Stein also mentions the rumors in his article on the hiring of Vinny:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/stor...egrobulls080611

Yet it never has seemed more obvious that Paxson is getting major interference from above. Some of Paxson's peers insist that the signing of Ben Wallace and corresponding exile of Tyson Chandler, as well as the Bulls' chronic inability to make the big trade splash we've been expecting for years, should go on Reinsdorf's record more than Pax's. One source insisted to me this week that one reason the boss ultimately favored Del Negro over Casey and Person is because he scored highest with the team psychologist Reinsdorf employs with the Bulls and baseball's Chicago White Sox.

If it's true that he forced Pax's hand to sign Wallace, then he forced Pax's hand again. They couldn't afford to keep them both, one had to go.

I think that Tyrus got stuck in a bit of a terrible catch 22. Part of it is that we do have to realize that he's only 21 years old with limited basketball experience. He's also never really lived outside of the state of Louisiana. They've provided terrible leadership on the team really with limited Chemistry (which, IMHO, is the biggest negative of the Paxson GM experience). So they have this kid who is still learning how to play basketball, also learning how to play power forward and small forward all at once, with a coach who is terrible at consistency when it comes to players. Last year he suffered through the most selfish era of Bulls basketball I've ever seen.

Yes, he is immature and has to grow up as a person. But if you watch the game, he always runs back on defense. He's definitely 10 times more excited to play defense at this point than offense. I'll definitely take that right now.

If the Bulls give up on him now, they're going to be severely disappointed. Here's a guy that's still got his ceiling to hit. Unlike a Ben Gordon or a Kirk who have already hit it and won't get much better.

I know he works hard, he practices hard. But it took the Bulls a year and a half to add a big man coach. With the amount of youth on this team, does that make sense to anyone?

This evening he was on the radio talking about the Collins deal. He validated some of the reports that I had read and heard earlier and about how much Reinsdorf interferes:
- It was Reinsdorf that negotiated with Ben Wallace and pushed for that signing. That had been reported for a long time that Reinsdorf wanted to sign him more than Paxson
- Reinsdorf also negotiated with Skiles after everything fell apart. I find it interesting that he was unwilling to pay a coach more than $4 mil (as reports state) since he was the one that gave the Skiles the extension after he turned it down
- Stephen A also reported that several sources are saying that it was Reinsdorf who wanted to pull Collins into the coaching mix. So that would mean tha he chose him, then changed his mind

It was also reported by Stephen A that the Bulls basically have no real idea which direction they are going or who to hire. And all the coaches that have interviewed are quite aware of that fact.

This just adds to the reasons I hate Reinsdorf.

The Score reports he's the delay in naming Collins the head coach. He wants to take the time to make sure he's making the right decision.

That's just great. Paxson is the GM and can't make the decision. This means that Reinsdorf made the decision to try and hire Collins and is now deciding that he might not make the right decision.

Why do we have a GM again?

The thing that has me thinking was when Bill Cartwright was the coach, Paxson asked him if he'd like Collins as his assistant.

Maybe Collins would be the assistant to the young coach they are going to hire? Am I that crazy?

If Shaun Livingston is healthy, Hinrich is a great counterpart to him. He can do some ball handling, but he moves better without the ball and can guard a PG. Just get his Brand in return.

I think Howard is a guy you can build around. Bosh is a supplemental guy who can be a piece of the puzzle, but not the center piece. He doesn't rebound or block shots well enough for me to be the guy for the number one pick.

But a guy like him makes Deng much better, and Gordon makes Bosh better.

Dwayne Wade = Too ouchy to give up the number one pick. Games played per year:

1- 61
2- 77
3- 75
4- 51
5- 51

I'm starting to fear that with all his injuries, Wade is going to end up going the Penny Hardaway route.

First off, you're posting a response to the first draft response that Ford has put in. He's only going to do the positive reviews at this point. Seriously. Remember this is the same Chad Ford that couldn't stop drooling over the work that Darko was doing the year before the draft as well. That's great. Yes, OJ is much more talented than Darko. And dominating players younger than him right now, that are not as physical as he is, is what he SHOULD be doing.

