General Manager: John Paxson

Ok, after making no moves during the trade deadline, obviously it looks like Paxson is going to continue to build through the draft and a few signings through free agency. For a while now, I have slowly been slipping off the Paxson bandwagon and right now I am unsure of how good a General Manager he is. Sure people say he turned this franchise around but after the past few years of mediocrity (sp?) the Bulls have looked like the exact team as they were in 04-05, and that is a hustle team that just will out work you and will beat you by the jumpshot. Yes thats all fine and dandy but what happens when you don't make 50% of your jumpshots? The odds aren't in your favor and thats why we are about an average team. Paxson has drafted players with similar attributes as history shows. He wants players who come from winning programs.

Examples) Andres Nocioni,Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas. He has alot of work to do before we become championship contenders once again.

Coaching Staff: Scott Skiles

Why is it that we always blame the players for lack of development and give Skiles the pass? It seems that Scott can only develop one type of player and doesn't have the flexibility to teach someone with different skill sets. Alot of people think his job is just X's and O's when in reality he is still the most important part in player development because coaches teach things to young players. I've said this before, Skiles can change a nobody into a somebody but he can't change a somebody into the superstar of a franchise.

Players like Tyrus Thomas, people have all their different opinions on him. Those who have disliked him from day one will obviously focus more on the negative stories and those who have loved him will focus more on the good things. In reality Tyrus is a project who is very raw and is expected to go through growing pains and because of our success in recent years, that is why Paxson drafted him. We can wait for the development of Tyrus because we have the luxury that other lottery teams don't and that is we have already won. The Tyrus debate will never be won for another 1 or 2 years no matter what people say. I believe that ever since his thoughtless comments on the NBA dunk contest he has put himself under the microscope and people have assumed the worse on all the headlines.

Tyrus is just a kid and when time goes on he will gain maturity and experience because he is surrounded by a team full of hard work ethic guys that Paxson has made for the team. He will improve but us Bulls fans must be patient. But Skiles is such a hipocrit with his players, especially Tyrus. After having a good game against Detroit or any other team, the next game he never sees the floor for more than 2-3 minutes. You can't judge his productivity off of the 8-10 minute spurts he gets, it is just unfair.

Players: Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich

These are the players that have been expected to become great over the years and often times have been talked of as the "Core" which is the most overated word on any Bulls board. The only consistent player out of the three is Luol Deng who is my favorite from the group. He is a hard worker who improved dramatically from last year after his wrist injury season of 05-06. Gordon is becoming more and more consistent this year but he is cold some nights and hot others. Thankfully he has learned how to take it to the basket and get to the free throw line. If these 3 players continue to grow our future looks bright. The only missing piece to this team is a dominant low post player which we had the chance to get this year but passed. Obviously we have other plans, I just hope they work out.

Why is it that Scott Skiles is given no credit for the significant development of players under his watch? Luol Deng has massively improved this year, as has Ben Gordon. Both have improved their shot selection, shooting percentage, scoring per game, I believe lil' Ben has cut down on the turnovers, both have improved their defense (including notably Gordon), and that's on top of the slow but steady improvement we've seen out of Hinrich offensively (to go along with his smothering defense).

The only thing Skiles hasn't done yet with this team is develop a big man, although Curry and Chandler did see improvment under his watch (especially Curry in 04-05 pre heart condition). Chandler was the particularly bad case, with him coming in out of shape in 05 and costing himself a lot of performance, but as far as I can see, that is 1 example, of a guy who didn't start his career with Skiles, who wound up hurting himself by not working out. But as far as I can see, TT is the first big man that Skiles has a real chance to develop from the starting gates.

I just think Skiles is given way too much credit than he deserves and not enough blame.

I myself, am falling off the Paxon bandwagon. TT was bad pick bottom line.

I don't care if he blossoms into a star 4-5 years from now, we need an impact player down low right nwo, and he could have used that pick to get one(if not in the draft, via a trade, and he didn't)

I'm not sure who we could have gotten if we had traded that pick. I mean, Tyrus is still as valuable as that pick was last summer, so if we weren't going to get rid of Tyrus for a big time player now, that pick wouldn't have gotten us one last summer.

You can argue Pax should have made a trade, but you can't argue that he made the wrong pick... What has Aldridge done this season? He's playing 20 minutes/game, and averaging 7 pts, 4 rebs, and 1 blk. If Tyrus were playing that many minutes, then he'd be averaging about 8 pts, 6 rebs, and 2 blks per game. The only other big man worthy of that high of a pick would have been Shelden Williams, and he's not doing much either.

So, when we actually sit down and think through everything, the goal for John Paxson and Scott Skiles is to take a team that was an absolute disaster and turn it into NBA Champs.

How has he done so far? Well, if you're taking a team like that, your main goal is probably to get better every year until you reach the caliber of the Mavs, Suns, (the exception being of course Phoenix, where the signing of Steve Nash combined with a new coach and the coming of age of Amare, etc., helped create a perfect storm in 1 season where they improved massively). If you think about teams like the Spurs, Lakers, Pistons, Heat, they didn't really have gigantic performance jumps the year they won their first title; they stepped their way up.

So, how have the Bulls done these few years? 2003, the Bulls win 23 games. 2004, 47 games. Big ass improvement. That's the type of thing you want to see.

Unfortunately, the Bulls then had an unexpected setback in the "Improve every year" plan; Eddy Curry's heart condition. Instead of being able to improve year over year, the Bulls had to take a step back in 05. 41 wins, down from 47. This year, on pace to win 44-45 games at current winning %age (hopefully that number goes up more).

To my eyes, this is still a young team that is growing. They had a hiccup which has prevented them from reaching as high as they can; the Curry flap and all the damage it did. But this is still a team that looks to be improving, they're still a team that has been either #1 or #2 each of the past 3 years in opponent's field goal %age (and therefore does a damn good job on defense), and a team who's average age is 25.6 years, and that's fairly top-heavy.

If this team stagnates for a couple years, first I'll be surprised, but then I'd consider making a move. But everything I see tells me that this is a team on the way up, and a team that can very easily be the best in the conference within a year or two.

milsap probably would have been very helpfull... but I don't think anyone would have bet on him being the best big in the draft to this poiint.

We won't know how bad or great of a pick he was for atleast another 2 or 3 years. Its not like Lamarcus Aldridge would have helped that much more. Tyrus produces more in less minutes than Aldridge and both are fouling machines. I was fine with whoever we got on the draft and IMO its still looks like its going to be the weakest draft in years but like I said above, we won't know for a while.

The best way to learn is to be out there on the court not in practice. We don't see there practice and maybe Tyrus and Thabo aren't hard practice players which I'd find hard to believe but they have played hardly at all this year and Its dissapointing for a fan. Both have big upside and I wouldn't trade either one right now. I'd like to see how far they have improved over this coming summer because thats when the rookies of yesteryear can actually improve WITH the team instead of going through draft camps and what not.

Tyrus just needs to improve on getting stronger, playing smarter basketball and improve his mid range shot. Unfortuanetly we have no inside player to take after so It will be difficult to improve that part of his game without a player that can help mentor him.

Thabo just needs to work on his quickness and first step on offense. His passing is good and he has good instincts but like all rookies he has mental lapses. I'd like to see each of them get more minutes during the final stretch, were going to need them.