Jerry Reinsdorf Speaks, Do Chicago Bulls Listen?

Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t do very many interviews.  Not with the Chicago White Sox, certainly not with the Chicago Bulls.  Jerry Reinsdorf woke up early this morning and gave Mike North and Dan Jiggets an interview on their Comcast Sports “Monsters In The Morning” TV show.  It seems to have been a bit of a disaster, at least for Bulls head coach Vinny Del Negro.

Chicago Bulls head coach Vinny Del Negro wipes his face as he watches his team play. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

In the interview, North gets into the meat of the conversation with Reinsdorf

Mike North: Where would you rate this season?

Jerry Reinsdorf: You want the grade up till today? What’s the lowest grade you can give? This has been a disaster. It’s embarrassing. But it will get better.

Nearly 200 miles away, the Bulls were getting ready for their matchup against the Sacramento Kings.  After their shoot around, Del Negro was asked about Reinsdorf’s assessment.  Chicago Sun-Times staff reporter John Jackson writes in his article in today’s Sun-Times:

“That’s just Jerry trying to motivate and trying to get guys going,” Del Negro said. “Jerry wants to win just like every owner, every coach. It’s not easy. Managing expectations and developing and all those things are very easy to talk about, but they’re hard to do and they take time. Some people are more patient than others.”

I think Vinny got about three quarters of that comment correct.  It is very difficult to manage expectations.  Yes, Jerry Reinsdorf does want to win, and yes, some people are more patient than others.  The motivation part of the statement I absolutely don’t buy one bit.  Honesty is what it is.  Motivation is definitely what it’s not.  It certainly isn’t easy to manage the average ego of an NBA player.  It definitely isn’t easy to manage that ego if you’re a rookie head coach who supposedly carries the label of a “players coach”.  Jerry isn’t the guy that is going to motivate players.  DelNegro is that guy and if he needs Reinsdorf to motivate, that’s an indictment of Del Negro not getting the job done.  It isn’t an easy job, ask Scott Skiles.

The next part of the conversation is what really disturbed me.  Jackson’s transcript of the interview continues with this exchange:

Dan Jiggetts: How comfortable are you with John at the helm?

Jerry Reinsdorf: When you have a team that’s not performing it’s an organization failure. You win and you lose as an organization. But if there’s one person that is not responsible for what’s going on right now, it’s John Paxson. I have tremendous confidence in John Paxson. He’s really one of the best people that I know. He’s a great general manager and a great judge of talent. I just worry that he not be too hard on himself. He takes all of this very, very seriously.

Mike North: To say that he’s not at all responsible … he brought in the players. So are the players not being coached up?

Jerry Reinsdorf: I have a lot of thoughts about that but they’re not thoughts that I really can say publicly. All I know is what we have right now is not good and we have to get it better. They are playing hard in the last half-dozen or so games. We had some games where…

Mike North: You knew they were mailing it in.

Jerry Reinsdorf: They were mailing it in and I felt like standing up and booing along with everybody else. They’re not mailing it in anymore.

This exchange to me, shows how ridiculous Reinsdorf can be sometimes.  The organizations win and lose mantra starts from the top on down.  I didn’t hear Reinsdorf say it starts with him.  He definitely doesn’t hold Bulls GM John Paxson accountable.  It all ends right there with Del Negro holding the bag of stink.  North tried to take it right back at Reinsdorf, suggesting that it might be coaching and Reinsdorf, with the eloquent defense for his general manager, offered no such grace for his head coach.

This whole exchange reminds me of the end of the movie, Titanic.  The ship has hit the iceberg and everyone in charge realizes the ship will eventually sink.  The ship’s captain (Del Negro), doing the honorable thing, locks himself in the bridge, planning to go down with his ship.  The ship’s archtect (Paxson) is last seen standing on the slanted deck of the first class lounge adjusting a clock that stopped, his fate sealed by the iceberg.  It is implied that he too, goes down with the ship.  The ship’s owner (Reinsdorf), who gave the order to speed through the oceans dotted with the icebergs, sheepishly jumps in a lifeboat and saves his life as the ship goes under.  See the parallels?  Accountability starts at the top.  Reinsdorf hired Paxson.  Paxson hired Del Negro.  Reinsdorf signed off on Del Negro.  Reinsdorf is as much a cause of the “disaster” as Paxson and Del Negro.  If he says that instead of that jibberish he said this morning, I would have more faith in his management skills, but alas, it’s yet another example of a lack of leadership and accountability at the top of organizations.  By the way, Bulls analysts Norm Van Lier and Kendall Gill both agree with me.  They said it themselves on tonight’s Bulls Postgame show.

