John Paxson

[knightni]

I'm poll-tastic tonight.

[nitetrain8601]

He's gone to poop and needs to go.

[Balta1701]

I abstain on answering this poll until the trading deadline.

[SoxFan1]

I abstain on answering this poll until the trading deadline.

Aww, you're slacking. A Bulls post without mention of "the kids", "minutes", or "small lineups"?

[SoxFan1]

PAxson should have been gone a long time ago. Passing on KG, Gasol, and Kobe has turned out to be just great, hasn't it? Trading Aldridge for Thomas and Khryapa was awesome. And Noah has been a real winner in Chicago too. And don't get me started on VDN. Unfortunately for those of us who give a s***, Rose bought him some more time as our GM.

[whitesoxbrian]

The only reason he hasn't caught more heat in this city is because no one cares enough to put up a fuss. The Bulls are becoming the Hawks of the early 2000's.

Finally, someone agrees with me.

 

My friends were talking the other night at the Hawks game and all 3 of them said I was an idiot for thinking the Bulls aren't as popular as the Hawks.

 

Hell with that- the Bulls games are silent when you watch them and it's a Deerfield crowd 95% of the time. Boooooring.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Finally, someone agrees with me.

 

My friends were talking the other night at the Hawks game and all 3 of them said I was an idiot for thinking the Bulls aren't as popular as the Hawks.

 

Hell with that- the Bulls games are silent when you watch them and it's a Deerfield crowd 95% of the time. Boooooring.

 

Yeah but it's still always packed...

 

Really though, let's be serious. It's nowhere near as bad as how it was for the hawks.

 

 

 

[ThunderBolt]

I've already mentioned my saving face and "promoting" VDN idea in the NBA thread. Needless to say it means Pax is gone.

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

I still give him time. This team used to play with heart. Find a center. Also, people calling for Del Negro's firing so early into his first coaching job are hilarious. I was sad to see Skiles go, really sad, but now that it's been done, you stick with Vinny. 1/2 season is not enough to judge a ballboy, let alone the head coach of a group of clowns.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Give it a few more years. A huge reason why the Bulls have gotten a "pass" from the fans is because there wasn't really ever a Winter alternative in the city. The Hawks were already awful, and the Bulls still had the name.

 

With the Hawks marching back into the spotlight, and the Bulls being almost impossible to watch, the tide is starting to turn. Rose can't save the franchise by himself.

 

 

BTW, I'm not saying the Bulls should be expecting 8,000 fans per night next year. That's just not going to happen. However, with times tough, and this team becoming more and more of an afterthought, season ticket sales are going to take a big hit next year.

 

I see what you're saying, but I guess afterthought was too strong of a word for me. They're the Bulls. It's been a decade since MJ left, they have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING since then, and they're 2nd in total attendance this year according to espn.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/attendance

 

I just think Chicago is gonna continue loving their Bulls no matter what. Not at Bears or cubby levels, but solidly there in 3rd. Chicago loves basketball...

 

You want afterthought? Check out my avatar.

[ThunderBolt]

I see it like this: the Bears have been wildly inconsistent since the late 80's, but remain very much a top tier franchise in the minds of the majority of NFL fans, because of the Ditka/Ryan legacy... I’d say the Jordan Era has bought the Bulls at least 20 years of unaltered fan support.

edit: the word tiger, while an awesome word, means little in that context.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Thunderbolt

[rangercal]

The Hawks won't pass the Bulls in popularity for 10 years ( if this trend continues)

[RockRaines]

More years of this direction? Get out of here, its not that hard to find another mediocre GM with a chance of him making good decisions. This team and front office needs to be gutted.

[DBAHO]

Ok say Paxson is fired.

 

Give me an ideal GM/Coach combo that can take over.

[Leonard Zelig]

I see it like this: the Bears have been wildly inconsistent since tiger late 80’s, but remain very much a top tier franchise in the minds of the majority of NFL fans, because of the Ditka/Ryan legacy... I’d say the Jordan Era has bought the Bulls at least 20 years of unaltered fan support.

 

Does this mean something or was it a typo?

[Kyyle23]

I've already mentioned my saving face and "promoting" VDN idea in the NBA thread. Needless to say it means Pax is gone.

 

Come on, thats ridiculous. Reinsdorf isnt going to fire Pax and promote VDN to his position

[Steve9347]

Man, I saw this thread and was praying the subtitle was "fired".

 

I've wanted him to get the ax since it was apparent Tyrus was not going to work out.

