Bulls are Cheap - Paxson Comes Clean Again

[derf]

I posted this in that other Paxson interview thread, but yeah, I'm still not going to pass judgment, similar to 'innocent until proven guilty', in the end we're in the dark (no matter what any source who has no idea how to predict expenses estimates), and for all I know, Paxson is putting his bad GM ability on ownership (chances are JR is too busy to listen to these little radio interviews anyways), and that came after he got testy for having to defend passing on Gasol. Not that this is the case, but I'm not judging either way.

Yeah, that's probably it. Paxon goes on the radio and talks smack about his Boss on the assumption that Jr won't hear about it anyway.

[TeamMan]

IMO there is (as always) more than meets the eye.

Bill Russel once said, "There is nothing that the Big-Man hates more than seeing the other Big-Man slam dunk the ball!"

The same thing can be said about both Owners and GMs.

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For an owner, "...seeing the other Big-Man slam dunk the ball..." is equivalent to being beat in the playoffs by a team of players that makes less money than his team, or (even worse) if his team doesn't even make the playoffs!

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For a GM, "...seing the other Big-Man slam dunk the ball..." is quivalent to:

- Making a trade (or not making a trade)
- Passing over a player in the draft (like Roy & Aldridge) and choosing some other player (T2)
- Having enough money to sign a free-agent (then signing him/or not signing him).

And then watching the player(s) that he didn't get:

- Make the All-Star team, and then go on to lead his (their) team to the NBA finals
- Or the un-drafted player becoming rookie-of-the-year (Roy).

...or the player(s) that he did get become total busts!

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Now if you give it a bit of thought, it doesn't take long to figure out that these two "...slam dunks..." can be, and often are, directly opposed to each other. So over time, owners developed a real mistrust for GMs.

Someone on this thread wrote that if he were a GM, he'd go ahead and make the deal, and not care if he got fired. And that's exactly what often happened in the past.

So the owners decided to go off and create the NBA Collective-Bargaining-Agreement (CBA) in order to keep GMs under control. And when the CBA wasn't originally successful, they added the Salary Cap. And when that still wasn't successful, they added the Luxury Tax. Until we got to where we are today.

And now, every GM has lines drawn in the sand that they're not allowed to cross. And somewhere it must be written (probably as a standard clause), that owners must approve certain deals before they can be allowed to take place.

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Meanwhile, the Bulls have not been beaten in the playoffs by a team that made less money.

And even though Pax showed some real genius in turning around the Bulls team, he still has some "...slam dunks..." creaping up on him in the person of Tyson Chandler, Aldridge & Roy because Ben Wallace (a potential bust) was the replacement for Chandler (a potential All-Star who's definitely going to the playoffs), and it appears that both Aldridge & Roy are going to turn out to be better players than T2 & Thabo.

Pax could have covered himself somewhat if he'd have been allowed to trade Chandler to the Warriors for Troy Murphy & Pietus, but then JR would have been looking at a potential "..slam dunk..." when it came time to re-sign Noc last summer.

But Pax has no one to blame for T2 and Thabo except himself (JR even helped him to get Thabo), so the only way that he can get out of that one is for the coach to play both of them until they become successes (thus the firing of Skiles).

Skiles was not only losing, but he was refusing to play both players while doing it. So he put the noose around his own neck and jumped off the stool!

Maybe because he believed that winning was more important than avoiding getting "Posterized".