Finally, do you think for a single moment that anyone wearing a red and black uniform really gives a damn about what Jerry Reinsdorf says?  Do you think that Ben Gordon read that interview and suddenly got motivated to drop 50 on the Kings, or to play a little defense?  Do you think Tyrus Thomas or Joakim Noah, or Derrick Rose watched that interview and felt the need to break down the doors to the hotel to sprint to the ARCO Arena to pound the Kings into submission tonight?  Only in your sweetest of dreams.

P.S. The Chicago Bulls pounded the Sacramento Kings 109-88.  Maybe the Bulls were listening a little bit to Reinsdorf….nah, I don’t think so.

Three Reasons Why Chicago Bulls Show Signs Of Implosion

This has not been the best of weeks for a beleagured Chicago Bulls basketball franchise.  This week may be, perhaps the most trying and challenging week in the last 10 years since the drama filled Bulls championship run ended in 1998. With tonight’s 109-108 OT loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Bulls end the week with a five game losing streak.  The Bulls have looked unprepared, disjointed, and uninspired.  And  now, G Ben Gordon airs his dirty laundry out on a rookie head coach in a profanity laced tirade over his objections to a fine for being late for the team flight. The argument just happened to occur in plain sight of the local Chicago sportswriting media.  It may be an inflection point for a franchise that has seen more turmoil of late than championship caliber basketball.

Chicago Bulls forward Thabo Sefolosha (2), guard Kirk Hinrich (12), and forward Tyrus Thomas (24) look on from the bench in the final seconds of their 109-108 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in overtime in an NBA basketball game, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Paul Battaglia)

Where did it all go wrong for the Chicago Bulls?  The Bulls ended the 2006-2007 season with a record of 49-33, one win away from the magical 50 win mark, an acheivement the Bulls have not accomplished since 1998, the year of the 6th and final NBA Championship.  In the 2006-07 playoffs, the Bulls swept the defending NBA Champions, the Miami Heat decisively in 4 games.  In the Eastern Conference semi-finals, the Bulls ran into a buzzsaw, losing the first three games of the series to the Detroit Pistons, but showed great heart and fight by coming back to win the next two games, including a game in Detroit, before bowing out of the playoffs in a 95-85 Game 6 loss.  These Bulls were positioned to skyrocket back to prominence in the Eastern Conference, with some experts picking the Bulls as a favorite to win the conference in 2007-08.

The Bulls took three steps back in 2007 and continue to take yet another step back this season, and it clearly shows when looking at the performance over the last season and a half.  There are three reasons why the Bulls are in a free-fall.  They are:

1.  Lack of growth and development from the core players of this team. F Luol Deng eventually received his long term contract, signing a 6 year, $71 million contract in July 2008.  He’s proceeded to become oft injured and his improvement has stalled as his missed time increased.scoring, rebounding and assist totals have decreased three years in a row.  G Ben Gordon signed the one year tender again, after initially stating he would not play for the Bulls again, and remains a perfect 6th man that demands to be a starter, a scorer extreme, and defensive liability.  C Joakim Noah has made virtually no progress in improving his game, irking veteran teammates with untimely, unwise criticism, while averaging 5.8 pts and 5.8 rebounds in his very short, very unenergetic career.  F Tyrus Thomas is one of the most athletic players in the NBA, but after 2/12 seasons, 187 games, he is shown only incremental improvement.  Add in the inconsistent play of G Thabo Sefolosha, the young core of the Bulls team has shown a clear lack of development.

