It's time to watch Paxson, not blame him.

[dougthonus]

I've seen a lot of people really pissed about Paxson due to our poor play.

I don't think it's time to be pissed at Paxson. The poor play is not his fault. The poor play is the fault of players who have drastically underperformed their previously established ability levels. The additions to this years team (Joe Smith, Joakim Noah, and Aaron Gray) all look very good in their time (albeit limited for Noah and Gray). The problem is that previously established young veterans have inexplicably played considerably worse.

I don't blame Paxson for that, because there's no way to have predicted that. So the time to blame Paxson isn't now.

It is time to watch what he does. The team needs to be re-evaluated after this year from top to bottom. I don't think things will happen at the deadline, because at the deadline 2 types of teams make moves. Those selling off star players to rebuild (we aren't that team unless Ben Wallace or Joe Smith counts as star players), or the team selling off young pieces to get a star player to push for a title this year (we're definitely not that team either).

The time we can next really shake things up is the off season. We'll have a new coach to hire, and we'll be able to make trades without roster concerns as well as having Hinrich and Nocioni off of BYC deals and far more tradeable and making matching larger salaries far easier.

The time to call for Paxson's ouster as GM will be if he's ineffectual of making viable chances for this team next year and the team is still floundering around. My personal timeline is the end of the 08/09 season I want to feel good about our direction again.

[Magilla_Gorilla]

A well thought out logical post that I can't disagree with. Nice job Doug.

[HeavyC]

I agree 100%. The only thing I'd just Paxson on right now is whether or not he can get some minutes for our young players. To have this crappy of a season, while our young guys sit glued to the bench without playing time would fall squarely on his shoulders. That is something he can directly influence.

[ptpablo]

I've seen a lot of people really pissed about Paxson due to our poor play.

I don't think it's time to be pissed at Paxson. The poor play is not his fault. The poor play is the fault of players who have drastically underperformed their previously established ability levels. The additions to this years team (Joe Smith, Joakim Noah, and Aaron Gray) all look very good in their time (albeit limited for Noah and Gray). The problem is that previously established young veterans have inexplicably played considerably worse.

I don't blame Paxson for that, because there's no way to have predicted that. So the time to blame Paxson isn't now.

It is time to watch what he does. The team needs to be re-evaluated after this year from top to bottom. I don't think things will happen at the deadline, because at the deadline 2 types of teams make moves. Those selling off star players to rebuild (we aren't that team unless Ben Wallace or Joe Smith counts as star players), or the team selling off young pieces to get a star player to push for a title this year (we're definitely not that team either).

The time we can next really shake things up is the off season. We'll have a new coach to hire, and we'll be able to make trades without roster concerns as well as having Hinrich and Nocioni off of BYC deals and far more tradeable and making matching larger salaries far easier.

The time to call for Paxson's ouster as GM will be if he's ineffectual of making viable chances for this team next year and the team is still floundering around. My personal timeline is the end of the 08/09 season I want to feel good about our direction again.

I have been saying this for a while. You just write better. This is Paxson's time to shine. This team is young and because he takes BPA ( can you blame him? ) he has an unbalanced roster. He hired a demanding coach to whip this team into shape. Every move I could not argue against when he made it, except Chandler. Of course in hindsight I do, but that is my luxury as a fan. I do not make the tough decisions.

Now comes the next step... one I would like to see starting with playing the youth. Dump Wallace if you can without taking anything back with more years ( not likely). BG will have to go if he wants big money. I am excited to see what he does and if he has the guts to do it. I think he does, just in the past he wanted to straight take teams in trades and felt no reason to mortgage this team of young up and coming players. Now that is not quite the case anymore so it is time to step up. My biggest questions are...

What type of team does he want? Up tempo or defensive half court?

What is he going to do with the guard play? Is Hinrich's struggles because of playing with short SG or because he is not as good as many thought? I know I thought he was better than this.

Is he going to commit to youth and keep the true contending window of this team at the 09/10 season and build a true contender or keep adding Vets to play major roles and take time away from developing players?

