Bulls extended AK/ME?

[Dan Z]

Kirk was a fine pick... The hallmark of Paxon... Never going to be mistaken for a #1 guy but wont be out of the league in 3 years. Kyle Korver was a better player so was West and maybe Boris Diaw... But at that time there was no one in that range that should of been taken over Kirk. Bulls probably could of traded up for Wade if they really wanted to, but that was to risky for play it safe Pax.

What makes you say they could've traded up for Wade? Miami wanted to trade the pick?

In John Paxson’s first draft as general manager, months after succeeding Jerry Krause, he had trade talks with the Raptors to move from the Bulls’ seventh pick to Toronto’s fourth.

Paxson’s target? Wade, who went fifth to the Heat out of Marquette.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/07/07/bulls-pursuit-of-dwyane-wade-began-with-2003-nba-draft/

From that article.

It says it's a myth. We have no idea what was really discussed.

The story that Paxson wouldn’t part with Donyell Marshall and thus killed the trade is as much a myth as the fact Wade played the Bulls in 2010 free agency.

[dougthonus]

Took Pax 9 seasons to build a team that got to one conference final. And in those 9 seasons the Bulls won 50+ games once (the conference finals season). But the Bulls did go .500 or worse 6x in that time.

After one year, Pax got the Bulls into the playoffs 10 of the next 11 seasons and had only one season under .500. He also started with fewer assets and a worse cap situation and did so without making short term oriented moves.

AK has made the playoffs once in five years and has been below .500 in four out of five years while also trading forward future assets to try and win now with short term players.

It's not even a comparison as to which of these two did better. Pax was a high average to above average executive. AK is one of the worst in the league, in the clearly does not belong in this job and has displayed gross incompetence.

6 of the 10 playoff teams lost in round 1.

So? Trying and failing to make the playoffs with an old, capped out roster, that is out future picks that you traded to build a win now team is literally about the worst thing you can do as a GM. Yeah, no one should be putting up a Paxson statue for his performance but it was high average / above average relative to the league vs AK whom is bottom 3.

Simple scoring system:
-2 missing playoffs and don't own your pick
-1 point for barely missing the playoffs (no joy, bad draft pick)
0 points for tanking (no joy, good draft pick)
1 point 1st round
2 points 2nd round
3 points ecf
4 points finals
5 points champion

5 seasons:
AKME -5
Pax 4

[Jcool0]

After one year, Pax got the Bulls into the playoffs 10 of the next 11 seasons and had only one season under .500. He also started with fewer assets and a worse cap situation and did so without making short term oriented moves.

AK has made the playoffs once in five years and has been below .500 in four out of five years while also trading forward future assets to try and win now with short term players.

It's not even a comparison as to which of these two did better. Pax was a high average to above average executive. AK is one of the worst in the league, in the clearly does not belong in this job and has displayed gross incompetence.

6 of the 10 playoff teams lost in round 1.

So? Trying and failing to make the playoffs with an old, capped out roster, that is out future picks that you traded to build a win now team is literally about the worst thing you can do as a GM. Yeah, no one should be putting up a Paxson statue for his performance but it was high average / above average relative to the league vs AK whom is bottom 3.

Simple scoring system:
-2 missing playoffs and don't own your pick
-1 point for barely missing the playoffs (no joy, bad draft pick)
0 points for tanking (no joy, good draft pick)
1 point 1st round
2 points 2nd round
3 points ecf
4 points finals
5 points champion

5 seasons:
AKME -5
Pax 4

Cant both be bad? Why does one need to be better then the other? Bulls weren't a contender the entire time he ran the team (with the big 3 in Miami Bulls were never getting out of the East IMO.) I consider that a failure.

[dougthonus]

I'd agree Pax was better but not nearly by the margin you suggest.

You'd be wrong, the margin is massive, not necessarily because Pax was so great, but because you are massively underselling how bad AK is.

First of all I'd suggest that they inherited relatively similar situations.

Definitely not true.
1st: He inherited Jalen Rose whom was on a max deal with 3 years left that was an albatross, AK didn't inherit anyone
2nd: AK inherited two future multi-time all-stars (LaVine, and Lauri) on good contracts, and 3 more recent lottery talents that would all go on to be starters, Pax inherited 0 future multi time all-stars.
3rd: Literally doing nothing and just waiting, AK would have had a better team than what he had by taking action. If Paxson did nothing, his team would have never won 20 games. One of them had to act to achieve their results, one of them acted and made things worse.

