Just as a resourceful Chicago Bulls win in San Antonio can fill heads with visions of playoff victories in spring, a 29-point loss to the pathetic Sacramento Kings plunges you right back into the reality of what in the world Chicago needs to do to climb back into relevance. Would Carmelo Anthony be a fit in Tom Thibodeau's system as well as the culture he has created in Chicago? Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports

And that, of course, brings us to the already-in-progress Carmelo Anthony discussion, among other possibilities. But the question on the table in this exercise isn't whether Melo is at this point seriously interested in the Bulls, but whether the Bulls should be interested in him. Whether the Bulls should go to great lengths to commit the money, players and/or draft picks to either trade for Anthony or try to sign him as a free agent. Whether Melo would do any more for the Bulls than he's done for the absolutely dreadful Knicks. Whether there's a potential fit, Anthony playing with Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah in the Bulls' version of a Big Three, or whether we're talking about an ill-advised, chemistry-killing disaster that would undo years of very smart drafting, trading and salary-cap managing.

So, it's a legitimate, full-fledged dilemma stuffed with risk. Yet if Anthony waves goodbye to the Knicks and wants to come to Chicago, I would depart from the Bulls' traditional conservative approach to free agency and try to get him (easy for me to say). It's a delicate balance to strike. John Paxson and Gar Forman knew as they accumulated those assets there would come a time to actually use them. They can't simply add Anthony to the team as we know it, so a couple of players are going to have to be dealt. But big stars win in the NBA and moving role players to make room for an All-Star of Anthony's impact is the way to go, unless a star of similar magnitude becomes available out of thin air.

There are scouts in the NBA who believe Anthony will be the same player going forward he's been the past 11 years, which is to say a professional scorer who has never been committed to defense or the nuances of being a great teammate, which just happen to be the obsessions of the coach Anthony would be playing for in Chicago. But there are others who believe that while the above assessment is undeniable, the Bulls are in desperate need of what Anthony still does as well as anybody in the NBA not named Kevin Durant: score.

As one talent evaluator told me this week, "The fatal mistake the Knicks made is that they brought Carmelo to New York to be the guy who makes everybody else better, and that's not who he is. Carmelo is a guy who needs teammates, and he'd have those [in Chicago]. He scores. He doesn't make other teammates better ... though his scoring and his presence will make the game easier for others. It would take some weight off of Rose. When Rose plays against Miami they swarm and blitz him ... What Carmelo would give [the Bulls] is an alternative. What he could do is finish games." Luring Nikola Mirotic to the Bulls next season will be considerably more expensive than a year ago. AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

It's a very persuasive argument, that Anthony can do the one thing the Bulls can't do even when Rose is healthy. In Sacramento Monday night they scored a measly 70 points against a Kings team that had lost seven straight and allows an average of 105 points per game, which is inexcusable even without Rose. So there's simply no arguing the Bulls are in desperate need of what Melo does. The Bulls aren't going to seriously contend -- even with Rose back -- unless they add a professional, in-his-prime scorer.

If the Bulls agree with that logic, only then does the issue become what exactly they should do about it. And it's complicated at the very least. Using the amnesty clause on Carlos Boozer (freeing up $16.8 million) and letting Kirk Hinrich walk into free agency doesn't clear enough salary-cap space to sign a max free agent, which is what Anthony will be if he decides to leave the Knicks. But the Bulls would probably be willing to move a piece or two to create more room, though that piece might have to be Taj Gibson, who in a perfect world would replace a departing Boozer, who we now know isn't happy about sitting on the bench during fourth quarters.

One Eastern Conference scout said, "Boozer, no matter how bad a rap he gets in Chicago, is still a guy opposing defenses have to contend with. ... He helps you command the paint, which not everybody can do." While undoubtedly true, thing is, now that Gibson has improved so much offensively and the Bulls can run actual plays for him in a way they didn't before, there's a new reality that is resulting in a new pecking order at power forward. But nobody's going to argue Gibson isn't expendable if losing him helps get Anthony.

Another big issue: The Bulls are itching to get Nikola Mirotic under contract. He's only the best player in Europe for the second straight year and very possibly better than any of the much-hyped college freshmen bound for this June's draft. The Bulls probably did their job a little too well as it pertains to scouting Mirotic, the 6-foot-10 forward they selected with the 24th pick in the draft three years ago.