Paxson wants 30+ minutes a night for young guys?

[sk33]

Playing the young guys (Tyrus, Noah, Gray) more will only lead to more wins, so sorry for those rooting for the lottery.

[BULLHITTER]

Okay. Some progress here. So, now we're prepared to admit that player environment can affect player performance, not just meaning that players who seem to have turned out well on their current teams might have struggled in our system, which is the point you make above, but, I hope you understand that the door swings both ways.

It could also be that players who seem to be struggling with their current teams might succeed here, if we adjust our system to suit them, and that goes for current Bulls players too.

i think we're on the same page here; i also believe that, as stated, "the door swings both ways", yes, that is to say for example thabo in the suns system might have these same bulls fans wishing he was a bull while the beloved ronnie brewer, he of the broken jump shot, struggles to get time because he's not shooting well with defenses designed to stay inside perimeter players shirts because of the lack of respect for the bulls inside game. thomas, in a running system would likely look like a future all-star as well; not so much in the bulls drive and kick; he doesn't drive well (yet), and he's not the first (or second or third) option as a kickee, either.

i agree that the system should've been adjusted after the departure of curry and chandler (TC not so much, but...). to what? i suppose the triangle could've/might've worked with wallace, but i think that ship has sailed. at this point, the season's left to evaluate just what system the new coach (i'm doubtful boylan's going to do enough to distinguish himself) will employ next season with the remainder players.

[SensiBull]

I don't think John Paxson should be fired, but, let's just look at what's being said here:

1. It's Memphis' fault for being too greedy that the Gasol deal didn't get done.
   
2. TT over Aldridge/Roy is a mistake, but there's still hope.
   
3. It's not John Paxson's fault that no 'stars' happened to be available in the offseason that he decided to keep cap space for.
   
4. The Ben Wallace signing was a mistake, but hey, that could have been Reinsdorf or even Skiles.
   
5. Skiles being fired by Paxson redeems Paxson from:
   
   
   1. Hiring him in the first place; and
   2. Firing him with no backup coach in mind, midseason; and finally
6. Not signing Gordon nor Deng is Gordon's fault and Deng's fault for being greedy (see Memphis' refusal of Gasol deal) and not taking less than they seem to think they can get on the open market (or are just willing to forgo just to get out of Dodge)

Is this our position?

[SensiBull]

Okay. Some progress here. So, now we're prepared to admit that player environment can affect player performance, not just meaning that players who seem to have turned out well on their current teams might have struggled in our system, which is the point you make above, but, I hope you understand that the door swings both ways.

It could also be that players who seem to be struggling with their current teams might succeed here, if we adjust our system to suit them, and that goes for current Bulls players too.

i think we're on the same page here; i also believe that, as stated, "the door swings both ways", yes, that is to say for example thabo in the suns system might have these same bulls fans wishing he was a bull while the beloved ronnie brewer, he of the broken jump shot, struggles to get time because he's not shooting well with defenses designed to stay inside perimeter players shirts because of the lack of respect for the bulls inside game. thomas, in a running system would likely look like a future all-star as well; not so much in the bulls drive and kick; he doesn't drive well (yet), and he's not the first (or second or third) option as a kickee, either.

i agree that the system should've been adjusted after the departure of curry and chandler (TC not so much, but...). to what? i suppose the triangle could've/might've worked with wallace, but i think that ship has sailed. at this point, the season's left to evaluate just what system the new coach (i'm doubtful boylan's going to do enough to distinguish himself) will employ next season with the remainder players.

Excellent post.

[JeremyB0001]

I don't think John Paxson should be fired, but, let's just look at what's being said here:

The most honest question to most of these answers is that we don't know. People might choose to believe the possibilities below or hope that they're true, but I don't think any of them are implausible.

1. It's Memphis' fault for being too greedy that the Gasol deal didn't get done.

IIRC, some reports the week of the trade deadline suggested Memphis' price was exorbitant (e.g. Deng and Gordon). Others suggested otherwise. All we really know for sure is that Deng was off limits or close to it.