Next, Pax absolutely made some win-now moves early on - signing Scottie Pippen, hiring Skiles who is the quintessential win now coach, drafting old man Hinrich, trading Eddy Curry for Antonio Davis etc. Then Pax had mostly similarly mediocre results as AK has had (very near 500) other than Derrick Rose era for a few short years.

Except that his teams made the playoffs instead of miss, and his teams were young, flexible, easily shifted, and he didn't sit on assets and trade them too late over and over and over again. He didn't routinely negotiate himself and sign bad deals, and a gazillion other things.

Then of course you're conveniently ignoring the last several terrible years of his regime. If he gets credit for anything after 2009, he should get equal blame for everything up until AK was hired.

I was discussing the start of their careers relative to the extension discussion, but if you want to talk about the end. In the final five years GarPax had one more playoff win than AKME and were fired, but despite being fired when they left, the team had multiple guys who would go on to make at least two all-star teams in the next five years on cheap contracts, and another two players on rookie deals that would go on to be top 8 rotation guys, and 8M in total bad salary on the books.

So while they deserved to be fired for not making it click, that period they were fired for was radically better than the period we just extended AKME for.

[Dan Z]

I'd agree Pax was better but not nearly by the margin you suggest. First of all I'd suggest that they inherited relatively similar situations. Next, Pax absolutely made some win-now moves early on - signing Scottie Pippen, hiring Skiles who is the quintessential win now coach, drafting old man Hinrich, trading Eddy Curry for Antonio Davis etc. Then Pax had mostly similarly mediocre results as AK has had (very near 500) other than Derrick Rose era for a few short years. Then of course you're conveniently ignoring the last several terrible years of his regime. If he gets credit for anything after 2009, he should get equal blame for everything up until AK was hired.

You think signing a 38 year old Scottie Pippen for the last year of his career is a win-now move? haha!

Hinrich was a good pick in the 2003 draft. Who would you pick over him? I could see an argument for David West (#18) and Josh Howard (#30), but that's about it.

The Eddy Curry trade was a good one, even though he screwed up by trading LaMarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas.

On October 4th, 2005, the Chicago Bulls signed-and-traded center Eddy Curry, center-forward Antonio Davis and a 2007 1st round draft pick (Wilson Chandler) to the New York Knicks for guard Jermaine Jackson, forwards Mike Sweetney and Tim Thomas, a 2006 1st round draft pick (LaMarcus Aldridge), a 2007 1st round draft pick (Joakim Noah), a 2007 2nd round draft pick (Kyrylo Fesenko) and a 2009 2nd round draft pick (Jon Brockman).

Pippen was signed to a 2 year deal, and it wasn't for the purpose of losing games or accelerating development of young guys.

Hinrich was a pretty good pick, but was abnormally old and that's the kind of guy you take if you want immediate impact.

I'd agree the Curry trade was a good one, though I think my memory was wrong - IIRC Davis came back in the Jalen Rose trade, so nevermind on that one.

Bottom line, nothing Pax did for years was based on a notion that we needed to take a patient approach to getting high end talent. It was "get this ship in order asap to become respectable". Without the predictable Skiles burnout failure and the ensuing miracle Derrick Rose luck, there is a very high likelihood that that team would have been "in nba hell" just like we allegedly were.

They signed Pippen because he's a Bulls legend. Nobody really thought he was going to do much going forward and ultimately he only played in 23 games.

Paxson wasn't a perfect GM, but he understood that there were times when he needed to pivot and the Eddy Curry trade is one example of that.

If the Bulls didn't get Rose who knows what that team would look like because they'd have to make different moves. No matter what they'd do they still have to get past the "Big 3" in Miami and I doubt that happens.

What's the best move that you think AK has made in his 5 years here (or is it 6?)?

[Jcool0]

First of all I'd suggest that they inherited relatively similar situations.

Definitely not true.

2nd: AK inherited two future multi-time all-stars (LaVine, and Lauri) on good contracts, and 3 more recent lottery talents that would all go on to be

Lauri is not a multi-time all star and was not any all star at any point while playing for Chicago.

