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We have reached a new moment with the Bulls. There were the glory years -- 1991 through 1998 -- when the Michael Jordan-led Bulls won six NBA titles in eight seasons.

If you want, you can say there was the entire Jordan Era -- 1984 through 1998 -- when things were good.

One giant bleep for fankind But after Jordan's departure in 1998, the Bulls went to the bottom -- 13-37, 17-65, 15-67 in the next three seasons -- and began a painful ascent from the abyss.

In general, fans enjoyed the rise.

Indeed, the giddy Jordan hangover was so extreme that it took nearly four years before Bulls fans figured out he was gone.

Even in that dreadful year of 4 AJ (anno Jordan), when Bill Cartwright coached the 2001-02 Bulls to a 21-61 record and eighth place in the Central Division, attendance at the United Center only once dipped below 16,000.

When the team showed improvement by 2005, the sellout streak started again.

The unwitting zenith was reached with last season's 49-33 club, which advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in nine years.

But the mo' is gone. The Bulls are 16-24 and reeling.

What once seemed like potential now seems like dreck.

The ascent, the hope, everything -- poof.

Scott Skiles fired.

Luol Deng mortal, not a superstar.

Kirk Hinrich breaking down.

Tyrus Thomas fizzling.

Ben Wallace turned to granite.

Team defense evaporated.

Ben Gordon doing everything he can with a jump shot and nothing else.

Intensity as up and down as a tide.

Not a killer in sight.

''I definitely don't sleep as well as I used to,'' interim head coach Jim Boylan said Tuesday after practice at the Berto Center.

How could he, after the Bulls' embarrassing Martin Luther King Day loss to the lowly Grizzlies in Memphis?

It wasn't just that the 12-29 Grizzlies whipped the Bulls 104-90. It was that four of their players recorded double-doubles for only the second time in franchise history.

A little swagger might help

One's memory leaps back to 1995, when Jordan, humiliated by his own retirement-era loss in the playoffs to the Orlando Magic, came back with such a vengeance the next season that in a ferocious practice one day, he slugged the most harmless teammate in the world, Steve Kerr.

Jordan gave little Stevie a black eye, thereby announcing to all that Jordan was on full-throttle back to greatness, niceties be damned.

Yes, Jordan immediately apologized to Kerr.

But the point was made, even to the shiner-wearing Kerr.

''Michael was on a mission,'' Kerr said.

Do these current Bulls even have a mission?

Their longest winning streak this season is two.

But they have lost three in a row twice and four in a row once.

The current Bulls were built by general manager John Paxson to be a bunch of share-the-load, low-key, hard-working, stay-out-of-jail type of guys.

Trouble is, they are.

When the hyperactive rookie Joakim Noah started acting up a bit, it naturally took the whole team to vote and suspend him for an extra day for his insubordination.

Think Jordan might have simply blasted the Bozo-brained kid in private during practice, and the big boat would have continued onward?

Wanted: Leadership

But that does not mean leadership has vanished from the planet, like win streaks for the Bulls.

''We're trying to string something together,'' Hinrich said somberly. The frail Captain Kirk does what he can, which isn't close to what is needed.

As everyone knows, leaders can't simply inject themselves into the fray.

Fake leaders are worse than none at all.

The leadership trait has to be there or not. And if it's there, it must be fertilized with hard work and talent and wins.

''We have quite a few guys who try to step up,'' Boylan said when asked about the leadership issue. ''We don't have the superstar-type player, so it's more leadership by committee.

''But you can develop it. As your game gets better, so can your leadership skills. If you have that gene, it needs to be nurtured.''

Their longest winning streak this season is two.

theanimal23 wrote:

Their longest winning streak this season is two.

But they have lost three in a row twice and four in a row once.

''We have quite a few guys who try to step up,'' Boylan said when asked about the leadership issue. ''We don't have the superstar-type player, so it's more leadership by committee.

''But you can develop it. As your game gets better, so can your leadership skills. If you have that gene, it needs to be nurtured.''

At least the Bulls' effortless 104-90 loss Monday to the Memphis Grizzlies was on the road. That allowed the players, if they so chose Tuesday, to tune out the backlash by their fans.

And more and more of those fans -- via blogs, radio broadcasts and e-mails to newspapers -- were voicing not only their displeasure with the team's 16-24 record, but also the sentiment they no longer much care for the players themselves. No longer do some see this team as one that gives its all most nights, an identity that went a long way to earning goodwill from the paying public the last few seasons.

''When you hear that stuff, it kind of strikes home,'' Kirk Hinrich said after practice. ''Not only does it question you as a team, it questions your heart, it questions your pride. We've always been a team that has really played hard. You can sense the crowd's frustration, and their frustration is times 20 for us. Hopefully, we're going to stick together as a team and turn this thing around.''

They best start soon. A home game tonight against the Indiana Pacers marks the halfway point of a season that started with talk of contending for the conference championship, not making a late run for the eighth playoff berth.

Coach Jim Boylan, whose Bulls trail the Pacers (19-23) by two games for that final spot, understands the fans' unhappiness.

''There's a sense we're breaking their hearts,'' he said. ''When someone breaks your heart, there's anger, there's frustration. It was probably the culmination of a lot of things. People look at the problems we had at the beginning of the season with contracts. Then all the trade rumors and the fact we couldn't get any kind of momentum going. Then Scott [Skiles] is dismissed, and people think highly of Scott and the job he did. It's just total frustration on their part. I understand how they feel.

''The expectation was we were going to be a 50-plus-win team. Everybody was hoping that we were going to take a giant step into the hierarchy of the Eastern Conference. All I can say to those people is that we have guys who come to work every day and practice hard. We prepare well. It just seems at times when we get out on the floor, we don't have the sustained effort we need to win. That's the crux of the problem, the sustained effort physically and mentally.''