Via Smells Like Mascot- and worth a thousand words. Often on Bulls sites, I see blame for various things (most recently D'Antoni's botched hiring) assigned to Reinsdorf or Paxson. After looking back at events, I first want to give my impression of the history and then draw some lessons from it. First, there is some clear evidence from Reinsdorf’s interviews during the coaching search. My impression of this summer is that it went down something like this. * Reinsdorf said Pax recommended the hire D’Antoni. God only knows what happened between Reinsdorf and D’Antoni, but it seems clear that things went south after Pax had more or less signed off. So I would say that’s a clear case where, if Pax had the full authority to do the job, he’d probably have gotten D’Antoni. So while I can’t definitively say, I consider it an instance of Reinsdorf failing where Pax on his own would have succeeded. On the other hand, if getting what you want from a fickle owner is considered part of Paxson’s job, he failed miserably. * The fact that Collins went to Reinsdorf directly, and Reinsdorf came out later and said something to the effect of ‘Pax is struggling to find a coach so I wanted to help’ (I can dig up the exact quote if ya want it) seemed to me to be a pretty obvious no confidence vote in Pax by Reinsdorf. Which is understandable given that, from Reinsdorf’s perspective, Pax had just given his hearty recommendation that he hire D’Antoni, and that blew up in his face. And that he had nothing afterwards. * Likewise, if I think it’s pretty understandable that Pax wouldn’t, regardless of what he might have thought under other circumstances, want Collins installed as coach under those circumstances. * So you get to a situation now Pax probably doesn’t have Reinsdorf’s full confidence any more, but for whatever reason (who knew Reinsdorf was such a sentimental teddy bear?) he just didn’t want to axe him. Especially when, after seeing the mess, Collins probably didn’t want to step into it any more. * So then what? You start over. If you’re Reinsdorft, you step back and let Pax go back to the drawing board since perhaps you mucked up his choice, even if you think it sucked. So Pax starts over coaching search, eventually settling on VDN after multiple interviews with guys who now look like better candidates. I don’t see much evidence that Pax was railroaded into selecting the Hair, so that’s pretty much on him. So at best, I can imagine that Reinsdorf’s interference might have cost D’Antoni. However, that doesn’t excuse Paxson from ultimately hiring Vinnie, who’s pretty disastrous. So what's the lesson here? Well, why did D'Antoni go to New York? Forget everything else... if you go to a job interview and see that your boss and his boss don't quite seem to be on the same page (possible understatement), are you going to go there, or are you going to go to the place where everyone seems on-board and has a plan. New York offered that. Donnie Walsh said here's the plan. I'm going to ruthlessly cut salary, and you're going to have to work with whatever happens to fit in that plan. Within the scope of that plan, you're the man and I'll do whatever you want. In short, the lesson is to have a plan get everyone on board with it. Pax spoke frequently during the coaching search of wanting to find someone who would "set the tone". It always sounded to me that he was looking for someone to do his job for him. Vinnie, ever eager to say he was up to the challenge, was glad to be handed the mess. Whereas more seasoned guys looked at it and saw that getting on board a ship with no one at the helm was not a good idea, he was eager to put on the captain's hat. Not surprisingly he failed. I think with this roster, pretty much any coach would. It's just that Vinnie was desperate enough to try. Unlike Scott Skiles, a couple years ago, who was also desperate, Vinnie wasn't backed up with strong direction from the top. Also, unlike Scott Skiles, Vinnie appears to be a shitty coach. But for all the talk of firing Vinnie, which needs to be done, it's going to be pointless unless this team picks a direction. I see people talking about Avery Johnson and while he didn't sound great the first time around, having a guy who really is a leader, and has a track record of developing a hell of a young point guard sounds pretty good at this point. But I seriously doubt he comes here if he sees a team that has no direction. So Pax, Reinsdorf, decide. Jerry, if you want to second guess Pax, fire him. Hire Doug Collins to be the GM. Or let Pax make his decisions and live with them. Whomever is running the show, Balance this roster. Get some defense and a vet up front to go with the kids. Unclog the backcourt. Get the cap in order, one way or another. Make a decision about 2010 and execute it. Even if you can't do it all at once, decide what you're gonna freaking do. As you said, Pax, someone needs to set the tone. Unfortunately, you didn't understand it was you and your boss.
In any job, unless you are the owner, you need to manage both up and down. Pax failed miserably with Reinsdorf in regards to D'antoni. Pax seems way too conservative and unwilling to commit. Can't commit to moving any 1 of his 6 first round draft picks. Couldn't go all in for D'Antoni (make this hire or I'm done). Can't decide if he needs to supplement the team or start new. Can't decide if they want to extend Gordon. Etc. I think it would be easier to hire a GM with a plan than expect Pax to change his stripes.