Comparing Mayo to Arenas is fair, in the fact that both are awfully streaky shooters. He can carry you for a game or 2, then kill you on the 3rd.

Mayo has got good range, yes. But his midrange game is average and he's not as athletic as a Lebron and will struggle to get to the rim like he did in college. It's also not a good think to see that he shot 215 3's in the year. If he's jacking up 6.5 three's a game in college....yikes.

He might have a Gilbert Arenas ceiling...but he's definitely looking like he's got a JR Smith floor.

My little list:
- We dont draft Rose or Beasley...double that if it's Lopez
- We trade the pick for an above average starter only
- We don't make significant other moves
- Our coaches players (Noc and Duhon) are on the team and taking minutes away from the developing kids
- We hire a coach who doesn't have the patience to stick with the youth and give this team long term growth

That's really it.

Kirk makes sense in places like Miami (where Wade dominates the ball), Portland (where Roy does), etc. With a contract that actually declines in value over the years, it might be an apetizing deal.

Yeah, we definitely want a guy with a 38.7% career shooting percentage to be our starting point guard. A guy who shot 25.7% for the entire month of January is an ideal starting caliber point guard in the NBA.

You know it's not that I don't like Kirk. I think he was the right pick at the time for the bulls. But he's not a true point guard, that's the bottom line. And the Bulls kept trying to put that square peg in a round hole.

He played much better during those games in which Ben Gordon was out and Thabo took over the ball handling while he started. 38 at Indy, 31 at Phoenix, 27 at Minnesota. Hell, he wasn't even a PG at Kansas was he? Who was their little PG?

Kirk is a good defender, good combo guard to come off the bench for you. But not to start, and not at 11 million a year.

It's another one of Pax's fish ups. Drafting Hinrich works if next year you do a combo of Deng and Iguodola. But he went with another combo guard and it just didn't work.

I'm still glad to have that cash on hand. They'll make a step next year, but I won't regret not paying more money for a 33 win team

But I am very happy.

I have an ego, so I had to start this as a new topic:

I watched a lot of Memphis ball this year (my wifes family is from down there), and Rose was sick. It's the little things he does from top to bottom that make him the pick to me. And I will not be upset with Beasley, but I truthfully think that with his character concerns the Bulls don't look at him.

ESPN Insider calls him a combination of CP3 and Williams. D'Antoni calls him Jason Kidd with a Jumper. He gets out and plays defense and is physical. He's also so quick to the hole.

Not trying to compare that much to CP3, but...look at the effect a good point guard had on Tyson Chandler. Yes, he always got rebounds and was a defensive player. But playing with CP3 made him a double-double threat. Now imagine what a point guard that can penetrate will do for Tyrus (Especially when coupled with him working out with Thorpe) and Noah.

Kirk Hinrich is not a point guard. He is one of the worst penetrators I've seen. He's got no handle. I like Kirk as a player, and as a bench guy coming off as a combo guy he works. Or paired with a bigger point guard. But he's not a true point.

You know who instantly becomes better with Rose, aside from Noah and Thomas? Deng. Since he is not athletic enough to create his own shot consistently, he needs a good point guard to help him. Imagine his stats hitting 15-18 footers wide open after Rose penetrates? Should be good.

You draft Rose and don't worry about it ever again.

The sad thing is, our pick in round one will end up around a place to pick up DJ Augustin. Who just so happens to be the perfect PG for a Mike D'Antoni system.

But if we don't get a top 2 pick, we're left with choices of Kevin Love, Koufus, Brook Lopez area.

Another draft of limited upside guys. That depresses me even more.

I agree with you that Reinsdorf needs to sell the team. Paxson would go then as well.

I split season tickets with 2 buddies of mine. A year after the Bulls win 33 games, the team has raised ticket prices and demanded full payment by May 19th. This is most likely before they name a head coach and before the draft. What has this team done to deserve a raise in ticket prices? 33 wins? Come on. Needless to say, we decided against renewing season tickets.

But we got started talking about the moves of the Paxson GM era and their minimal impact. We all fell in love with him at first because he built a team that lead us to the playoffs. But is making it to the 2nd round once really that awe inspiring?