TT over Aldridge/Roy is a mistake, but there's still hope.

I'm probably in the minority but I'm not ready to call it a mistake yet.

It's not John Paxson's fault that no 'stars' happened to be available in the offseason that he decided to keep cap space for.

It's pretty hard to pick which season you have cap space. For instance, I doubt he had several different offers for Rose with contracts that expired in different years and said "I think the '06 offseason is the time to shoot for."

Additionally, the alternatives to creating cap space aren't very good. Rose wasn't helping us win much so keeping him around didn't help. Likewise, the team simply wasn't going to let Curry wear a Bulls uniform without the DNA test and Crawford isn't very good. You wouldn't be able to get a very good player to build with using Rose or AD's expiring deal unless you threw in some big assets.

I think clearing cap space and hoping a good player is available and willing to sign with your team is the best coarse of action. It just didn't work out.

The Ben Wallace signing was a mistake, but hey, that could have been Reinsdorf or even Skiles.

Didn't someone report that Reinsdorf was behind the Wallace signing? I don't think that a poster just reasoned to that possibility.

Skiles being fired by Paxson redeems Paxson from:

1. Hiring him in the first place;

On the spectrum of coaching hires, Skiles was a pretty good one even if things ultimately ended badly. The Bulls got more out of him that most teams get during a coach's tenure.

and

Firing him with no backup coach in mind, midseason; and finally

I don't think any evidence suggests that firing Skiles has hurt the team.

Not signing Gordon nor Deng is Gordon's fault and Deng's fault for being greedy (see Memphis' refusal of Gasol deal) and not taking less than they seem to think they can get on the open market (or are just willing to forgo just to get out of Dodge)

Unless you believe the lack of extensions are responsible for the slumps Deng and Gordon experienced at the beginning of the season, I don't see how failing to sign them in the offseason has caused any harm thus far. For that to happen, one of them would have to leave or sign an extension much larger than what we could've signed them for during the offseason.

[SensiBull]

For the record, I'm not ready to call TT a mistake, either; but, that's not the point, and neither are the individual circumstances surrounding each of these issues. What I'm taking issue with is the notion that, although he is in control, nothing seems to be John Paxson's fault on this board.

He is treated as a pretty face and a preacher of respectable values who, at the end of the day, despite wielding a great deal of decision making responsibility, somehow seems to escape culpability for poor outcomes. I'm afraid Paxson is going to have to go to success. Success is not just going to come to him.

For example, even right now, we all know that Gordon and Deng's future with this club is in doubt. We might not be prepared to FACE it, but we all know it. If we don't re-sign them, who is our starting SF going to be? Who will be our key scorer?

I'm not saying that there won't be someone, but, doesn't it seem to you that most GM's would have someone waiting in the wings to inherit these roles by now?

But, when it all falls apart, no one will point back to THIS TIME RIGHT NOW as a time when contingency plans should have been rearing their heads, and by 'contingency plans', I don't just mean cashing someone out for another rookie draft pick and then failing to develop him as well. I mean getting someone already in the league on the roster THIS SEASON, even if they don't actually inherit the role until Gordon and Deng are actually gone.

Somehow, I suspect that there will be some mitigating circumstances that, once again, make it somebody else's fault that things didn't work out.

[Magilla_Gorilla]

For the record, I'm not ready to call TT a mistake, either; but, that's not the point, and neither are the individual circumstances surrounding each of these issues. What I'm taking issue with is the notion that, although he is in control, nothing seems to be John Paxson's fault on this board.

Have you been absent from this board the last couple months? I'm pretty sure there have been multiple threads dealing with just this issue - wit plenty of posters on this board ready to call for changes to either the players or management.


I think what most of us realize though is that the players and coaches will be replaced before Reinsdorf replaces Paxson.