2.  When the Bulls fired Scott Skiles, management removed one of the only legitimate symbols of a winning mindset. Coaching in the NBA is part knowledge of the game and part psychologist, and Skiles had a history of taking talented teams and getting them to buy into his program of selfless sharing on offense and hustling, all out play on defense, which ultimately leads to winning.  He lifted a struggling Phoenix Suns team to the playoffs, but was fired after the team stopped responding to his demanding, hard-charging style and started to tune him out.  The same thing happened in Chicago.  Now Skiles is the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks and he has the Bucks in the 8th and final playoff position in the Eastern Conference if the season ended today.  The Bucks appear to be responding to Skiles coaching style quite nicely.  After Skiles, the Bulls needed to either reshape the roster, or hire a coach to take them from Point A to Point B.  What they did was whiff badly on their first to choices for coach (Mike D’Antoni and Doug Collins) ultimately taking a chance on a rookie coach (Vinny Del Negro) who has never coachedbasketball  on any level, who has a reputation for being a communicative “players coach”, the philosophical opposite of Skiles.  To date, that risk appears to have not panned out, with speculation of DelNegro losing the team already and rumors that he may not be around to finish the season.

3. Management has failed to acquire one superstar who can carry a team and provide leadership on the floor. Bulls General Manager John Paxson has tried to bring an atmosphere of winning back the Bulls organization.  He has focused on drafting and acquiring players that have played for high profile, winning collegiate basketball programs such as Duke Blue Devils (Deng and G Chris Duhon), Connecticut Huskies (Gordon), national championship runner up Kansas Jayhawks (G Kirk Hinrich and F Drew Gooden), and the national champion Florida Gators (Noah).   While the group of players Paxson acquired are solid basketball players, they are all role players of a supporting cast lacking a true superstar caliber player.  Paxson, like his predecessor, Jerry Krause, has whiffed on acquiring ultratalented superstars such as G Kobe Bryant and  F Kevin Garnett, instead, opting for a past his prime C Ben Wallace, who signed such an albatross contract, that Paxson had to take on the equally bad contract of G Larry Hughes to move Wallace.  The Bulls did luck out in winning the 2008 NBA Draft lottery, yielding Chicago-native G Derrick Rose from University of Memphis.  Rose is young and an up and coming superstar, but is not there yet.  Until he gets there, the Bulls will struggle with the roster they have today.

The remainder of this Bulls season should be focused on finding out if Vinny DelNegro is the right coach, identifying players on the current roster who can play with Derrick Rose, and positioning themselves as far under the salary cap as they can get in 2010, when they can grab any one of a host of superstars from a free agent class headed by F LeBron James, F Chris Bosh, F Dirk Nowitzki, G Dwayne Wade, amongst others.  Anything outside of this may signal the end of the John Paxson era in Chicago.

Dwight Howard Owns The Bulls Yet Again

Looking back to the end of 2008 for the Chicago Bulls, specifically the New Year’s Eve matinee matchup against the Orlando Magic, the Bulls lack of a formidible front line is the team’s biggest, most glaring weakness.  Bulls.com blogger Chuck Swirsky comments:

The Bulls need another body to go up against the strongest man in the NBA today. That’s right . Dwight Howard is ” The Man.” His stats tell only half the story. How many shots does he alter during a game?

The problem the Bulls have is that they don’t have a single person on their roster that is in the neighborhood of being able to contain Dwight Howard, much less stop him.  As long as that remains the case, the Bulls will continue to be exploited by teams with strong front lines, with players as capable and talented as Dwight Howard.

The Bulls front line was exploited yet again in a bad loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team with the worst record in the NBA.  The Bulls were outrebounded 59-37.  Bulls C Joakim Noah and PF Drew Gooden held their own, with 11 and 12 rebounds respectively, but the entire front line of the Thunder had 9 or more rebounds and the Thunder PG Russell Westbrook had 12 rebounds.

Memo to Bulls GM John Paxson: please fix that front line as soon as you can.

Five Reasons Why Derrick Rose Is The Right Pick For The Chicago Bulls

Moments before the start of the 2008 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls had still not given any guidance as to the direction they were going with the #1 pick. Most experts agreed that Memphis G Derrick Rose would be the Bulls choice, but the Bulls did a great job of keeping Kansas State F Michael Beasley in the picture and when NBA Commissioner David Stern walked to the podium to announce the pick, I was uncertain who the Bulls wrote on the card in the commish’s hand.

In the end, Derrick Rose was the right pick for the Bulls for the following reasons:

1. The NBA is evolving into a more perimeter controlled game. Ballhandlers and penetrators are at a premium. Derrick Rose was the best of the perimeter players in this year’s draft. Rose can score, pass, rebound if needed, and play defense. He is unselfish almost to a fault. Rose can penetrate, get to the basket, and finish once he gets there. He still needs to work on his outside shot, particularly his 3-point shooting, and even Rose himself has acknowledged that, but his inside/outside game now is quite potent and will only get exponentially better with time.

