in commitments, now to 10 players. The luxury tax threshold was $71.5 million this year and will probably drop since it's based on the league's revenue.

So if nothing changes, that leaves very little room to try to re-sign Ben Gordon this summer without moving into the luxury tax territory. They might even have trouble re-signing center Aaron Gray. One potential solution is to dump a salary on a team with cap room this summer. There won't be many, but maybe teams like Memphis or Detroit would have some interest in John Salmons.

Here's the sad part for Bulls fans: The team owes Brad Miller $12.25 million, Luol Deng $10.37 million, Jerome James $6.6 million and Tim Thomas $6.5 million next season, but probably won't have enough left to re-sign their leading scorer. Maybe this will all work out for the best, but the outlook isn't as sunny as it could be today.

UPDATE, Wednesday late night -- It feels like halftime of the trading deadline, with one Bulls deal done and more possibilities today.

Here's one thing to consider: The final hours before the 2 p.m. trade deadline might be about the Bulls trying to salvage Ben Gordon.

By turning Drew Gooden's expiring contract over to Saramento and taking on Brad Miller's expensive contract, the Bulls added payroll for next season. As of today, they have nine players under contract at a total of $67.03 million, give or take a few trade kickers.

This year's luxury tax threshold was $71.15 million. That figure will probably drop next year and the Bulls would need to add a few players to even fill out the roster. So essentially, there is no way of re-signing Gordon without going into the luxury tax.

Maybe John Salmons is the shooting guard of the future. But if the Bulls can resurrect that deal sending Larry Hughes to New York, everything would change. They were talking about Hughes for Malik Rose, who has an expiring contract worth $7.65 million. If the Knicks filled out the deal with Jerome James, whose deal runs to 2010, the Bulls would drop about $7 million off next year's payroll and have a decent chance at signing Gordon.

This makes me wonder, would the Bulls be willing to throw in Thabo Sefolosha to help convince the Knicks to do this deal? New York would almost certainly send Jared Jeffries and Rose to the Bulls, because Jeffries' contract runs to 2011 and that deal would create more cap room for the Knicks in 2010. It doesn't look like the Bulls want to go down that road.

If they were able to re-sign Gordon, the Bulls still would have hope to create 2010 cap room. There should have a reasonable chance of moving Salmons, owed $5.8 million in 2010-11, for an expiring deal next year, since it's not a huge contract and he's a player who was in demand.

The Bulls couldn't come to terms with Gordon last summer, but he's responded with the best season of his career, averaging 20.4 points while shooting a respectable 45 percent from the field.

It doesn't look like there is anything going on with Minnesota taking Kirk Hinrich for short contracts, as was rumored Wednesday. I think the Bulls were only willing to do that if they were able to work out something with Phoenix for Amare Stoudemire, but that, too, seems to have faded out.