[JeremyB0001]

What I'm taking issue with is the notion that, although he is in control, nothing seems to be John Paxson's fault on this board.

As far as drafting Tyrus, not reaching extensions with Deng/BG, clearing cap space for the summer of '06, hiring Skiles, and firing Skiles, most everyone seems to believe that Pax made the call and most of the surrounding facts have come to light. There, the issue is almost entirely whether or not he should have made the decisions that he did.

The Wallace signing seems to present a genuine issue as far as how much input he had in the decision.

With the Gasol deal, we know with close to absolute certainty that Pax made a decision to make Lu off limits. So people should feel completely free to criticize that decision if they like. However, I get angry when people say Paxson made a mistake by failing to trade for Gasol because clearly at some point the price becomes too high and the media has not painted a clear picture of what the asking price was.

[SensiBull]

I think the key to Paxson's recovery lies in his selection of a coach.

I don't think the roster needs a drastic overhaul. I think the club needs a roster touch up and the club needs a cultural overhaul.

I think we need to:

1. Pay Ben Gordon
2. Hire a seasoned, veteran NBA coach, like Larry Brown, Adelman, etc.; and to
3. Showcase Kirk Hinrich and trade him for a distributing/shooting SG, a backup, borderline starting Center, and possibly, a first-round pick.

Something like:

• Kirk Hinrich for John Salmons, Mikki Moore and a conditional 1st rounder; or,
  
• Kirk Hinrich and Ben Wallace for Jarret Jack, James Jones, Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw, and Raef LaFrentz

[dougthonus]

I don't think John Paxson should be fired, but, let's just look at what's being said here:

1. It's Memphis' fault for being too greedy that the Gasol deal didn't get done.
   
2. TT over Aldridge/Roy is a mistake, but there's still hope.
   
3. It's not John Paxson's fault that no 'stars' happened to be available in the offseason that he decided to keep cap space for.
   
4. The Ben Wallace signing was a mistake, but hey, that could have been Reinsdorf or even Skiles.
   
5. Skiles being fired by Paxson redeems Paxson from:
   
   
   1. Hiring him in the first place; and
   2. Firing him with no backup coach in mind, midseason; and finally
6. Not signing Gordon nor Deng is Gordon's fault and Deng's fault for being greedy (see Memphis' refusal of Gasol deal) and not taking less than they seem to think they can get on the open market (or are just willing to forgo just to get out of Dodge)

Is this our position?

I actually do think that is a fairly accurate description to some degree.

1) Memphis did want more for Gasol than he was worth. We reportedly agreed to a deal for Kobe, but Kobe vetoed it because we gave up too much. We were in on the KG talks, but couldn't make things work.

2) TT over Aldridge/Roy sure looks like a mistake, but there is hope. TT is the player who needs more time to develop and has actually looked very promising with consistent playing time. I think it will still be a mistake a few years from now, but to say there is some hope isn't entirely inaccurate.

3) No, it's not really his fault that no stars were available then. We didn't have a choice on the year, we were going to have to cap space to begin with (because Tyson/Eddy would have eaten it up the following year, so we couldn't wait longer, and we couldn't get shorter deals than we did to go sooner). You have to hope someone emerges and is worthy in those situations, but it didnt' happen this time around.

4) It was a mistake, and it could have been Reinsdorf, but it seems unlikely. Even if it was Reinsdorf, I'm sure Paxson could have talked him out of it if he wanted to, but he didn't.

5) Firing Skiles mid season without a replacement was better than keeping Skiles. There really is no good mid season replacement IMO. I'd rather wait until the off season. As for extending Skiles, I think it came in at #5 or so on my biggest mistakes Paxson has made list. Firing Skiles doesn't redeem that, but it was the right move.

6) Deng / Gordon not being locked up doesn't look like a mistake at this point. Gordon's price looks like it may go down this season, and if we had locked him up at his price he may have ended up being a bad contract. Deng would depend on the price. I would have loved to lock him up at 58 million where it was reported by some that Deng would have taken that and reported by others that the Bulls offered 57 million and he balked.