To point:
- He's had 5 top 10 picks and 2 top 5. None are all-stars or even close
- He chose Scott Skiles and Ben Wallace over Tyson Chandler. Granted we don't have CP3 to throw him the ball, but who looks better?
- His big signings have been: Ben Wallace, Andres Nocioni, Scottie Pippen
- His trades: Jamal Crawford for a bunch of filler, Eddy Curry for draft picks (Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah), deals for Antonio Davis and other vets
- Passed up on trades for Kobe, Gasol, etc. so he didn't give up his youth
- Continually drafted low ceiling/high floor guys (Hinrich, Gordon, Deng are all solid players but not All-Star talented players)
- Allowed the Boylan experience to continue at the expense of developing our youth just so we could run at the playoffs...even though that would've meant a first round sweep by Boston

And don't get me started on Reinsdorf. Any owner that proclaims he'd trade all of his NBA championships for one World Series ring shouldn't own a team.

I think we've reached the point where we need to blow up from top down, including the ownership.

Exactly. On that team, Raja Bell is really the only defensive player. Nash has never played defense. They also played a weird lineup, with heavy minutes hoisted upon guys like Boris Diaw playing out of position.

If anything, the way the team didn't pay the right players is what killed them. Joe Johnson goes, but they pay big cash to Diaw? They add players to the rotation like Tim Thomas, etc.?

I don't think defense was something that even the great Colangelo was wanting. Otherwise he would've added the right players.

Are you kidding? Minnesota got Al Jefferson, who's a 20/10 guy for the rest of his life. There's no comparison.

You're missing one key, key difference: Kidd, Garnett, Gasol, quietly Shaq, Marion, etc...all demanded trades. Teams sat on them and that lowered the value that teams got. Remember that 2 years ago the bulls offered Chandler, draft picks, and whoever else for Garnett and got turned down.

As it stands, right at this moment, we don't have the ammo because no star has demanded a trade.

We do? What pieces can we offer to go get a superstar, let alone one that's not available?

Aside from the upside potential of Tyrus Thomas and a C+ SG in Larry Hughes...we've got no value pieces. And until Wade flat out demands a trade...our package can't get anything.

I couldn't agree more. Though I will say that we've seen some big improvements from Tyrus since the hiring of a big man coach. He's developed a little hook shot, a nice spin move, etc. And his jumper is becoming much steadier from 15 feet in. In my opinion, he's going to be a small forward in this game. And that's why we can get rid of Deng in a deal.

Boylan is a horrible coach. His rotations are terrible, he doesn't really do anything consistently, and he is too quick to sadly go to Nocioni. Like oh no, we're down by 3...we need Noc in there. Great.

Never before have I been so frustrated as a Bulls fan.

First, Wade is not available. Miami has 2 more years to get into contention before they have to worry about trading him. There's no way they're going to blowup that franchise at this moment. Especially with the opportunity to add a Beasley or Rose this offseason. They've got all sorts of cap space with Marions contract off the books, and he will not be signing with them again.

Second, we have no deal that would get us Wade. And the Heat do not have Wallace as their GM, so we cannot pull off a highway robbery like the Lakers did.

And most likely not a good pick in it either. That's great.

Watching today's game made me sick. Nocioni is 1 on 5...so he shoots a 3? No one in place to rebound, just chuck a 3? What the hell is that?

Ben Gordon is the worst ball handler for a former point guard I have ever seen. We can sign and trade him for all I care.

Remember when it was "Luol is going to be an All-Star". Well, the real truth is we're seeing why he wasn't drafted higher. He's not athletic enough to guard most SF's. He cannot create his own shot. At all.

We cannot have Hughes and Noc on the floor at the same time. They just don't see a shot they don't like.

Deng should get a deal for what Noc has. Noc, Gordon need to go. If Hinrich neds to go with them, so be it. And we need to hope to god we get a pick high enough for Beasley or Rose.

Noc couldn't guard the SF or the PF that he was put on. Whoever Noc went on just went off. He's a 15 minute a game scorer that comes in and scores in bunches, then goes back to the bench. Sadly we pay him 7 mil per year for that.

Hughes made a good impression today. He's a good balhandler, attacks the basket (which no one other than he, Tyrus, and sometimes Deng want to do), and has good vision. I'm expecting big things from him.