[dougthonus]

I said his objective results, meaning wins and losses. I do think he's probably below average, but his record has been average. I don't think there's a fair way to quantify what assets an exec inherits or the value of current position in terms of quality of assets.

In hindsight, it's incredibly easy to evaluate that.

[dougthonus]

Cant both be bad? Why does one need to be better then the other? Bulls weren't a contender the entire time he ran the team (with the big 3 in Miami Bulls were never getting out of the East IMO.) I consider that a failure.

You can not like both. I don't care.

There is an absolutely mammoth gap in their skill / actions if you want to look at nuance, but even if you want to use just contender status, Pax built a team that had the best record in the league 2x and had vegas odds as a legit contender for two years.

Maybe a paper contender for sure, but still a contender, and certainly from an asset acquiring / GM perspective, they made moves that could have trivially resulted in a legit contender had it not been for Noah/Rose having their careers ruined with injuries early.

[Jcool0]

Cant both be bad? Why does one need to be better then the other? Bulls weren't a contender the entire time he ran the team (with the big 3 in Miami Bulls were never getting out of the East IMO.) I consider that a failure.

You can not like both. I don't care.

There is an absolutely mammoth gap in their skill / actions if you want to look at nuance, but even if you want to use just contender status, Pax built a team that had the best record in the league 2x and had vegas odds as a legit contender for two years. Maybe a paper contender, but still a contender, and had it not been for an injury, they would have had an excellent chance of winning when they added Butler to the mix.

You are 100% wrong on there being a mammoth gap in skill. I get hatting AK i would love for him to be fired. But that doesn't make Pax a good GM.

[Jcool0]

What makes you say they could've traded up for Wade? Miami wanted to trade the pick?

In John Paxson’s first draft as general manager, months after succeeding Jerry Krause, he had trade talks with the Raptors to move from the Bulls’ seventh pick to Toronto’s fourth.

Paxson’s target? Wade, who went fifth to the Heat out of Marquette.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/07/07/bulls-pursuit-of-dwyane-wade-began-with-2003-nba-draft/

From that article.

It says it's a myth. We have no idea what was really discussed.

The story that Paxson wouldn’t part with Donyell Marshall and thus killed the trade is as much a myth as the fact Wade played the Bulls in 2010 free agency.

talking to Toronto was real the not wanting to trade Donyell Marshall killing the trade wasn't true.

[keloms]

Time to relegate the Bulls to the G League.

G League or NBA, they're on their way to complete irrelevance like the White Sox. It's not a team trying to win, it's filling in the league required pieces so that they could keep the money flowing in.

[dougthonus]

You are 100% wrong on there being a mammoth gap in skill. I get hatting AK i would love for him to be fired. But that doesn't make Pax a good GM.

Given you have decided GMs are binary: 0 if you don't build a contender, and 1 if you do, Paxson is a 1, and AK is a 0.

If you want to look at things in nuance, I would rate it this way:
Draft - Paxson (by a lot)
Trades - Paxson (by a lot)
Cap Management - Paxson (by a lot)
Roster construction - Paxson (by a lot)
Coaches - AK (by a medium amount)

[League Circles]

You think signing a 38 year old Scottie Pippen for the last year of his career is a win-now move? haha!

Hinrich was a good pick in the 2003 draft. Who would you pick over him? I could see an argument for David West (#18) and Josh Howard (#30), but that's about it.

The Eddy Curry trade was a good one, even though he screwed up by trading LaMarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas.

Pippen was signed to a 2 year deal, and it wasn't for the purpose of losing games or accelerating development of young guys.

Hinrich was a pretty good pick, but was abnormally old and that's the kind of guy you take if you want immediate impact.

I'd agree the Curry trade was a good one, though I think my memory was wrong - IIRC Davis came back in the Jalen Rose trade, so nevermind on that one.

Bottom line, nothing Pax did for years was based on a notion that we needed to take a patient approach to getting high end talent. It was "get this ship in order asap to become respectable". Without the predictable Skiles burnout failure and the ensuing miracle Derrick Rose luck, there is a very high likelihood that that team would have been "in nba hell" just like we allegedly were.