2. Derrick Rose is the most competitive player in this year’s draft. His will to win is something not seen in Chicago Bulls basketball since Michael Jordan. In a recent Chicago Tribune article, Rose was asked to describe himself. His response: “An unselfish guard who’s willing to do anything to win. I mean, anything.” Very focused, very precise. His will to win is enormous. This is a kid that cried after losing AAU games. Willing to do anything to win and hates losing? These are qualities that are sorely lacking for anyone currently on the Bulls roster.

3. Derrick Rose’s work ethic and leadership is second to none. Rose has been heralded as the hardest worker in this year’s draft. Again, in a recent Chicago Tribune article on Rose, his work ethic has been described as follows:

“Last summer, shortly after Rose arrived at Memphis, Calipari received a report that Rose’s knee was hurting him. Why would his knee be bothering him already, Calipari wondered.

The answer: Rose was toiling in the gym for six hours at a time. It might have been the first time in recorded history that a coach asked an elite player to stop working so hard.”

Rose is willing to dedicate whatever time is necessary to be the best. All great leaders start by leading by example. Rose is soft spoken, but his actions will speak louder than words. Over time, the words will be there, but Rose may already be the hardest worker on the Bulls roster and he has yet to attend a practice, much less play a game.

4. The home town hero scenario was too good to be true – on the day of the NBA Draft Lottery, the Chicago Bulls had a 1.7% chance of winning the #1 pick. Fate ran it’s course and the Bulls somehow defied odds and were put in position to draft the most dynamic player in this year’s draft. That player so happened to be from Chicago, so a hometown hero in the making.

Many critics point to C Eddy Curry and his inability to succeed with the pressure of playing in your hometown as a reason why the Bulls should have bypassed Derrick Rose. That logic makes absolutely no sense to me. It has nothing to do with playing in your hometown. It has everything to do with heart and character, and Derrick Rose has more heart and character than Eddy Curry. That alone will make the difference. The question of Derrick feeling pressure playing at home was handled deftly on the night of the draft:

His mom Brenda downplayed the notion that playing in Chicago will put more pressure on her son, telling ESPN: ‘‘He’s used to playing in Chicago.’’

The Rose family has handled Derrick professionally with great foresight of the potential of playing in Chicago for the Bulls. They have taught Derrick to handle pressure. This is a support system that Eddy Curry lacked.

5. Derrick Rose’s heart is in Chicago – he will also be the heart of professional basketball in Chicago for years to come. One day, Mr. Rose will be known only as Derrick, like the other great Bull, Michael. The heart of a championship team has walked in the door of the House That Michael Built. If Derrick Rose continues to work his craft, to constantly and consistently work on improving his game, the sky’s the limit. He will one day wear a NBA championship ring, maybe multiple rings…..and I am not one to doubt that this will not happen.

If you still doubt that Derrick Rose is the right pick for Chicago, the Bulls will be playing in the NBA Summer League in Orlando, FL from July 7-11. You can watch a live video webcast of each game on www.orlandomagic.com.

Musings On The Chicago Bulls and the NBA

The NBA playoffs started this weekend and noticeably absent are the Chicago Bulls. While the best teams in the NBA begin the “money” season, teams like the Milwaukee Bucks hire disciplinarian coaches like Scott Skiles. Other teams like the Chicago Bulls are holding their off season team meetings and wondering what to make of the mess of a wrecked season.

In the NBA, like other major professional sports leagues, teams win with a combination of athleticism/talent and desire. With talent and desire, you are the San Antonio Spurs or the Boston Celtics. With lack of athleticism/talent, but an abundance of desire, you can be teams like this year’s Philadelphia 76ers and in the past, teams like the Chicago Bulls. Teams with neither talent or desire become the Memphis Grizzlies or the New York Knicks.

What exactly happened with the Chicago Bulls this season? The Bulls were a team with little talent but with great desire. They worked, hustled, played defense according to the gospel of John Paxson and Scott Skiles. It brought the Bulls 49 wins last season, a playoff series win against the rapidly aging Miami Heat, and a heated playoff series loss to the Detroit Pistons. Entering this season, the Chicago Bulls had a high draft pick, compliments of the New York Knicks and all their starters returning from last season’s successful run. Many picked the Bulls to win the Eastern Conference and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.

