The Chicago Bulls find themselves in a very peculiar situation this morning.

Bulls GM John Paxson is faced with this question do you essentially trade away all your young talent from a team that went to the playoffs last year for the best player in the world?

Of course there’s a little more to it than that. Any trade, one could presume, that would involve Kobe Bryant going to Chicago would have to include Luol Deng. As the Lakers aren’t likely to see the value in acquiring Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah and Ben Gordon, giving they are sending the best player on the planet to the Windy City in exchange. It gets even more complicated when you consider that Bryant is the only player in the league with a no-trade clause in his contract and he has made it known that he wants to play with Luol Deng and likely wouldn’t accept a trade to Chicago if Deng is involved going the other way.

I’m not going to say this deal is dead in the water because the Lakers front office has been known to do some colossally stupid things (trading Shaq comes to mind) but they are faced with the reality that Kobe can, and most likely will, opt out of this contract in a year, leaving the Lakers with nothing.

But that can’t enter into the decision-making for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak. He has to try to win now and trading the best player in the league for the 2005 College All-American team is an awful, terrible idea, regardless of what happens in a year.

Am I convinced this trade won’t happen? No. Do I think that Kupchak is desperate enough to pull the trigger and forgo a season of Kobe and Phil sniping at each other in the papers? Yes.

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