He would be very helpful, but I've read an article parading features on 2k10 that Johnson always implodes late in the season. If this is the case this is something to possibly worry about.
Terrible. It’s not that I hate JJ or think he’s a bad player. But we need to understand the things that come along with paying a guy the max. In Chicago in general, not just with the Bulls, we tend to respond toxically to such things. The Bears go out and trade for a QB with a cannon for an arm, and then pair him with a crummy O-line and a bunch of receivers nobody could pick out of a lineup. The Bulls bring in a guy like Wallace, overpay for him, and say he’s “another piece of the puzze”. But then, then cut salary and never add the other pieces. In short, teams say one thing and do another. I have zero faith that this team would appropriately build around a player it felt it was overpaying to get. It simply wouldn’t. It would be an excuse to cut corners somewhere else, and the inevitable backlash won’t be pretty. "We'll never win a championship with <insert player here>". Rather than do that, I’d see them just be honest about things, not take a shortcut, and commit to actually building this team right. So, you know, we might have some sort of sustainable growth.
To put it another way, we'd be overspending on Johnson to overcome past failures and missing out on Wade/Lebron/Bosh. Spending more in light of failures is a way to overcome bad decisions, but only if you stop making bad decisions and start making good ones. Otherwise you’re just compounding the failure. But in the long-run spending better is an even better one. The basic problem isn’t that the Bulls haven’t spent enough, it’s that they’ve spent poorly. They’ve repeatedly rewarded the wrong people from top (Pax) to bottom (Lindsey Hunter). In most businesses, at least most successful ones, when the people at the top make bad decision after bad decision, they’re replaced. When it comes to this team, the people making bad decisions are the owner and a man the owner has said is “like a son” to him. So… don’t hold your breath.
