This is why I have turned on and become disgusted with the rampant trade requests. It’s destabilizing to the league, as in the players that comprise it and make up the majority of the league. They have families and kids and them and their wives can blame the teams all they want (and would often be right to do so), but these stars asking out of their current situations are also to blame.
Good job to OP for finding a way to demonstrate this. Harden isn’t the only one.
Harden is FA after this season. Why would the Bulls do this? The Bulls have excellent trade pieces. Derozan could be the last piece for so many contenders; Lavine is locked up and could help teams that are already good or good-ish (Knicks, lakers, etc); Vucevic is on a very fair deal and there's 2 additional years of control at that fair price; Caruso is a steal at $9M this year and next; Patrick Williams could be a deadline deal; Ayo could be helpful to shore up depth on a playoff team and is affordable. 7-8 months of pouty Harden... why would anyone do that? The Bulls front office can be kinda dumb, but it's not dumb in this particular way.
The Bulls will instead allow the value of its current trade assets to deteriorate until its too late to cash in on blowing it up. In fact, they won't blow it up, they'll watch it wither and die and decry the bad luck of their own making.
The Bulls will not trade for James Harden.
I hate being a Bulls fan.