<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> The natural reaction to a five-game losing streak is to ask what?s wrong with the Bulls. In many ways, though, the Bulls are right where they?re supposed to be this season. Management suspected the Bulls would take a step back after the Eddy Curry trade left them with the league?s smallest lineup. But the deal has a chance to pay off in the long run because the Bulls will get New York?s top draft pick next year and should have at least $15 million to spend on free agents. ?I will never backtrack,? general manager John Paxson said Thursday. ?I knew what our issues were going to be. We?ve lost some games because of it.? Paxson also expected the Eastern Conference to be stronger this season, and it has been. Cleveland, Indiana, New Jersey and Milwaukee have all passed the Bulls in the standings. After Wednesday?s 93-80 loss at Charlotte, the Bulls are 3-11 against teams that have a winning record and 9-5 against teams with a losing record. ?Your goal always has to be (playoffs),? Paxson said. ?But from Day One, we recognized that the East has gotten better and we do not have the size and maybe the talent some of these other teams do. You go down a lot of the rosters, you can probably point out a star on most teams. We don?t have one, unfortunately. ?Where we succeeded was by playing harder than everybody else and by the guys we really count on playing well.?</div> <div align="center"> Source</div>