It certainly isn't to say that Paxson is blameless. I think taking Aldridge was such an obvious pick for us. He fit what our needs were very well and wasn't nearly as high risk. Pick Aldridge, ironically, would have been the conservative move he had stuck with in the past that many criticized Paxson for making.

Also, just the fact that we couldn't choose our year for cap space doesn't excuse completely wasting it on Wallace and actually making our team worse rather than better. We could have instead used that cap space to facilitate trades or in other ways other than signing guys out right.

I think fans are awfully panicky right now though. This is a team that was expected to win over 50 games this year. It's greatly under performing those expectations. When you won 49 games the previous year and have every reason to expect an improvement, then I don't think you blame the GM for not shaking stuff up more in the off season. If we had made a bunch of trades and were .500 right now, people would be flipping their lids for giving away those guys because tehy'd have thought we'd have been far better off.

[fuzion]

If we're not .500 after 2 weeks.....this should be the starting lineup.

Gordon
Thabo
Deng
Thomas
Gray

Forget Hinrich, Forget Wallace, Forget Smith, Forget Duhon, Forget Nocioni. Trade them for whoever. All are scrubs anyways. Who cares if we lose.....I want to get a lottery pick.

[ozbull]

Who cares if we lose.....I want to get a lottery pick.

And when we get #9 and end up with another average starter with holes in his game??

[theanimal23]

Playing the young guys (Tyrus, Noah, Gray) more will only lead to more wins, so sorry for those rooting for the lottery.

I got no issues with that. I want to win or lose with those guys.

[Bullsville]

Tyrus can't make jumpers he also makes obvious mistakes when he's in the game he's to clumsy he tries to do too much when he's in their.

I always get a nice little chuckle out of reading a comment like that, and I read them a lot on this board.

Tyrus is playing 17.0 minutes per game this season and averaging a whopping 1.14 turnovers per game. He has exactly as many assists as he does turnovers, pretty good for a 21 year old 2nd year big man.

Reading posts like this, one would think that Tyrus turns the ball over 3 or 4 times a night, when reality is that he is pretty decent at not turning the ball over at this stage of his career.


And while I'm here, I'm also not on the "Aldridge is/was exactly what we needed" boat, either. We need a low-post scorer, and 62% of Aldridge's shots are jumpers.

Of course, we might already have a low-post scorer, but we'll never know as long as Boylan keeps running basically the same offense that Skiles was using.

Gray obviously has post skills.

Deng could be a dominant post player if he were being guarded by 2's, but Boylan also refuses to play him at SG.

Tyrus has shown low post skills, but he rarely gets a chance to post up.

Smith has shown the abiltiy to score down low with either hand, too bad he is usually playing pick and pop 20 feet from the basket.

Even Noah has shown a few skills, and he's a great passer.

But as long as we have a coach who doesn't run the offense through the low post, it doesn't matter. What good would it do for Paxson to trade for Gasol when Boylan would just have him at the top of the key playing pick and pop 75% of the game.

[kyrv]

[quote="Bullsville"][/quote]

Great post. Coldfish has noted that the current <airquote>offense</airquote> is probably best suited for Noah to look good.

If my team was playing the Bulls, I would expect they would keep getting the ball into Gray, and also keep lobbing to Tyrus, unless/until we showed we could stop them.

But...(*Airplane)...that's just what they would be expecting the Bulls to do.

[dougthonus]

I always get a nice little chuckle out of reading a comment like that, and I read them a lot on this board.

Tyrus is playing 17.0 minutes per game this season and averaging a whopping 1.14 turnovers per game. He has exactly as many assists as he does turnovers, pretty good for a 21 year old 2nd year big man.

Reading posts like this, one would think that Tyrus turns the ball over 3 or 4 times a night, when reality is that he is pretty decent at not turning the ball over at this stage of his career.