Then, two things happened that led to the downfall of this year’s team. First, Bulls GM John Paxson knew that he needed a superstar talent to lead this team. Every successful team in the NBA, short of the Detroit Pistons, have a superstar player, a team leader, the guy that will take over in crunch time of a game and impose the will to win on his teammates. Paxson missed badly on acquiring C Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves and whiffed a couple of times on trades for C Pau Gasol. Paxson had drafted some very nice complementary players from solid, winning college programs after cleaning up the mess left by previous Bulls GM Jerry Krause, but none had proven to be the superstar, athletic talent that teams require to compete in the upper echelon of NBA championship contenders. Paxson correctly determined that he needed to acquire that superstar player, and as timing would have it, during the NBA pre-season, Kobe Bryant, arguably the best player in the NBA was vocally unhappy with his situation and publicly stated he desire to get out of Los Angeles. To his credit, Paxson inquired about the availability of Kobe Bryant and rumors ran rampant over the airwaves. Bryant was sure to be traded, as there has been no love lost between Bryant and Los Angeles Lakers head coach Phil Jackson, supposedly Jackson had enough with his moody star player. The table was set for a blockbuster deal with prime players identified from the Bulls being some combination of Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich, and Ben Wallace. Luol Deng and Ben Gordon were also offered what each player considered lowball contract offers going into the preseason, but combined with the trade talks, led to a bad taste in every player’s mouths. In the end, the teams never came to terms on players and the deal fell through as the season began.

The second thing that happened was most likely residual from the events above, for some reason, most every player on the Bulls had stopped responding to the playing and coaching style that brought great success to the Bulls. The Bulls stopped hustling for loose balls, stopped playing hard nosed defense, lacked hustle, with team play virtually non-existent. Both Deng and Gordon admitted that the Kobe Bryant trade rumors plus the perceived lowball contract offers affected their play. Each played as through they had to individually prove they were worth not only bigger contracts, but to justify not being traded for Bryant. Their play dropped off dramatically, along with the other potential players in the trade, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Wallace, and Tyrus Thomas and the fate of Coach Scott Skiles and the Chicago Bulls was sealed.

So where does that leave the Bulls now? John Paxson had two of the most difficult tasks to complete in last year’s off-season. He needed to find a superstar, talented player and needed to move Ben Wallace and his albatross contract. Paxson was successful in unloading Wallace to the Cleveland Cavaliers after this season was lost, but has been glaringly unsuccessful in getting that superstar athletic stud talent, and without the high draft picks that can yield that player in the NBA draft. If the Bulls get lucky to land one of the top 2 picks and be in a position to get C Michael Beasley or G Derrick Rose, they can still leverage a combination of Larry Hughes, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, or Drew Gooden to land a second superstar type player to fuel their rebuilding process. The Bulls need athletic, talented players that have the desire to compete and win every night and need to complement those players with a supporting cast of complimentary players. Right now, they have the complimentary players, but they still lack the superstar.

The Bulls also need a coach that will bring the team spirit back, a coach that can get the players to buy into the team concept once again. Rick Carlisle is available, as is Larry Brown as well as a slew of other ex-NBA coaches that work for ESPN, TNT, or any other network that employs ex-basketball coaches. This offseason is mission critical for GM John Paxson. If he doesn’t get it right, his next moves will be as ex-GM of the Chicago Bulls.

Chicago Bulls Beat The Detroit Pistons, But Have A Hard Time With Everyone Else

I sometimes have an enormously difficult time figuring out the Chicago Bulls. Take Friday night, for instance. The Bulls play a talented but beatable Golden State Warriors team that provided match up difficulties and the Bulls were actually winning by 14 points in the second half, but were upended 119-111 by sketchy play down the stretch. The next night, on the second game of a back to back, which the Bulls are something like 2-9 on the second game of a back to back, beat the Detroit Pistons 97-81, arguably the best team in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.

(AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

The Bulls played a terrific game against the Pistons, defined by a very strong 4th quarter performance. The next 10 games are vital for the Bulls, for they have to have a stretch of winning to get to the .500 level. That should be their first goal. The next should be to position themselves as the 5th or 6th seed in a very weak Eastern Conference. If they are a 7 or 8 seed, the Bulls will have very little chance of advancing in the first round of the playoffs. But they have to get there first…..