They signed Pippen because he's a Bulls legend. Nobody really thought he was going to do much going forward and ultimately he only played in 23 games.

Paxson wasn't a perfect GM, but he understood that there were times when he needed to pivot and the Eddy Curry trade is one example of that.

If the Bulls didn't get Rose who knows what that team would look like because they'd have to make different moves. No matter what they'd do they still have to get past the "Big 3" in Miami and I doubt that happens.

What's the best move that you think AK has made in his 5 years here (or is it 6?)?

I think getting Demar, drafting Matas, and the Giddey trade were probably AK's best moves.

AK also obviously realized he needed to pivot and as a result traded Caruso for a 21 year old stud and let fan favorite clutch Demar go.

[Peelboy]

GarPax were really really good at drafting. Can go back through the list, but they routinely drafted solid contributors to stars at various places, including in the high teens and 20s. Kirk (7), Ben Gordon (3), Joakim (9), James Johnson and Taj (16/26), Butler (30), Portis (22), Lauri (7), Wendell (7), Coby (7), Dougie (12). Couple flops in there: Tyrus (3), Snell (20), Teague (29), Denzel (14), Hutch (22). But the hit rate is REALLY good. Their issue was in the trading and substantially in the org/coaching.

By comparison, in part because of bad trading leading to a dearth of picks, AK is abysmal: Pat (4), Dalen (18). Matas looks good and Ayo was a solid 2d rounder, but add to poor roster construction and even worse trading decisions (Vuc) as well as even worse holding onto "assets," with the best (worst) example being not dealing Drummond for multiple 2ds when the team was going nowhere and he was a pending FA. But also not dealing any of the mid 3 multiple years in a row. And reupping Pat at the cost of the Sac 1 (which Bulls would have been able to get by taking on Barnes).

The ONLY thing AK does even remotely close or better than GarPax is coaching. Billy has been solid albiet not stellar, and they have organizational harmony. But in every other metric for a GM, they make GarPax look like vintage Krause or Jerry West.

[Jcool0]

You are 100% wrong on there being a mammoth gap in skill. I get hatting AK i would love for him to be fired. But that doesn't make Pax a good GM.

Given you have decided GMs are binary: 0 if you don't build a contender, and 1 if you do, Paxson is a 1, and AK is a 0.

If you want to look at things in nuance, I would rate it this way:
Draft - Paxson (by a lot)
Trades - Paxson (by a lot)
Cap Management - Paxson (by a lot)
Roster construction - Paxson (by a lot)
Coaches - AK (by a medium amount)

[dougthonus]

You are 100% wrong on there being a mammoth gap in skill. I get hatting AK i would love for him to be fired. But that doesn't make Pax a good GM.

Given you have decided GMs are binary: 0 if you don't build a contender, and 1 if you do, Paxson is a 1, and AK is a 0.

If you want to look at things in nuance, I would rate it this way:
Draft - Paxson (by a lot)
Trades - Paxson (by a lot)
Cap Management - Paxson (by a lot)
Roster construction - Paxson (by a lot)
Coaches - AK (by a medium amount)

True. It is just my opinion. I've not heard a meaningful counterargument to it presented by anyone ever though, and on a forum, where we are largely discussing opinions, I've over many posts and years presented very detailed analysis on why I hold this opinion.

But again, I don't blame you for hating both, I think lots of people hate both.

Maybe I will say the difference for me is that I legitimately enjoyed a lot of GarPax's early seasons 04/05, 06/07, 08/9-10/11. I had legitimate hope in all those years for the future, like over the first 8 years or so there were only 3 years were I was kind of meh about the year (03/04, 05/06, 07/08).

I have enjoyed one AKME season and even while I enjoyed it, I knew it was short term unsustainable fool's gold.

[League Circles]

I said his objective results, meaning wins and losses. I do think he's probably below average, but his record has been average. I don't think there's a fair way to quantify what assets an exec inherits or the value of current position in terms of quality of assets.

In hindsight, it's incredibly easy to evaluate that.

Idk, Pax basically inherited these pieces that mattered:

Tyson Chandler
Donyell Marshall
Jalen Rose
Jamal Crawford
Plus #7 in 2003 pick and Eddy Curry as generic assets

AK basically inherited:

WCJ
Lauri
Zach
Coby
#4 in 2020

It's actually not super obvious to me which group is better, though I understand that Lauri and Zach probably are rated higher by many than me. I think Jalen Rose and Tyson Chandler were probably the best players but weren't set up to succeed here.