Yup. I mean, shit. My opinions are probably pretty well known at this point. I'd absolutely love to trade Kirk, Noc and possibly Thomas. Obviously Hughes. And make a real effort to keep Ben. But ok, if you ain't gonna do that, do what you're going to do. Broker a deal for Ben and get that shit done. If you really think Kirk is your SG of the future and Nocioni plays good defense, then let's freaking see it.
I see it a little differently. I think Paxson has done an excellent job given the cards he has been dealt. Up to this point, I am fine with who he has drafted especially given the fact that he was never really in a position to get a special talent until Rose. He missed on Roy, but that's about it and he had a BG/Hinrich backcourt that had gotten the job done up until that point. And Tyrus could still be as good as LMA by the time he turns 23. Paxson offered everything he had to get Garnett, and made a fair offer for Gasol. If Reinsdorf won't commit the money, that's not on Pax. And D'antoni would have made the bulls fun to watch, but I don't think they'd be contenders for anything but more what if scenarios. And Pax was right to give Deng the money over BG. Deng has always been more consistent if less spectacular. And given the mediocre performance of the players over the last season and a half under 3 different coaches, I'd say it's more the players than it is VDN at this point. He may not turn out to be a good coach, but I don't think you blame him for everything that's happened so far. So to me, the clock started over when the bulls got Rose who clearly has transcendent talent. Figure out who fits around him and how to make him the best player possibly. If that doesn't happen in the next couple of years, then Pax needs to go, but to this point Pax has only just gotten his first ace and he's been forced to bluff with jacks and 10's.
Soooo many ways to read into this. If basketball is purely a business, then Paxson has been an outsanding CEO. He's raised the value of the franchise while keeping it the most profitable in the league. Returns to the owners/shareholders have been outstanding. If basketball is about winning (or contending for, at least) championships, here we are. Utter failure. Reinsdorf is a baseball man. When a GM is hired for a baseball team, he typically has a 5 year plan. How's year 5 of Pax as GM of the Bulls looking? The Notre Dame AD job was open this offseason, and Pax seems like the ideal fit for that job (Skiles as college coach, too). I don't know what happened there, but a few scenarios come to mind. 1) Pax never applied. 2) Pax applied and was rejected. 3) Pax applied, was close to a deal, and Reinsdorf convinced him to stay. 4) Pax really wants to be GM of the Bulls and has some dirt on Reinsdorf. If Pax had gone to ND, wouldn't Vinnie be a pretty good pick to replace him as GM? I think so. Vinnie is not a head coach, he's a trained assistant GM and was director of player pesonnel for the Suns - and the Suns had salary cap issues and not very good draft picks yet parlayed that situation into a much better collection of talent. Though they could not win in the West playoffs, I'd still rather have Stoudamire, Nash, and Bell over our top 3 guys. Compare to this team. Pax took the bad end of deals to free up cap space, then used it to sign Wallace. It was a pretty big gamble that simply failed. The Pax era has seen us saddled with pretty worthless players on big contracts: AD, Joe Smith, PJ Brown, Tim Thomas, Ben Wallace, and now Hughes. As an evaluator of talent, how's Pax really done? He had one brilliant draft where we got Gordon, Deng, and Duhon. He was granted by the gods of the odds the 1st pick and couldn't really go wrong and we got Rose. He signed a pretty good guy in Noc the same year we got that trio of fine picks. Otherwise, the LMA for Thomas draft day trade was a debacle, Noah was an OK pick but a poor fit, Hinrich hasn't become a star player, etc. The roster as constituted after 5 seasons is unbalanced, once the PF/C positions our strength is now our weakness, and despite the movement of star players like Garnett, Shaq, Iverson, Billups, Gasol, and others, we're saddled with big contracts for Kirk and Deng and Noc - all whose trade values have plumetted. Reinsdorf just isn't that interested in basketball. He's said he'd pay for a winner, which disagrees with Paxson's statements about never going into LT land (even for a season, which could really help fix things). I get the sense he's delegated near full control of the team to his GM, and only wants to be the big gun and called upon in rare but most important situations. If I were JR, I'd have made Vinne the GM, and we could do a lot worse than Del Harris (for the short run) as coach. He could have signed Collins or D'Antoni as coach - my take is Collins wanted no part of the clusterfuck under Pax' leadership, same for D'Antoni. Time to start on the next great 5 year plan. Instead, we have a guy who's not a coach as coach, and who's now damaged goods at this point for the GM spot. At this point, I'd do what Dolan did in NY and let Pax coach his own concoction and prove it's a winning formula.