A lot of this is based on how bad he was in the past with this. Last year his turnover numbers were pretty scary for awhile, and this year they aren't bad at all.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Tyr ... 511/stats/

You can easily get a snapshot there of his per minute numbers this year vs last year. His end TO split for last year wasn't even THAT bad, but it was a lot worse before the last month or so of the season prompting a lot of the concerns.

And while I'm here, I'm also not on the "Aldridge is/was exactly what we needed" boat, either. We need a low-post scorer, and 62% of Aldridge's shots are jumpers.

We need a very good offensive oriented big man. One with an inside out game would probably be most preferable to me. Having a pure inside player isn't necessarily a step up to having the inside out guy. Plus the most important thing is the overall skill level. Kevin Garnett shoots like 80% jumpers over his career, but I doubt anyone would complain if we had his offensive game. Aldridge would have been perfect in that role for us.

Of course, we might already have a low-post scorer, but we'll never know as long as Boylan keeps running basically the same offense that Skiles was using.

I'm anxious to see what Gray can do, but he's a gigantic defensive sieve as well. Hopefully he improves on his weaknesses as time goes on. I'm not going to rip into him for it to much as he's only a rookie 2nd round pick. He shows a lot of offensive upside for sure, and he seems pretty solid on the glass.

Deng could be a dominant post player if he were being guarded by 2's, but Boylan also refuses to play him at SG.

Deng would get destroyed defensively by most 2 guards though, and it would be very hard to post Deng up with the rest of our big men. You basically have Tyrus, Noah, Wallace, and Gray who aren't a threat away from the hoop. Deng could basically be doubled down in the post instantly by someone who's man would be no real threat to score. Then he'd just get killed by speed on the other end of the floor.

Tyrus has shown low post skills, but he rarely gets a chance to post up.

Tyrus looks better to me when he faces up, takes 1 step towards a guy and pulls a spin into a shot.

Smith has shown the abiltiy to score down low with either hand, too bad he is usually playing pick and pop 20 feet from the basket.

Smith's a great inside out player.

Even Noah has shown a few skills, and he's a great passer.

I agree you can definitely use Noah in the post.

But as long as we have a coach who doesn't run the offense through the low post, it doesn't matter. What good would it do for Paxson to trade for Gasol when Boylan would just have him at the top of the key playing pick and pop 75% of the game.

Sadly, we do run through the post sometimes. When we give the ball to Ben Wallace there. We actually do usually look to post up Gray, and we tried to post up Tyrus a bunch when he was guarded by a guard at the end of the Knicks game, but he couldn't get/maintain position.

[franku82]

so basically, pax is saying he's not even looking to make a trade. if we keep losing, he's just gonna play the youngsters. wow. yeah, i want that guy fired asap.

[tclg]

I for one would love it when we started playing tyrus and noah more.

hinrich
gordon
deng
tyrus
noah

is what I want to see play together for at least 10 minutes a night together or so

[SensiBull]

I always get a chuckle when I see people getting a chuckle at posters wanting post scoring and then dismissing it because a certain percentage of that players points come from jumpers rather than the post. Amusing.

Notwithstanding the relative success of Joe Smith, ANY offensive production AT ALL from the PF or C position is welcome.

The preference for post scoring, aside from giving the Guards more room to work, is that it results in higher percentage shots and tends to get opposition defenders into foul trouble, but, hey, if we had a Center who could score 20ppg from the free throw line or beyond, or, even better, draw his defender out of the paint altogether, by being a threat from the arc, I'd take that too.

Imagine a hungry, homeless refugee asking for a piece of bread and then laughingly dismissing you when you offered him a bagel.

[SensiBull]

In fact, if Joe Smith was ten years younger, you probably wouldn't even see LaMarcus Aldridge MENTIONED on this board. I know I wouldn't see the need, and that's not even to say that Joe Smith is as good. He's just offensively productive.

I don't think that's too much to ask.