Bulls forward Al-Farouq Aminu will exercise his $10.2MM player option for next season, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
While most veterans with player options for 2021/22 won’t have to make their decisions until the summer, Aminu’s decision was due within seven games of Chicago’s final regular season game, notes ESPN’s Bobby Marks (via Twitter).
Acquired in late March from Orlando in the Nikola Vucevic deal, Aminu saw limited time in six games for the Bulls. He averaged 1.5 points and 3.2 rebounds in 11.2 minutes per night.
Chicago is the sixth team for the 30-year-old Aminu in his 11-year NBA career. The Clippers made him the eighth pick in the 2010 draft, and he also played for New Orleans, Dallas and Portland.
Aminu’s decision gives Chicago eight players with fully guaranteed contracts for next season, along with Thaddeus Young and Tomas Satoransky, who both have partial guarantees.
Less money in Bulls cap for a Lavine raise
Isn’t Sato’s $5M? If so, I believe that is half his salary
It’s supposed to become fully guaranteed ($10M) on August 1st.
Aminu is a good role player, but he was definitely overdrafted at pick #8. The next two picks after him were Gordon Hayward and Paul George. Obviously hindsight makes the pick easy, but it was just a classic Clippers draft mistake.
Aminu was an excellent player at one time. In December 2019, Aminu suffered a torn meniscus in his right knee. Now either Aminu is still trying to recover from the injury or Aminu is ‘over the hill’. After Aminu was acquired by the Bulls in the Vucevic trade, Donovan hardly played Aminu at all. There must be a reason why Aminu isn’t getting on the court.
He just doesn’t have any real outstanding skills. He’s never been a consistent perimeter threat, isn’t a lockdown defender, is kind of a tweener between SF/PF, doesn’t fill the stat sheet, and isn’t really a reliable scorer. That said, he can be solid depth at the forward spots and soak up some minutes. What he’s got going against him is that he’s overpaid at the moment and contending teams can find cheaper options to surround their expensive core while rebuilding teams would rather give their younger players a chance.
I don’t think I would have ever called him “excellent” but he wasn’t bad either. His career reminds me of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Never lived up to the draft status, but still had a respectable career.
IMO, Aminu is a much better outside shooter than MKG. Think if Aminu were the player that he was five years ago, he would easily be in the starting five for the Bulls. Maybe the knee injury and being thirty years old make Aminu just another player now.