[rangercal]

For the record, I want Pax gone. However,it really is hard to fault him for :

 

 

1.) The Ben Wallace signing ( he was a premier FA at the time and most Bull fans wanted that major FA cherry popped) No one complained about the signing during the 06-07 season.

 

2.) The Luol Deng re-signing . Most Bull fans were complaining about not showing Luol and Ben the money (stating ownership is too cheap) . We re-signed Luol , he sucks now and it is Pax's Fault, I don't buy that.

 

3.) The Tyrus Thomas -Aldridge trade. I think I am more pissed on how Tyrus has been handled than the actual trade. At face value, I would want LA, sure, no-brainer. I'm not sure to write Tyrus off as a wasted selection just yet, I just wish he could be a little more consistent. (coincidentally, it may be hard to be consistent when your minutes are not.)

 

4.) The Noah pick. Ok, Noah looks to be a bust. But, any serious basketball publication or fan who did a mock draft that year had Noah as a top 10 pick. Most fans who I talked to that hated the pick, hated Noah for his looks or personality, not skills. Based on our needs at the time, It came down to Hawes,Trade the pick or Noah. I only remember Slavko on the Hawes bandwagon at the time. It really was not a good draft that year. In hindsight, he should have traded the pick or drafted Hawes.

 

5.) Anything that involves going over the Luxury tax( Gasol etc ) I am not sure how much of a say he had in this area. I could only fault him for not being critical of ownership in this area.

 

 

This series of events are what have crippled the franchise. Can things turn around in the foreseeable future? I think so. But, the play of Luol and Tyrus are key. If they played like studs every night Pax would not look so bad.

 

Do not forget some of the good Pax has done:

 

1. The Ben Wallace to Cleveland trade. Wallace for Hughes is a wash. Gooden is a nice mainstay (hopefully). Joe Smith has seen better years.

 

2. Eddy Curry to the Knicks for 2 1st Rd picks. Noah could have easily been Oden or Durrant (lottery balls are a funny thing) . The trade in itself was very good.

 

3. He did draft Derrick Rose. Sure, the majority wanted Rose ( Though, I think most fans were biased because he was the home town kid. ) don't forget Beasley was a STUD coming out of college. The only reason Rose's stock rose (does that make sense? lol) was because a good showing in the tournament. Beasley was the consensus # 1 pick for the majority of the season. Heading towards the draft it was like 60/40 Rose (outside of biased Chicago) . I would have been content with either pick at the time.

 

 

 

 

With the series of misfortunes I want Pax gone. It is obvious he crossed some black cats and broke a few mirrors.

Edited January 16, 2009 by rangercal

[ThunderBolt]

Come on, thats ridiculous. Reinsdorf isnt going to fire Pax and promote VDN to his position

Agreed, it was premised on a hypothetical of making the team look somewhat good in their handling of the coaching search.. At this point, I really don’t see anyone coming out of the VDN mess clean.

[DBAHO]

For the record, I want Pax gone. However,it really is hard to fault him for :

 

 

1.) The Ben Wallace signing ( he was a premier FA at the time and most Bull fans wanted that major FA popped) No one complained about the signing during the 06-07 season.

 

2.) The Luol Deng re-signing . Most Bull fans were complaining about not showing Luol and Ben the money (stating ownership is too cheap) . We re-signed Luol , he sucks now and it is Pax's Fault, I don't buy that.

 

3.) The Tyrus Thomas -Aldridge trade. I think I am more pissed on how Tyrus has been handled than the actual trade. At face value, I would want LA, sure, no-brainer. I'm not sure to write Tyrus off as a wasted selection just yet, I just wish he could be a little more consistent. (coincidentally, it may be hard to be consistent when your minutes are not.)

 

4.) The Noah pick. Ok, Noah looks to be a bust. But, any serious basketball publication or fan who did a mock draft that year had Noah as a top 10 pick. Most fans who I talked to that hated the pick, hated Noah for his looks or personality, not skills. Based on our needs at the time, It came down to Hawes,Trade the pick or Noah. I only remember Slavko on the Hawes bandwagon at the time. It really was not a good draft that year. In hindsight, he should have traded the pick or drafted Hawes.

 

5.) Anything that involves going over the Luxury tax( Gasol etc ) I am not sure how much of a say he had in this area. I could only fault him for not being critical of ownership in this area.

 

 

This series of events are what have crippled the franchise. Can things turn around in the foreseeable future? I think so. But, the play of Luol and Tyrus are key. If they played like studs every night Pax would not look so bad.

