Veteran teams that are experiencing disappointing seasons usually find themselves in the middle of trade rumors.

With a 25-25 record, the Bulls are no exception to this rule of thumb, and Vincent Goodwill of CSN Chicago kicked off trade rumor season with a good one. Goodwill wrote late on Thursday night that “multiple league sources” had informed him of the Bulls’ interest in Philadelphia 76ers center Jahlil Okafor.

It’s been known for a while that the Sixers have been looking to move one of their frontcourt players. They have a logjam at the position with the development of franchise superstar center Joel Embiid. Fellow centers Nerlens Noel, Richaun Holmes, and Okafor have all been starved for minutes at various points throughout the season, and it’s devolving into an untenable situation for the team.

Okafor has scoring talent — He averaged 17.5 points and 7 rebounds in his rookie campaign last year. He’s down to 11.5 points and 4.7 rebounds this season, but he’s also playing seven less minutes per game. The question about his game is whether he can play defense even close to an NBA level.

The NBA is trending away from players like Okafor, and his future role might look something like how the Oklahoma City Thunder use center Enes Kanter — as a scoring specialist off the bench where his bad defense won’t kill you and his offense will be maximized against weaker competition.

Okafor can’t spread the floor at all, and that’s a big problem too for teams that want to make the shift towards more modern basketball. Forget about 3-pointers, where he’s only made one in his entire career. Okafor doesn’t even really shoot from outside of 16 feet. Only seven percent of his shots have come past that distance, and he will almost surely clog the paint. He also doesn’t rate very well in many advanced statistics.

ESPN lists 71 centers in its RPM database. Guess where Okafor is? pic.twitter.com/BMLZuEI4Rd — Stephen Noh (@hungarianjordan) February 3, 2017

Still, he is a legitimate low-post scoring option and was drafted third overall in the 2015 draft. He’s still also only in the second year of a team-friendly, rookie-scale contract that will keep him underpaid and under team control for the foreseeable future.

Okafor could theoretically help the Bulls, but at what price?

The Bulls absolutely should not give up anything of value for him. The Sixers would presumably want picks to keep facilitating their rebuild, and the Bulls would be insane to offer any. The Bulls’ veterans wouldn’t really help the Sixers in their current developmental window either. It would be tough to work out a trade that suited both teams. If the Bulls were willing to move on from Nikola Mirotic, Bobby Portis, or Denzel Valentine, maybe the Sixers could take one of them on. Another idea would be to add a third team that could balance out both teams’ assets more easily.

Goodwill’s report then that the Bulls are more interested than the Sixers makes sense given that the Bulls probably aren’t capable or willing to part with anything the Sixers are dying for. Goodwill writes:

So far, there’s more interest on the Bulls’ side than the 76ers’ side, according to sources, but the Bulls are interested in Okafor’s services. Because salaries have to match and Okafor is on a rookie-scale deal, one wonders how it can work if the 76ers aren’t enamored with some of the Bulls’ young players who’ve yet to fully blossom. The Bulls could conceivably open up talks to a third team if need be, considering it isn’t likely they’d want to part with any future first-round picks as they’re still deciding how they are to proceed with franchise direction in the next couple seasons. Talks aren’t necessarily heating up, but they aren’t dead. It’s interesting how they could see using Okafor as a low-post scorer while currently having Cristiano Felicio and Robin Lopez at center.

Setting aside the potential price, there are other troubling aspects of this trade. There were plenty of jokes on Twitter about how Okafor would compound the problems that the Bulls already have.

Diagram of a Rondo – Jahlil Okafor pick and roll with Wade lurking ready to hit that 15-footer and Jimmy Butler waiting to cut pic.twitter.com/apRTxFwgwF — ☕netw3rk (@netw3rk) February 3, 2017

The Bulls have been suffering all season because management constructed a team with no regards to fit or players that suit coach Fred Hoiberg’s preferred offensive style. Okafor would add another log to the Bulls’ dumpster fire of a roster construction plan. He works almost exclusively in the paint and isn’t the type of high motor transition player that Hoiberg generally likes working with.

There’s also a question of what the Bulls would do with their current crop of big men. Cristiano Felicio has earned the right to get serious minutes and Robin Lopez has been a solid starter for the team.

How would Okafor fit into that rotation? The Bulls need to see what they have in Felicio before this summer hits, as he will be a heavily sought after free agent. If Okafor eats up Felicio’s minutes, then that is a cause for concern.

Ultimately, there are a ton of red flags revolving around a potential Okafor trade. It’s telling that this trade proposal was one of the more popular ones on Twitter:

Checks out in the trade machine. pic.twitter.com/hwbA93Svlx — shamus (@shamus_clancy) February 3, 2017

The Bulls need to prioritize building a team around Jimmy Butler first and foremost. Okafor is talented, but he doesn’t really seem to fit that criteria. I wouldn’t be crazy about trading for him, but management hasn’t seemed too concerned with what other people think of their moves as of late.