I think we've already seen the initial report from Stein which indicated that Reinsdorf had taken over the Deng negotiations. However, I don't believe we had heard anything about him taking over the negotiations having anything to do with him being frustrated with Paxson. Reinsdorf has been heavily involved in Bulls negotiations over the years.

Regardless, I can't blame JR for being frustrated with the way Paxson handled the coaching search. It was a downright disaster although I am relatively pleased with who the team ended up getting (especially the assistants).

I just heard that on the radio... what is going on with Pax? His inability to get that low post scorer the last 2 years and now inability to sign Deng is starting to make me wonder about this guy. I credit his drafts, i even supported the Ben Wallace deal at the time, but he has yet to lock down his best all around player (Deng), the Coaching search was a mess, the Kobe situation last year was a mess and completely messed up all the chemistry on the team, his inability to aqcuire that low post presence has me wondering, what is going on? I will be very interested to see how this Deng progression pans out. If the Clippers end up getting him it will seriously be a disaster for the organization.

Our front office is a fish-up.

My god, I'd rather lose JR. I hope everything works out in the coming seasons or being a Bulls fan is going to be even more depressing.

Del Negro makes a whole lot more sense as a GM then a coach... just saying...

Maybe Paxson should go but I think Jerry's more the problem. Although we credit Paxson and his drafting, the only real draft the I can say he got it right was in 2004 when he traded for the 7th pick. He added Gordon & Deng our 2 best players to the team in the same year. The gamble worked out b/c we made the playoffs and the Suns got a 20 something pick.

But I'm not going to say Paxson had done a great job drafting. That honor would go to Pritchard the Blazers GM. When Paxson took over he had a core of:

Eddy Curry
Tyrson Chandler
Jamal Crawford
Jason Williams (but we know how that turned out)

Since then over 5 drafts, we've had 5 top 10 picks (6 including this year), a 13th pick, and 7 2nd round picks. Some of those picks were b/c we gave up on Curry & Chandler. Curry was traded for fair value but Chandler was not. Curry had his faults but he can Chandler complemented each other perfectly. We had our big man core and we let it go. So with 5 top 10 picks, & a 13th & more free agent $ then we knew what to do with, Paxson failed to build a dominate team in the East. I credit the Wallace signing to Jerry R. He's the one that set the franchise back when that $ could have gone to someone better. Possibly even Brand or BD this off-season. But it is what it is.



In 2003 we had the 7th (Kirk), 36th, 45th, & 53rd picks
In 2004 we had the 3rd, 7th (acquired via trade), 31st, 38th
In 2005 we had no pick b/c we traded it to Pheonix as part of getting the 2004 7th. (Had we not drafted Kirk and settled for an underwhelming PG that we the later paid to much or had we not traded for Deng we likely would have been a high lottery team this year and could have drafted a true PG years before Rose. We could have had Paul or Williams). But renting our way into the playoffs was fun.
In 2006 we had the 4th (Tyrus over Aldridge) & traded up for the 13th (Thabo). (We'll likely regret not dropping down to get Sergio Rodriguez)
In 2007 we had the 9th pick (Noah), 49th, & 54th.

So we drafted Kirk (who was never going to be a star but was treated like one by the franchise) instead of making a deal to move up and get a star or to trade Curry and get David West. I'm sure we could have lumped Curry and future picks or our '07 pick in a deal at the time to move into the top 5 but oh well. So we drafted Kirk which eventually led us to be just good enough to make the playoffs after we drafted Deng & Gordon. The Deng trade was great though it could have been Iguodala instead but who knows who will have a better career. In 2003 we wasted 3 2nd round picks instead of moving up to 30 to draft Josh Howard or moving up into the mid-1st to take David West.

So had Paxson not traded for not drafted Kirk we could have found our true PG in a future draft b/c we likely would not have made the playoffs in 2005 and probably could have drafted Williams or Paul. We then wouldn't have overpaid ($9-10 million for a decent PG). But that's all the past.

So Paxson drafted

Kirk 7th, Gordon 3rd, Deng 7th, Tyrus 4th, Noah 9th, Thabo 13th, & now Rose 1st.