It's obviously impossible to quantify how well or poorly we're positioned for the future right now.

[Jcool0]

Given you have decided GMs are binary: 0 if you don't build a contender, and 1 if you do, Paxson is a 1, and AK is a 0.

If you want to look at things in nuance, I would rate it this way:
Draft - Paxson (by a lot)
Trades - Paxson (by a lot)
Cap Management - Paxson (by a lot)
Roster construction - Paxson (by a lot)
Coaches - AK (by a medium amount)

True. It is just my opinion. I've not heard a meaningful counterargument to it presented by anyone ever though, and on a forum, where we are largely discussing opinions, I've over many posts and years presented very detailed analysis on why I hold this opinion.

But again, I don't blame you for hating both, I think lots of people hate both.

I am sure you must of really hated this:



But there was a reason it was put up and it wasn't because they were killing it for Chicago. Pax's best quality was he was safe and willing to play the .500 game to keep Jerry happy. Thank god we got extremely lucky and we had a few seasons of Derrick Rose. Because that was really the only bright spot in a 17 year career for him outside of one overachieving team (2006).

[dougthonus]

Idk, Pax basically inherited these pieces that mattered:

Tyson Chandler
Donyell Marshall
Jalen Rose
Jamal Crawford
Plus #7 in 2003 pick and Eddy Curry as generic assets

AK basically inherited:

WCJ
Lauri
Zach
Coby
#4 in 2020

It's actually not super obvious to me which group is better, though I understand that Lauri and Zach probably are rated higher by many than me. I think Jalen Rose and Tyson Chandler were probably the best players but weren't set up to succeed here.

It's obviously impossible to quantify how well or poorly we're positioned for the future right now.

It is super obvious which group was better.
Pax inherited one future starter, one future bench player, a three year max salary albatross, and a lower draft pick

AK inherited two future all stars, another future starter, another future rotation player, 1 year 8M in bad salary, and a better draft pick

If you're going to list Donyell Marshall as an asset, then Thad Young was also inherited by AK, (Young was later trade to Toronto for a 1st by SA after we used him as salary filler in a trade).

If you can't figure out which of those situations is different, I don't know what to tell you, but you shouldn't be trying to ever judge GMs ever. This is about as black and white as you are likely to find in an arena which often operates on pretty small margins between guys.

[dougthonus]

I am sure you must of really hated this:



But there was a reason it was put up and it wasn't because they were killing it for Chicago. Pax's best quality was he was safe and willing to play the .500 game to keep Jerry happy. Thank god we got extremely lucky and we had a few seasons of Derrick Rose. Because that was really the only bright spot in a 17 year career for him outside of one overachieving team (2006).

Not really. They were here forever. I thought they did a good job up until around 2012 or so.

Then they were sort of riding some of previous tailwinds for a few years and I thought maybe they will do well again, but they really moved from what I would say was above average in the early part to below average in the end. Felt like a lot of aspects of the game passed them by.

I had no qualms with their firing when they were fired, and wouldn't really have had any after 2016 when they did the Wade/Rondo thing which seemed incredibly dumb at the time. In their rebuild, they were 'meh', both in selecting talent and an unwillingness to really go all-in on it.

But in the years before that I thought they were legitimately good. GMs have a lot less control than people think. It's a star driven league and getting the star is always a thing of luck. They were good enough to draft a couple very unlikely stars (Noah / Butler) and did enough that when they got a star in Rose they were the best record in the league in consecutive years.

In a world where Noah/Rose have long, healthy careers, they probably would have gotten a title with a core of a healthy Rose, Butler, and Noah. But that didn't happen, and the Butler draft was the end of them being above average as a group, it was all down hill after that. I gave them benefit of the doubt for awhile because they had consistently been good nuance decision makers prior, but when I look back objectively, I would carve the success/failure as having a pretty harsh line with pre/post 2012 which is pretty close to dead even of half good/half bad.

AKME on the flip side so far has just been all bad. This is like if you saw Pax's last 5 years here and said we need to extend him again.