Missing on Gasol is on Pax because he left himself no room to maneuver by signing Noch and Joe Smith that summer.
But Grizzlies were rumored ready to accept the Bulls offer over the Lakers offer if we substiuted PJ Brown in a sign and trade in place of Nocioni. Reinsdorf just was too cheap to go into the luxury tax.
Pax an outstanding CEO? I don't look at Pax as a financial success. First, he doesn't have responsibility or authority for doing most of the financial stuff (that'd be Reinsdorf, Gar Foreman, and Ira Mandel). Second, he had an exceedingly profitable company in a good economy when he took over. Not much of a test. What he did do, was give good direction at the beginning (remember my Pax has reinvented the 03 Bulls post). He came in and when he (belatedly) saw things weren't right, he gave direction. That may have had am impact on the bottom line because he ultimately shed some salary and he certainly reenergized the fan base, which was flagging under the suckitude. That, of course, gets us right back to where we are now though. What Pax fixed before, he has re-broken. And where he seemed to have some sort of idea before, he doesn't seem to now. The economy sucks, and even with Rose, no-shows are increasing. The team is a hare's breath from the luxury tax and no obvious help there is on the horizon.
Right, but then you have Gasol, Noch and Smith on the payroll for $20M and Bulls in lux tax land thereafter. Reinsdorf would have ok'ed the trade if Pax hadn't committed so much of his cap space already. It's just like managing an allowance.
Jay's point is if the Bulls had been smart and not overpaid Nocioni, then Reinsdorf wouldn't have had to say no because the Bulls wouldn't be going into the luxury tax with that trade.
I still don't think you guys get it. This bulls team was flawed from the beginning because Pax has consistently taken the best available talent. With BG as your best offensive player, but a sieve on defense, it was going to take some sort of gimmick strategy to be competitive in the first place. From a basketball standpoint this was a rebuilding year to develop Rose and see who fits with him. That's all the coach should be worried about. Winning some games is important, but they've won plenty as far as that is concerned. And lately BG has only been their 4th best offensive player.
Seems better than Robert Rubin, who was Secy of Treasury under Clinton and has run Citi into the ground since. So yeah, excellent CEO. Basketball man? poor.
He's the central question. It's hard to appreciate the story without analyzing the central character. What happens to him pretty much determines the direction of the franchise for better or worse. Are they worried about selling tickets, winning championships, smooth transition, quick transition, it all evolves around him.
Is he really the central question? I thought Derrick Rose is the central question. The only reason Ben Gordon has become the central question again is because Derrick Rose is failing at being a superstar this season. Back in November, Gordon wasn't the central question. But now with Rose looking like crap out there, Gordon is thrust back into that, the Bulls wins are attributed to other players playing good, and the Bulls losses are attributed to Ben Gordon not delivering.
Ben was always the question. How would the BG/Rose backcourt work? Could they score enough to make up for being small. Pax hired to VDN to get a wide open offense to play to BG's strengths in the open court. The bulls don't run because they want to, they run because they have to. They can't execute in the half court with any efficiency. The problem is that a team needs to be able to play defense to get out and run and they can't do that with a porous perimeter defense.
You are being sarcastic, right? Cause you know, this isn't like a huge forum where it's easy to ignore one guy who wants to turn every topic back to his topic. Just to play along though, he's absolutely not the central question. He's one question among many. Suppose the Ben question is solved tomorrow (either by re-signing him or trading him or letting him walk) and I still don't have a clue about the "identity" of this team or its long-run plans. It'd be one answer, but by no means conclusive or complete. So please. Ben Gordon is not the GM. He's not the owner. He's not responsible for setting the tone for things. And if he is setting the tone (I don't see how he is, but I'm just saying...) then that, itself, is an indictment of everyone above him. Hell, that's pretty much true of the fact any questions with him have drug out this long. You're saying he's the central question why? Because the guys who should be making decisions can't fucking make one about him?
How they handle BG and all the questions surrounding him will reveal a lot about the franchise. Everything else is pretty much window dressing. Yes Pax could have done a few things differently, no VDN wasn't the best choice, and everybody on the roster has holes in their game and needs to improve. I don't think there is anything else to debate.
We'd be pretty much a team led by Steve Francis lite, with worse defense, and a bunch of role players who either disappear during the clutch, or play stupidly.
