Lockin' Up Cap'n Kirk

I know this is old news, but I've been rather lax of late so it's about time I caught up on the world of sports.

On Halloween, the Bulls announced that they signed Kirk Hinrich to a 5 year, $47.5 million contract extension. For the math impaired that works out to $9.5 million a year. That's a pretty good deal, don't you think? Just for comparison's sake let's take a look at some other contracts I looked up.

(avg salary over course of contract, italics = former Bulls)
Wally Szczerbiak is making about $12 mil a year until 08-09
Tyson Chandler is making about $11 mil a year until 10-11
Kenyon Martin is making about $14 mil a year until 10-11
Baron Davis - $15 mil until 08-09
Bobby Simmons - $9 mil until 09-10
Jalen Rose - $17 mil this year
Stephon Marbury - $19 mil until 08-09
Jamal Crawford $8.5 mil until 10-11

Looking at some of those salaries, it looks like the Bulls come out of this deal smelling like roses, no not Jalen Rose, I mean the flowers. Of those contracts would you take any of them? No, didn't think so. I'm still shocked we were able to dump TC's salary on the Hornets, but that's another story. It's especially surprising considering the fact that Kirk wanted money along the lines of Tony Parker, in the neighborhood of $11 mil a year.

I guess Kirk granted us a home team discount. He is after all an avowed Bulls fan after growing up in Iowa. The extra nice thing about this deal is that it offsets the fact that we overpaid for Big Ben. Now if we can lock up the rest of our young guys (I'm looking at you Luol, Benny G, Andres and Greg...assuming we get Greg Oden, which I think we have a good shot at considering Zeke is coaching the Knicks) at a discount I'll be ready to proclaim Pax as one of the best GM's in the league.