 

Do not forget some of the good Pax has done:

 

1. The Ben Wallace to Cleveland trade. Wallace for Hughes is a wash. Gooden is a nice mainstay (hopefully). Joe Smith has seen better years.

 

2. Eddy Curry to the Knicks for 2 1st Rd picks. Noah could have easily been Oden or Durrant (lottery balls are a funny thing) . The trade in itself was very good.

 

3. He did draft Derrick Rose. Sure, the majority wanted Rose ( Though, I think most fans were biased because he was the home town kid. ) don't forget Beasley was a STUD coming out of college. The only reason Rose's stock rose (does that make sense? lol) was because a good showing in the tournament. Beasley was the consensus # 1 pick for the majority of the season. Heading towards the draft it was like 60/40 Rose (outside of biased Chicago) . I would have been content with either pick at the time.

 

 

 

 

With the series of misfortunes I want Pax gone. It is obvious he crossed some black cats and broke a few mirrors.

On your points ranger;

 

1 - I think the writing was on the wall for Ben Wallace when you signed him. In his last season in Detroit, his PPG went down to 7.3 from 9.7, and his rebounding and blocks stats were down. Someone who also takes as much punishment as he did for Detroit against those bigger cents, I think it was inevitable that he was going to break down and just not play at a high level at some point in the future.

 

Also the Bulls badly needed a low post scorer. Wallace doesn't give you that.

 

2 - The Deng re-signing. On the fence with this one. He's a good player stuck in a system right now that doesn't fit his skills (he's a slasher and not an outside shooter). But still, 13M a season is a lot to pay for someone who's never been an all-star before.

 

3 - The TT drafting. Was a mistake from the first moment. TT was raw, and was always going to take time. And yes the Bulls have handled him horrible no doubt, but I don't see him becoming anything more than a poor man's Shawn Marion. He has no jump shot, and needs to play in an uptempo system that fits his skill sets. Aldridge would have given the Bulls the low post threat they needed. He was the safe pick, albeit not the sexy one, and the Bulls would be a much better team if they had him today.

 

4 - The Noah pick. Noah was always going to be a poor man's Anderson Varejao. And considering the Bulls already had Ben Wallace on their roster, and still needed low post scoring, I don't see how you could end up picking basically another version of Wallace in Noah. Hawes would be perfect for the Bulls with Rose right now. He can hit the outside jumper, and be a good center long - term for the Bulls.

 

5 - Gasol trade. JR just doesn't want to go over the luxury tax, and a lot of owners don't obviously. But still, the chance was there, and the Bulls are one of the best attendance teams in the NBA today.

 

1 - Wallace trade. Basically a bad contract for a bad contract. If Paxson was smart now, he'd dump Hughes and Sefolosha for Miller and Kenny Thomas. 2 ending contracts in 2010, and they would give the Bulls the size they need.

 

2 - Eddy Curry for 2 1st rounders. I put this more on Isiah Thomas's ineptude as a GM than good business by John Paxson. No other GM would have given the Bulls that. And still the Bulls wasted one of the picks on Tyrus Thomas anyways.

 

3 - Rose pick. Obviously the right pick, and Rose looks like a stud. Paxson is just very, very lucky that the Bulls ended up with Rose, because imagine where they would be right now without him.

 

 

And I'll add something else. The VDN hiring. It looks like he's alienating the players, calling for more teamwork, effort and leadership. VDN has to realize that this is a players' league now.

 

I think thre were better options out there for the Bulls. If they're smart, they'd dump VDN in the off-season and hire someone like Eddie Jordan. Still I don't see that happening, and it could end up costing Pax and VDN their jobs when it's all said and done.

[Steve9347]

1.) The Ben Wallace signing ( he was a premier FA at the time and most Bull fans wanted that major FA cherry popped) No one complained about the signing during the 06-07 season.

I've never faulted him for this signing.

 

2.) The Luol Deng re-signing . Most Bull fans were complaining about not showing Luol and Ben the money (stating ownership is too cheap) . We re-signed Luol , he sucks now and it is Pax's Fault, I don't buy that.

We complained when they weren't re-signed before 2007-08. Not re-signing Deng got in his head, and letting these situations drag as long as they did effected the team tremendously last year. Deng was woeful last year, and expecting him to bounce back was foolish. The problem here is we all know there are teams out there that would take Deng (Portland, admittedly). Pax sits on his hands too much.

