Hinrich going to Wizards along with 1st round pick

In a bold move that dramatically altered the free agent sweepstakes, that promise and potential will focus on NBA All-Stars and most valuable players rather than teenage college players.

Sources said the Bulls have agreed in principle to send veteran guard Kirk Hinrich, cash and French prospect Kevin Seraphin, whom they took with the 17th pick in the draft, to the Wizards in exchange for, well, nothing.

But that nothing will become something very valuable come July 1.

Though the trade can't become official until the Wizards can absorb Hinrich's $9 million salary into its cap space July 8, the Bulls will enter the free agent recruiting period a week earlier knowing they have roughly $30.8 million to burn. If they hadn't dumped Hinrich's contract, that number would have stood at roughly $22 million.

A maximum free agent contract is expected to start between $16.5 and $16.8 million once the NBA league office sets its official numbers. Thus, the Bulls will have more than $14 million to offer a second free agent while trying to lure two superstars to join All-Star Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng.

And you thought the Bulls went all in when they traded John Salmons to the Bucks in February.

Statement from General Manager Gar Forman:

This evening we selected Kevin Seraphin with the 17th overall pick of the NBA Draft. At this time, we are currently in discussions to trade our draft rights to Kevin Seraphin; however, we will not be able to complete a trade until after the moratorium period concludes on July 8.

With that said, we are not at liberty to identify the team that we are talking to or reveal any other specifics of potential trades. Therefore, we will have no comment on this selection until we have completed all trade discussions.