Hamilton has been a healthy scratch for seven consecutive games. He went from the starting rotation, to key bench reserve to a series of DNP-CDs. To many Pistons fans, including myself, it was the right move. But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about business with your players, certainly nine-year veterans who helped lead your team to a title. And Hamilton says that after nobody in the organization talking to him since the benchings began, Kuester sent the head of team security over to Hamilton to indicate that he would be willing to talk things over.

“I felt offended that he sent Jerry instead of coming himself or sending an assistant coach,” Hamilton told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday. “I could tell Jerry was uncomfortable and I said no.”

This means that either Kuester is too scared to have a face-to-face meeting with Hamilton or that he feels that his time is too valuable to take the steps of approaching Hamilton himself. Neither scenario reflects well on the coach or on the organization. If, as has been said all along, Hamilton is sitting on the bench solely because that is what Kuester wants and not because the front office wants him healthy due to an impending deal, Kuester owes it to Hamilton to hash things out. And speaking of the organization, I can understand Joe Dumars not involving Hamilton in the day-to-day status of the botched Carmelo Anthony trade, but after the megadeal blew up, I think it was incumbent on Dumars to talk with Hamilton and Kuester and sort this situation out so all sides can be heard.

Color me skeptical, but I imagine this is yet another instance of Denver and Carmelo using all available leverage as they try and squeeze ever last asset out of the Nets. Because, frankly, a trade with the Chicago Bulls makes little sense.

If, as has been discussed ad nauseam, the holdup on the deal is Denver needing to shed as much salary as possible then I don’t see how a deal gets done in Chi-town. Chicago has next to no expiring contracts to offer, no picks expected in the lottery for quite some time and two assets that are absolutely off limits — Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. And the one asset the Bulls wouldn’t mind ridding themselves of — Luol Deng is just as much of a cap albatross as Al Harrington.

And let’s not forget that even if the Bulls were willing to budge on the availability of Noah, because he signed an extension prior to this season he has what is called a “poison pill provision.” That means that the Bulls can only take back a contract around $3.2 million in value when shipping Noah out. In other words, getting equal value for Noah is nearly impossible and matching salaries with Anthony is equally difficult.

I don’t care how badly Anthony wants to play in Chicago. There is just no feasible path for the teams to explore.