Bulls' summer gamble with Hinrich pays off for Wizards

CHICAGO -- The tricky thing, any time an NBA team thinks about warmly welcoming back a popular former coach or player, is that someone has backfilled into that man's spot. Sometimes directly so in a 1-for-1. So while the fans stand and applaud, while the Jumbotron lights up with highlights and stirring music, the new guy fidgets, looks at his shoes and feels generally like ... well, the new guy.

That wasn't a problem for the Chicago Bulls the other night. When Kirk Hinrich came back to town for the first time for a regular-season game, there was no one to offend, no one to make feel uncomfortable, no one whose feelings might get hurt. Because that's who Hinrich was traded for: No one.

That's awkward, too. Maybe that's why Hinrich was the one fidgeting, looking at his shoes and generally feeling weird.

"Yeah, it was weird. I'm not really comfortable with it, but it was nice," the combo guard said after the Washington Wizards' 103-96 loss at Chicago on Saturday. Fortunately for Hinrich, the Wizards also had visited in the preseason -- that one felt even weirder, turning left into the visitors' dressing room about 50 feet too soon -- but it at least took a little emotional edge off his more recent return.

Until the video, anyway. That's when Hinrich got the full hero treatment, one of U2's rock anthems blaring, mixed with just enough play-by-play and crowd reactions. His teammates, old and new, paid more attention to it during the game's first timeout than he did.

"That was great," Bulls forward Luol Deng said. "Kirk was great here for us. Playing with him the past six years, I really appreciated him."

Said Hinrich: "I didn't look at it, but I have a copy in my bag. ... I'm not really one for that, but it means something that they appreciate the type of player I was."

Perhaps now more than ever. For so much of Hinrich's tenure in Chicago -- he averaged 13.4 points and 5.8 assists in 514 games, ranking first in Bulls history in 3-pointers taken and made and ninth in points -- the focus was on the shots he missed (a 41.5 percent shooter with Chicago) and the checks he cashed. It was the $9 million left on his contract for this season ($17 million overall) that drove the Bulls' giveaway trade with Washington over the summer. The Wizards got Hinrich, the No. 17 pick in last June's Draft and a reported $3 million, while giving up only a future second-rounder.

Let's just say that whoever that second-rounder becomes, he isn't helping with the perimeter defense the Bulls miss right now without Hinrich. That iffy-at-best future pick isn't doing a thing to get Derrick Rose off the ball or off the floor, either, not the way Hinrich did, not the way newcomer C.J. Watson so far has not.

And that just covers what Hinrich's subtraction in Chicago means. His addition in Washington has meant a lot, too.

There's the cash, certainly, always important for a team with grand plans and a franchise rookie (John Wall) around whom it hopes to build. There is Kevin Seraphin, that No. 17 pick. The Wizards had scouted the raw, 6-foot-7, 275-pound forward from French Guiana overseas, had been impressed with his play and potential and were determined not to let Cleveland or some other team angling to move up in the Draft snag him. So even if the Bulls wouldn't have taken Seraphin at No. 17, Washington was thrilled to.

If Seraphin's value is somewhere in the Wizards' future, Hinrich's is here and now. Through nine games, he has averaged a career-low eight shots, but he had nine assists in a victory over Philadelphia, scored 21 vs. Cleveland and, with Wall (foot sprain) sidelined against the Raptors Monday, chipped in 13 points and 12 assists.

Hinrich also has been thrust into a mentor's role with Wall, a dynamic that came about more informally with Rose. Starting alongside him, Hinrich's contributions can be measured in part by the rookie's development.

"For me, when I was a young player, I had veterans who I felt did right by me and tried to bring me up right," Hinrich said. "Taught me the right way to play in this league and what it's going to take. It's not so much that I've taken John under my wing. I just kind of feel that responsibility of now being a veteran player, to fill that role a little bit."

At 29, with seven NBA seasons in, Hinrich is basically the Wizards' only veteran. Josh Howard is hurt and Gilbert Arenas, who's been around for nine years, is light on the maturity scale. That leaves Hinrich -- who still can play a little, too.

"For us, he's been unbelievable," Saunders said. "I haven't had a guy defensively, as a guard, who can guard like he can, as far as getting through screens and contesting shots. He's the best I've been around and seen."

The hard part, though, is realizing that Hinrich could still be with the Bulls. The payroll they cleared by moving him on Draft night -- to open enough salary-cap space to sign two mega-free agents this summer -- never got used that way. LeBron James didn't go to Chicago. Neither did Dwyane Wade nor Chris Bosh. Carlos Boozer could have been signed with Hinrich in place. The Bulls added pieces -- Watson, Kyle Korver, Keith Bogans -- who do some of what Hinrich does, just not in one player.

Said Saunders: "It's tough. Because he was such an icon in the time he was here. I'm sure he looks and says, 'I could be on that team' or whatever."

The Bulls and defensive-minded head coach Tom Thibodeau probably have felt that. General manager Gar Forman acknowledged this fall that it was one of those "if we knew then what we know now" situations, though the gamble in free agency was worth it. Some of the team's fans -- at least those not perpetually carping about Hinrich's salary -- have said the same thing.

Hinrich, though, said he doesn't dwell much on getting traded for ... nothing. Or some guy named Cap Space.

"No, I understand what they were trying to do," he said. "I talked to Pax [Bulls VP John Paxson] and Gar on a couple of occasions. I know those guys pretty well, so when we talk, it's usually not too much about business."

Was he surprised by the outcome, by the big names who didn't sign with the Bulls? "A little bit," Hinrich said. "But you knew coming into the summer that anything could happen, with those free agents and so many teams clearing cap space. They really could have gone a lot of places."

The Wizards didn't land any coveted free agents, either. They just got lucky in the lottery, then found a valuable player left on the curb.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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