 

3.) The Tyrus Thomas -Aldridge trade. I think I am more pissed on how Tyrus has been handled than the actual trade. At face value, I would want LA, sure, no-brainer. I'm not sure to write Tyrus off as a wasted selection just yet, I just wish he could be a little more consistent. (coincidentally, it may be hard to be consistent when your minutes are not.)

We needed someone who could score inside. The one thing Aldridge was known for was a sweet hook shot that would transfer well to the NBA level. The ONE TIME Pax doesn't go with the safe pick is the ONE TIME the guy we need is there. That pick was terrible.

 

4.) The Noah pick. Ok, Noah looks to be a bust. But, any serious basketball publication or fan who did a mock draft that year had Noah as a top 10 pick. Most fans who I talked to that hated the pick, hated Noah for his looks or personality, not skills. Based on our needs at the time, It came down to Hawes,Trade the pick or Noah. I only remember Slavko on the Hawes bandwagon at the time. It really was not a good draft that year. In hindsight, he should have traded the pick or drafted Hawes.

Can't really fault this pick to this day. Too early still to tell, and the pick isn't high enough to matter.

 

5.) Anything that involves going over the Luxury tax( Gasol etc ) I am not sure how much of a say he had in this area. I could only fault him for not being critical of ownership in this area.

That's a problem in itself. He needs to man up and convince Reinsdorf. KW has Reinsdorf's trust, while Pax is a f***ing puppet.

 

1. The Ben Wallace to Cleveland trade. Wallace for Hughes is a wash. Gooden is a nice mainstay (hopefully). Joe Smith has seen better years.

Well, Gooden is not a mainstay, he's gone after this year. Big Ben's contract is shorter than Hughes, and we still suck, so I don't see how we really won there.

 

2. Eddy Curry to the Knicks for 2 1st Rd picks. Noah could have easily been Oden or Durrant (lottery balls are a funny thing) . The trade in itself was very good.

It was a good trade just because Eddy needed to get paid and he sucks. However, if you screw it up after that (Tyrus and Noah instead of Aldridge and Hawes), then it washes itself of his greatness.

 

He did draft Derrick Rose.

I guess being lucky now equates to being good?

 

With the series of misfortunes I want Pax gone. It is obvious he crossed some black cats and broke a few mirrors.

He should be gone yesterday.

 

He also hired VDN, one of the biggest idiot moves ever.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Steve9347

[rangercal]

Dbaho and Steve, The points I'm making are that his moves did not look horrible at the time. It's easy to bash now. I give you guys the Tyrus-LA trade. But even that did not seem like the end of the world at the time.

 

But yeah, show him the door for other reasons:

 

1.) Not having the Balls to stand up to ownership in regards to the luxury tax.

2.) Not having the balls to make a gutsy deadline deal.

3.) Letting the Deng and BG negotiations become a distraction.

 

 

And Steve, read my explanation on Rose. I never gave him credit for winning the lottery. I gave him credit for drafting Rose over Beasley. Which might have been a 50/50 pick outside of Chicago circles. Also, I'm pretty sure the contracts of Ben and Hughes both end at the summer of '10. http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm

[Steve9347]

Dbaho and Steve, The points I'm making are that his moves did not look horrible at the time. It's easy to bash now. I give you guys the Tyrus-LA trade. But even that did not seem like the end of the world at the time.

 

But yeah, show him the door for other reasons:

 

1.) Not having the Balls to stand up to ownership in regards to the luxury tax.

2.) Not having the balls to make a gutsy deadline deal.

3.) Letting the Deng and BG negotiations become a distraction.

 

 

And Steve, read my explanation on Rose. I never gave him credit for winning the lottery. I gave him credit for drafting Rose over Beasley. Which might have been a 50/50 pick outside of Chicago circles. Also, I'm pretty sure the contracts of Ben and Hughes both end at the summer of '10. http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm

You're right on the contracts, my mind must be stupid.

 

As for Rose, most by the time the draft rolled around, in and away from Chicago felt Rose was the easy top choice.

 

[southsider2k5]

The Hawks won't pass the Bulls in popularity for 10 years ( if this trend continues)

 

The Hawks are drawing 22,557 a night, the Bulls 20,984.

[Balta1701]

Ok say Paxson is fired.

 

Give me an ideal GM/Coach combo that can take over.

I really don't know about GM's, but I've got a variety of names of people I'm collecting who might be much better coaching options next year.

 

Avery Johnson

Paul Silas

Thom Thibodeau

John Kuester

Lester Conner

Tim Grgurich

 

4 assistants who have put in their dues in 10+ years on the bench, 2 retreads with decent reputations. I'm more than happy to add more to my list if others have suggestions