chadfordinsider I've confirmed the Wade-Bulls meeting tonight. Source believes Wade is leaning toward joining Bulls ... Link coming things couldn't be better right now
David Aldrige said it could be Wade+Bosh to CHI or Wade+Bron' to CHI Wade taking second meeting with Bulls -In a development Pat Riley no doubt does not want to hear, a source confirmed a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report that Heat free agent guard Dwyane Wade is meeting with the Bulls in Chicago for a second time in 24 hours tonight, along with his agent, Henry Thomas. Wade had met with the Bulls for two hours Thursday and visited the United Center and met team officials, but a second meeting so soon with his agent is an indication that the two sides are past the pleasantries stage and are ready to engage in more substantive discussions. The Bulls have, of course, cleared out around $30 million in salary cap room (including mandatory cap holds) with a series of moves since the trade deadline in order to try and entice two max-level players to come to Chicago to join point guard Derrick Rose, center Joakim Noah and forward Luol Deng. They gave away swingman John Salmons to Milwaukee in February, and have agreed to a deal with Washington that won't be official until July 8 that will send guard Kirk Hinrich and first-round pick Kevin Seraphin to the Wizards in exchange for virtually nothing. But if the reward for that is Wade, or Wade and Chris Bosh, who met with the Bulls on Thursday, or Wade and LeBron James--who will see Bulls officials in Cleveland on Saturday in the last of his six scheduled meetings with teams vying for his services--it all would have been worth the trouble. Heat officials met with James in Cleveland on Friday, led by Riley. Most observers thought that Miami could safely count on Wade's return to the Heat next season; he's consistently maintained that his first desire was to go back there next season. He seemed to have signed off on the plan set forth by Riley and team owner Micky Arison to scotch the existing roster--Miami currently has two players under contract for next season--in order to try and convince two max-level players to come to Florida with him. But a second Wade visit with his hometown team can only send chills down Riles's spine. -- posted 7/2/10, 5:45 p.m. http://bit.ly/bQnGRe
If he goes to Chicago, my respect for him would drop quite a bit. All that rhetoric about loyalty and being upfront he spoke of months back apparently was all BS. I hope these three free agents end up together and never accomplish a damn thing the next 5 years
it doesn't matter. you get those 3, you worry about the consequences later. those 3 are arguably the best offensive players at their respective positions. watch out for the bulls next year. if they land 2 of those 3, look for a dynasty.
I have to agree with you. I don't see Wade leaving Miami. Teams actually often talk to players even though they have no chance of signing them just to waste other teams' time. Wade is probably doing this on Miami's behalf.
winning comes first. do you see how stacked the bulls will be if they have any of those players? these guys want to win a championship, esp. wade and lebron.
Did Morey's comment about the big 3 only winning 45 games cause the fall of Miami? Wade looks like he doesn't want to be by himself and could be leaving for Chicago.
he WILL leave miami if wade knows bosh/lebron don't go there. what does miami have? and wade is 28. it's time for him to win now. if he knows those 2 guys aren't coming to miami, i bet 100% he's leaving.
I have to agree with you. Wade will not stay with the Heat unless he knows big-time players will join him there.
Or it could all be part of Miami's master plan of finalizing the contract with another major FA while Wade tries to waste their main competitor's time...time shall tell...
I don't see a problem between LeBron and Wade playing together, but the two of them with Rose seems like a clash. None of them are particularly good perimeter players and all need the ball in their hands A LOT. I wonder if they would start shopping Rose for a distributing PG and/or another big.
Man Rockets are really playing a game right now of hoping that whatever plans are in place fall through. Miami's Big Three plan may be falling through. That's good, that was step #1 for us to have a chance. Now Chicago's plan for Lebron + Bosh is changing to Wade + someone. This is dangerous but still better for us. We've gotta hope that it's Lebron who has interest to join Wade in Chicago over Bosh, because Lebron would win that battle. Right now the signs are still bleak. Wade and Bosh share the same agent, Henry Thomas, based in Chicago, and Chicago has taken necessary steps to be able to a.) sign one guy to the max outright, and b.) do a SnT for the second max player. As it currently stands, if Wade takes the open max contract from Chicago, then either Lebron or Bosh would have to sign via SnT. Either of these situations is unlikely, but Chicago has the benefit of time on its hands. If Wade is in the pocket, then they can try to negotiate with other teams to see if anyone would be willing to take Deng off their hands in exchange for some assets like James Johnson, Taj Gibson, and future picks. It's not like Deng sucks either, but he just makes more money than he's worth. If Bosh or Lebron insist on playing in Chicago with Wade, then they could play the waiting game to see if Chicago can't free up more room to sign them later on. Given this set of circumstances the Rockets would have two possibilities of getting Bosh. 1. The first would be if Lebron committed to playing there and waited out until the cap space was freed up (Cleveland's already said that it will not under any circumstance do a SnT). With Lebron over there, Bosh would fall to us and be angry at them for leaving him out, giving him added incentive to kick some butt. Good case for us. 2. The second option would be if Chicago were to fail to find any suitors to assist them in their goal to win the NBA offseason, which I could certainly see happening because NBA GM's are a bitter conniving lot. In this case they would only have about 11M in cap space, and they could probably use this as starter money to woo over a second tier PF like Boozer or David Lee to accompany Wade. A starting lineup of Rose Wade Deng Boozer/Lee and Noah is still championship caliber after all. In this case, Bosh would have the Rockets as his top option, but he would still have a final play of waiting to see where Lebron goes (Cleveland or New Jersey would be my guess) and follow him there. Either way, if Wade leaves, Miami is S-C-R-E-W-E-D. Good for them. Honestly, f-- Pat Riley. This is what you get when you dump all the players on your team and only have two sophomores on their rookie contracts left on your team for 2010-2011.
@IraHeatBeat The meeting was requested by Bulls. A party familiar with Wade's demeanor said he is not type to turn down such a request. Just a courtesy?
UPDATE, WADE REQUESTING SECOND MEETING WITH THE BULLS this could get interesting http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5348670