The Bulls Are Not A Good Team….And Time Is Running Out

Watching the Chicago Bulls play the Golden State Warriors tonight in a 119-111 home loss, it occurred to me that the Bulls are flat out, not a very good team. And that’s about as polite as I can get about a team that really lacks game-breaking talent or any semblance of leadership, organization, or passion. The Bulls also lack a clear identity and that’s been a long running problem for this team and organization. The Bulls have somehow figured out a way to take two and a half steps back on the path to reclaiming their glory days of the Michael Jordan years.

(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

It appeared that the Bulls were assembling good, solid, fairly skilled players that are fundamentally sound and would be great complementary pieces to a marquee free agent signing. The Bulls then signed F/C Ben Wallace and paid him a boat load of money, but I’m still not exactly sure WHY they signed him. He was a high profile name, coming from a successful, NBA Champion pedigreed team in the Detroit Pistons, and seemed to be high energy with the heart of a gamer. A closer look at Ben Wallace shows an undersized F/C that was clearly on the downside of his career, a defensive stopper with no offensive game, a free throw shooter on par with Shaquille O’Neal, in short, not the marquee name to slide into the star role the Bulls sorely lack and need.

Future drafts and free agents signings brought in good, talented players from successful college programs. The Bulls were assembling more complementary talent, that I was sure was earmarked for a trade to bring a game-breaker or two. Then the Tyrus Thomas pick….GM John Paxson moved off the playbook and drafted for potential, bypassing C LaMarcus Aldridge for a more athletic, less fundamental, sky high potential of a freak athlete with only two years of college basketball under his belt. Then the whole thing blew up under the weight of high expectations following a 49 win season in 2006-2007.

After tonight’s home loss the Bulls record stands at 14-22, 8 games under .500 and having a very Chicago Bears-like season. The Bulls, owners of a win streak no longer than two games, are a mess. The Joakim Noah farce was the latest in a turbulent season that has seen gross underachievement, the firing of very successful head coach, Scott Skiles, on Christmas Eve, nonetheless, the two day pause in naming Jim Boylan as interim head coach (as if Skiles was fired with no plan for a replacement in mind) and now G JamesOn Curry developing a urination problem that required resisting arrest and an overnight stay in a Boise, ID jail cell.

The record and poor play would have been more than enough to dislodge the faithful. Add in the endless public relations nightmares, repeated over and over again, the lack of any clear direction or vision for this team, and the lack of any action to forge an identity (pointing out lack of pulling triggers on trades for Memphis C Pau Gasol, C Kevin Garnett, SG Kobe Bryant, or any other playmaker that can make a difference). Now there is talk that the Bulls may be interested in Tracy McGrady. Please. The Bulls are turning into the New York Knicks, and doing it so well, that people are forgetting about the real New York Knicks. Only in the NBA Eastern Conference, would a team like the Bulls be sniffing a playoff spot with this kind of karma……Note to Ben Gordon and Luol Deng: you should have signed those contracts.

Where Art Thou, Scott Skiles?

It’s the day after Christmas and Scott Skiles has left the building, be it the United Center, The Berto Center, or any other official Chicago Bulls facility in the greater Chicagoland area. Fired by the Chicago Bulls on Christmas Eve (memo to Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf: try not to fire personnel on holidays or eve of holidays, it makes your team management look very insensitive), Coach Skiles was spared the agony of having to deal with this dysfunctional Bulls team. Oh, and don’t feel so bad for Coach Skiles — he walked away with $7M in compensation, which negates any ill feelings over the timing of his termination.

The Chicago Bulls team that Scott Skiles leaves is certainly better than the one he inherited, but the larger question remains — what direction is this team heading? Like the Doug Collins firing in the late 80’s, the Bulls (and GM John Paxson, I might add) are at a crossroads. They have some fine young talent, but no clear floor leader or go-to guy that can take the heat off of everyone else. G Ben Gordon and F Luol Deng look foolish every day of lacksidasical, underachieving day that passes. The extensions that were offered look so much better in the light of poor, uninspired play.

Don’t think for a moment that this is the last move that Paxson makes, because if he doesn’t make wholesale changes to this roster, he may not be around to make any more changes…..oh, and by the way, welcome back to the interim coaching ranks, Pete Myers. Your reward? A date with the defending NBA Champions, the San Antonio Spurs.

