The Paxson Rules: Shitbag players equals many losses

Having prostituted myself for a corporate sky box to the Bulls game yesterday I was witness to just the third win of the season. This team is playing lifelessly. Kirk is horrible. The whole team has trouble scoring. Noah has almost no talent. As a twenty year Bulls fan this is absolutely unacceptable. Unfortunately, with Reinsdorf, there will never be any accountability with upper management. Paxson could keep his job indefinitely, even though an honest evaluation of his rein would only leads to an immediate termination.

So much has been made of Paxson's drafting philosophy. Only drafting players from established winning programs. So burned was the franchise by the Eddie Curry & Tyson Chandler fiasco that they wanted to go with players that had a strong practice ethic and had come from a culture of winning. The result of this persistent philosophy? Nothing. How about worse than nothing. The worst record in the Eastern Conference.

Ultimately, in the NBA, pedigree doesn't matter nearly as much as talent. The only real talented player on this team is Tyrus
Thomas. The rest of the scrub club might as well be playing in the WNBA.

These are the players that Paxson was afraid of trading for Kobe? Really? Is he this bad at talent evaluation? How much worse could they possibly be if they had traded everyone for Kobe? Kobe would be able to account for several wins just by himself.

The crowd heavily booed Captain Kangaroo when he passed on an easy layup and deposited the ball to no where. Deng showed some life in the third quarter but even he has plateaued. How many superstars take three years to develop? Not many. He is what he is. Not one player on the Bulls would start on a contending team. Oftentimes, they don't have the second or third best player on the court during a whole game.

The East being what it is and the NBA's everyone makes the playoffs mentality will mean that the Skiles led Bulls will probably make the playoffs. That should not be enough. That is far too low a measuring stick. If this team does not make a major trade or turn things around considerably, Paxson for sure and maybe Skiles should be serving peanuts in the United Center.

I know I had the Bulls making the Eastern Conference Championship, but after what we've seen so far, I'd say 43 wins and a first round exit seems more likely. Too bad. Bulls fans have been suffering for a decade now. It might not seem long in a town who has a team that hasn't won in a 100 years, but for a once proud franchise, it is too long. Da Bulls are going to be da disappointment this year.

Skiles Skating on Thin Ice

The Bulls start the second half of the NBA season with a disappointing record only 4 games above .500. Skiles has been demanding that it is time for his players to play like NBA players now, that they can no longer get by on being kids. Well, I think Skiles has look in the mirror and wonder what kind of job he has done. This team has too much talent to have this record. It has been ten years since the Bulls have won a playoff series.

What has Skiles done? It seems, that besides the Bulls re-upping his contract last year, that if Skiles does not get this team to least to the Eastern Conference Finals, serious consideration has be made for replacing him.

What worries me more is that to win in the NBA, you need a marquee, superstar player. Oftentimes two. Its clear the Bulls need at least one more player. If that player is Paul Gasol or not, I'm not sure. The more important question is how will this new marquee player react to Skiles. Skiles job was to give the 'kids' discipline. Has he accomplished this? It's debatable. The Bulls lose an incredible amount of large leads. This is mostly due to Skiles poor in-game coaching skills. No one ever accused Skiles of being smart, but just being a disciplinarian is not enough anymore.

The city is hungry and due for a winner. Perhaps Skiles should be given the same ultimatum as Isiah, produce significant improvement or be let go.

Deng he's good!

The Bulls have just torn off a run in December that would be the envy of any team; 11-3. They are meshing well as a team after headbandgate and the confidence is clearly building. The emerging star in this run has been Luol Deng.

He's not quite Chet the Jet yet, but his fluidity and ease at scoring is becoming hard to deny, even for Skiles. Though Skiles claimed "he may never have anonther game like last night is his career". Thanks for the encouragement coach! Deng went 15-19 for 32 pts. More than his numbers was the ease with which he dominated- bum hand and all. Lets hope Skiles will start to unleash him more often.


This team reminds me so much of a very talented college team where the coach insists on corraling the talent simply to show he's the coach. Remember the North Carolina teams with Jordan coming off the bench when he clearly dominated in practices. There was also the Duke team with Maggatte coming off the bench when he always had the most talent on the court. This brings us to the Gordan situation again. This guy always dominates the game when he is in. He is among the league leaders in pts per min. Skiles insists on bringing him off the bench even with Hinrich's injury. Skiles says he doesn't want to disrupt the chemistry.

Skiles doesn't have the talent to be a championship coach, he can get them deep into the playoffs, but his control issues won't allow the Bulls to win it all. This is the NBA not college, keep controlling talented players like Deng and Gordon, and they won't be here to control much longer. Lebron said it best last night about Gordon "he would be a starter on 30 other teams, no doubt".