So Paxson can't turn a team around in 5 years into a serious contender. Meanwhile Kevin Pritchard has the Blazers on the verge of domination after taking over the team in 2005-06. This was his roster on opening day 2005-06:

Steve Blake, Juan Dixon, Jarrett Jack, Darius Miles, Travis Outlaw, Ruben Patterson, Joel Pryzbilla, Zach Randolph, Theo Ratliff, Charles Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Martell Webster.

In 2006 Pritchard turned Tyrus Thomas, Telfair, & Kryhapa into Brandon Roy & Lamarcus Aldridge.

In 2007 Gred Oden. That was the easy part. He traded Zach Randolph (the cancer) and his huge contract for Channing Frye. He used an owner's willingness to spend money to purchase the 24th pick and take Rudy Fernandez who is going to be a stud in the league. (Fernandez just finished his season in Spain where he averaged 21 ppg and won 3 seperate MVP awards).

In this years draft he took Bayless 11th. Many people thought Bayless was at top 5 talent. He traded for Ike Diogu who will be the final touch to the front line that features Oden, Pryzbilla, & Aldridge. Then using his owners deep pockets again he bought New Orleans late first and turned it into Nicholas Batum who many projected as a lottery pick last year with Rudy Gay type potential.

Their new lineup is sick:

Oden/Pryzbilla
Aldridge/Frye/Diogu
Outlaw
Roy/Webster/Fernandez/Batum (all 3 could start on a team in the east)
Bayless/Rodriguez (who many think is destined to be a very good PG)

You could argue that they have 3, 4, or 5 better PF/C's then we do. They potentially have a 2 bench SG's that could start on our team over Thabo (since nobody wants Gordon to start), and 2 young PG's who I would have taken in place of Kirk before the drafting of Rose. The PG's might not pan out but that's where all-star Roy will come in handy. We passed on Roy and he's a difference maker out on the court with his incredible all around game. The guy is just a great team player and does everything well.

This team is loaded even with bad contracts to Darius Miles & Zach Randolph Pritchard still managed to perform miracles. What's even more scary is that come the 2010 season they could potentially have more cap room then any team in the league. What a GM. My bet is that they trade away Webster & Frye, both of who will be up for extensions next year and they get future picks for them. They likely re-sign Outlaw to something around $7-8 million and then they are only at something like $30 million in signed contract going into the 2010-2011 off-season. They then have to re-sign Roy but they still will have enough to throw a max offer to one of the big 3.

Can you imagine adding a Lebron, Melo, or Wade to a lineup of Oden, Roy, Aldridge, Bayless, Fernandez? That would be the sickest lineup and all other teams might as well just pack it up and quit.

Why can't Jerry open his pockets and we get a GM like that to perform miracles. I'm tired of being in a big market and not spending money. It's a joke. Teams like Portland get a rich owner and can spend money while we get JR who just wants to make profits and rape the fans.

Eh, hindsight is 20/20. Very few, if any, saw that kind of future production from West and Howard, a lot of teams missed there. I also don't see any way they could have been comparable/worse than Milwaukee, Atlanta, New Orleans and Utah that year, the Bulls won 17 more games than the best of those teams. Even the most fervent Hinrich supporters will say he isn't THAT good. Even if you assume we hadn't traded for Deng that's still a lot of wins, and that was absolutely the right move at the time, we got great value as he was widely projected to go #3 and has turned into a solid starter. As for 2003, there was no way you were getting into the top-3 and Bosh and Wade weren't exactly seen as can't-miss stars. The former was considered a project and the latter was considered a slight reach at the time because people didn't know if he was a PG or a SG. We thought we'd get him at #7, Miami taking him was a surprise. There certainly would have been a riot on the board and in the papers if we had dealt Curry, a very young developing big man that had already shown flashes for an unknown commodity.

You can come up with a comparable list of foul-ups for basically any team in the league, even ones as good as the Suns have been (in fact Bill Simmons wrote an article on it). Up until 2006 we had greatly exceeded reasonable expectations in terms of quality of picks, we managed to get 5 players that were major contributors to playoff teams. Not that long ago we were talking about this team being one of, if not the favorite in the East, things have gone downhill rather rapidly since then. It's become obvious that the team was playing over their heads a bit the last few years and now they're dealing with that, and not too well it appears.

fish Paxson. Reinsdorf was a fine owner when the Bulls were winning 6 Championships, he's a great owner for the White Sox. There's a disconnect here, and it's Pax and his gaping vagina.