Chicago Bulls Pull One Out On The Detroit Pistons

Game 4 of the Chicago Bulls – Detroit Pistons playoff series was about one thing, and one thing only: Did the Bulls have any heart? I think the answer to that question was a resounding yes. As we have been reminded time and time again, no team in NBA history has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series. None, nada, zippo. Heck, teams with a 3-1 defecit have come back to win the series a total of 8 times in 162 tries. So, nearly impossible?  Today’s 102-87 victory over the Pistons is a good start.

(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Logic is telling me that the Bulls will meet their demise in Game 5 of this series, as the locale moves back to Detroit, but there is a growing part of me that thinks, “Someone has to be the first team to win a series being down 3-0, why not the Bulls?” So what will it take for the Bulls to win this series? Well, frankly, a miracle, but miracles do happen, but the Bulls need more. They need to:

1. Keep moving through the Pistons zone defense – The Bulls did this quite effectively today, but inexplicably, they stopped doing it during most of the 4th quarter. When they stopped being aggressive with their cuts, Detroit came back. Same thing happened in Game 3, and before we knew it, 19 point lead and the game were history.

2. Limit turnovers – The Bulls must drastically limit the amount of turnovers, with the main culprit being G Kirk Hinrich. Hinrich’s drive and dump passes have been sloppy, with the Pistons taking advantage to run their limited fast breaks. The Bulls did much better today in limiting the amount of devistating turnovers, and will need to continue this trend to have a chance.

3.  Ben Gordon, Hinrich, and Luol Deng need stellar performances — not one of the three, not two of the three, but all three need to step up and lead for this team to have a chance.  Deng dropped 25 pts. on the Pistons today with Hinrich and Gordon netting 19 each.  If the Bulls can get the same amount of production from their Big 3, that will go a long way towards getting back in this series.  If even one falters, go get the golf clubs.

4.  Play with energy, emotion, and intensity for 48 minutes – this is the Tyrus Thomas  rule, for he is the only Chicago Bull that has faithfully followed this rule whenever he steps on the court.  The Bulls need to, at minimum, match the Pistons intensity and more like exceed their intensity and energy to have a fighting chance.  The Bulls came out today and did that for most of the 48 minutes today.  They will have to continue this trend to continue playing on…

5.  Play for today, don’t look beyond today’s game — have to take it game by game, even quarter by quarter.  Small victories, win each quarter.  Look beyond any of that and y0u are dead in the water…..

So maybe the Bulls don’t have a chance, but maybe they do.  Which team will show up in Detroit on Tuesday.  The Bulls have nothing to lose at this point, so play all out and play hard.  Don’t leave anthing on the court.  That’s how you get back into the series.  It’s not going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is….

SportsMaven Returns With A Flourish — Chicago Bulls Crush the Washington Wizards

Hello loyal readers! The SportsMaven is back from a break and ready to catch you up on all things Chicago sports! In my absence, a lot of things have happened in the Chicago sports world, but I wanted to kick off my return post beginning with the Chicago Bulls. I attended today’s Chicago Cubs game against the Cincinnati Reds this afternoon. I actually attended the entire three game series this weekend, but today’s game was on one of Wrigleyville’s famous rooftops (thanks to the folks at Beyond the Ivy). More to come on the Cubs, but one of the cool things about going to a rooftop game is the fact that I was able to watch both the Cubs game live and the Chicago Bulls play the fading Washington Wizards in an all important game for the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

I’m happy to note that the Bulls looked OUTSTANDING again today. They are peaking at the exact right time of the season. After today’s 101-68 blowout of the Washington Wizards, the Bulls are on track to finish their season with 50 wins and the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference. The beauty of the situation is that the Bulls are getting better and better as the season goes on. With each passing day, the Bulls are proving that they are a strong contender for the Eastern Conference championship and a shot at the NBA Title.

A win on Wednesday against the New Jersey Nets will seal the #2 seed in the East and a date most likely against the same Nets team or possibly the Wizards, who are in a free fall and predicted to be a quick exit from this year’s post-season. I LOVE the Bulls chances to get to the Finals this season. The Eastern Conference is wide open and the Bulls have beaten the conference’s top team, the Detroit Pistons three of four games this season. If all things hold true, look for a classic Bulls-Pistons matchup that has more sub-plots and drama than a good Shaquille O’Neal – Kobe Bryant feud.