Paxson on His Way Out? <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Speaking of Luol Deng, Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has removed John Paxson from the discussion with Luol Deng and his agent, Jason Levien. Reinsdorf was already unhappy with the way the coaching search went, specifically with Paxson's inability to get Doug Collins wrapped up, and now he's unhappy that the Deng discussion is taking so long. It's not a good sign for Paxson that he's now being excluded from player discussions.</div>
Mark Stein has a similar story. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/stor...=FA-News-080712 <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Not totally sure yet how to interpret this one, but sources say that Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is personally handling contract negotiations with Deng and his new agent (Jason Levien) after Reinsdorf informed Bulls GM John Paxson that he wanted to directly negotiate with the Deng camp along with Bulls director of player personnel Gar Forman.</div> Having Reinsdorf more involved is an awful sign for the franchise IMHO.
So what happened with Doug Collins? I thought he was a great choice in my opinion and would have been excellent for the Bulls.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Jul 14 2008, 09:34 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>So what happened with Doug Collins? I thought he was a great choice in my opinion and would have been excellent for the Bulls.</div> I think the consensus around here, meaning myself and like two other people, is euphoria over the inability to close on Collins. He's had like five coaching gigs, all of them failures, including his first stint in Chicago. I'm not displeased at all with the Del Negro hiring -- more of a wait and see until we get to some him in action. This story does bode poorly for Paxson though. Things never turn out well when management is trying to function from a position where they've had their nuts cut off.
I'm not convinced Jerry is smart enough to fire the incompetent Paxson More importantly, how much money does Jerry owe Paxson?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (such sweet thunder @ Jul 14 2008, 11:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing @ Jul 14 2008, 09:34 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>So what happened with Doug Collins? I thought he was a great choice in my opinion and would have been excellent for the Bulls.</div> I think the consensus around here, meaning myself and like two other people, is euphoria over the inability to close on Collins. He's had like five coaching gigs, all of them failures, including his first stint in Chicago. I'm not displeased at all with the Del Negro hiring -- more of a wait and see until we get to some him in action. This story does bode poorly for Paxson though. Things never turn out well when management is trying to function from a position where they've had their nuts cut off. </div> For the moment I'm inclined to look more at the Stein article than the Hoopsworld one. I agree that it doesn't bode well for Pax, but I really don't think it bodes well for anything Chicago to have the owner coming in and telling the GM that he and the GM's underling (Forman) would be handling the negotiations. I agree over the general euphoria about not having Collins. Everything that said something to on the subject said the interest in him was a Reinsdorf-Collins affair in the first place, so I can see some potential friction there. Paxson might have done some foot dragging on sealing the deal there. What's irritating for me is that it's pretty hard to see who's responsible for what in Chicago these days. And for some reason, I think that's probably the case if you're looking around from the inside too. And having a couple of different voices all (with varying shades of passive-aggressiveness) pulling in different directions makes a mess out of almost any situation.
I thought the Doug Collins hiring failed because Reinsdorf didn't want to "ruin" his relationship with Collins. I don't see how thats Paxson's fault... Other than that, I think if we don't succeed this season, Pax should go. It's pretty clear by now that hes not making the moves anymore.
I'm not one of those who think hiring Collins would be a mistake. As I see it, he's a fine guy to come in at this stage of team development. I'm not sure he's a championship caliber coach, but I'm also not sure we have a championship caliber team That said, Collins coached several 50+ win teams in Chicago, and teams in Chicago and D.C. went on to bigger and better things shortly after he left. You guys talk about him like he's Isaiah or something ... LOL As for the foot dragging, I expect that Pax's slowness in dealing with Collins would be potentially harmful to JR's relationship with Collins.
A while back I heard JR was being cheap and didnt wanna pay luxury tax or somethin and that messed up on trades or signing like last summer or somethin, cant really remember. I dont know about Collins, I read articles that he wasnt fond of young players (meaning another disappointing season from Tyrus not getting any PT). But Denny, that would be hilarious if VDN is the GM and Del is the coach, although I dont see it happening, that would be funny. I'm kinda wishy washy on Pax, I mean he has dropped the ball on occasion, but with a owner like JR, anything can happen. Thats why is so confusing to know whats going on in the organization...inside or out.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fastforward7 @ Jul 15 2008, 10:26 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>A while back I heard JR was being cheap and didnt wanna pay luxury tax or somethin and that messed up on trades or signing like last summer or somethin, cant really remember. I dont know about Collins, I read articles that he wasnt fond of young players (meaning another disappointing season from Tyrus not getting any PT). But Denny, that would be hilarious if VDN is the GM and Del is the coach, although I dont see it happening, that would be funny. I'm kinda wishy washy on Pax, I mean he has dropped the ball on occasion, but with a owner like JR, anything can happen. Thats why is so confusing to know whats going on in the organization...inside or out.</div> It really makes sense, if you think about it. Why hire a GM type guy to coach? A lot of coaches want to GM as well as coach, or move up. And then there is (or was?) the Notre Dame AD job that Pax is actually quite suited for (he's an alum, too).
It's hard for me to believe there's not some second-guessing between Pax and Reinsdorf after the coaching search. From the articles I read, it seemed pretty clear that Pax was sold on D'Antoni and Reinsdorf put some breaks on it. One way to read that is that "it's Reinsdorf's fault for screwing things up", but it seems more simple to say that he was more or less exercising his veto. The situation then seemed a bit reversed to me when it came to Collins. By the accounts I read, Collins approached Reinsdorf directly, and mainly spoke with Reinsdorf. In fact Reinsdorf said as much. I know if I were Pax, I wouldn't be too eager to hire Collins if he'd effectively gone over my head to get an interview. So whether this article is BS or not, and it most likely is, it seems very likely to me that Paxson and Reinsdorf came out with more questions about each other than they previously had.