[PJ Brown]

Great post! And I wholeheartedly agree, which is not to say there should be no heat on him. There should. When a team fails, everyone is accountable, and the GM is near the head of that list. But ultimately the players have to play. Roster-wise, this team is deeper, taller, and frankly better than the teams that did so well the last few years. There are flaws and holes that Paxson has not been able to address, but it's not Paxson's fault so many players are playing below their abilities. Yes, we can point to moves that are fair to criticize, but Doug's right that what matters most is what he does next. One bad season may suck ass but it doesn't doom the franchise. There's still talent to improve and plenty of options when it comes to making moves. What Paxson does before the deadline and during this upcoming off-season will likely determined whether he will ultimately be a failure or success as a GM.

[coldfish]

+1

The Bulls are dysfunctional right now and its due mostly to things that no one would have reasonably predicted. There are some issues that could have been forseen, but not nearly as many as people would have you believe.

My current view of the team:
- They have a large number of guys who would look pretty good next to a big time player. That's nothing to scoff at as many teams with big time players can't find these guys.
- They need a coach. People here complain about effort, but I don't see it. So many of the Bulls' problems are caused by them doing stupid things which can be fixed with coaching. For example, doubling down unnecessarily is not a sign of a guy playing lazily, its a guy playing stupid.
- At their current level of play Hinrich and Wallace are problems. These guys are big money playing big minutes and doing so at far below the NBA median for their position. I would have added Gordon to that list in mid December. Given that, I suspect that Hinrich will also come off this list at some point, leaving just Wallace.

I suspect that a coach and a good trade would have this team bounce back right to our previous level of expectations.

[Chi town]

I agree with what Doug says.....

However, WE HAVE TO SEE THE YOUTH PLAY!!!

I would push for a Wallace trade for an expiring contract solely because WALLACE WILL NOT SIT AND WATCH THE YOUNG BIGS PLAY QUIETLY!!!

If we could land a top 5 pick to add to this team and some how get rid of Wallace and see what we have in our young bigs I would deem this a SUCCESSFUL season as bad as it sounds. Because for the future we would truly be investing for a title not mediocrity.

[League Circles]

Doug I agree with most all of what you said. Pax is not to be held responsible yet. He made good soild moves to a very young succesfull team. The players and Skiles are to blame so far. What I don't agree with, though, is that this summer is the time to change things. I suppose if he decides BG and Deng are definitely keepers, then MAYBE we should wait til the offseason. However, I think he should look really strongly into trading BG or more appropriately Deng before the deadline. We have no power with those guys this offseason in deals. We cannot assume that we will be able to do advantageous sign and trades with either of them this offseason. We should also try to decide on Duhon, although that will be hard as he's such a minor piece that we won't know if he's a keep to re-sign until we know what else we have gong into next year.

You do have a point about Noc and Kirk, but I think both are keepers probably. I'm beginning to think Deng should be the man out. With who and what for, I'm not sure. I think Wallace with Deng should net us a good player and a good draft pick if we will also take a not so great player on a long deal.

[kyrv]

Paxson has only hired one head coach in his four plus years, they have made the playoffs the last three seasons.

I think if next year they don't make the playoffs, maybe (and that's assuming they don't make the playoffs this year). The only exception (for me) would be if they go younger (with the bigs for example), in which case I would give him more time.

This time stunk when Paxson took over. Right now he is kind of a victim of a little too much success a little to early.

Good post/thread, Doug.

What I would like now if for the young foursome (Tyrus/Noah/Thabo/Gray) play a ton for the rest of the year, along with the young core fivesome (Luol/Ben/Kirk/Du/Noc) with Ben getting some time at PG.

No clue what Paxson should do or what I want him to do, but I believe the above would give Pax more information on what he should and should not do.

[BULLHITTER]

great thread idea......

way, way too many fans look at the team's underachieving and point the big foam finger at paxson. in my mind i know that's BS, because even the most skeptical of fans didn't see this debacle (thus far) coming. as i've stated many times over, since this team's window of 3-4 years has now moved in reverse, retooling is the order not "blowing up". had this team moved into the EC elite, there'd be a totally different mindset about what this team needs to get to finals level, and these 20-20 hindsight experts would be still at the computers they so actively occupy with negativity.

i'm in total agreement with the next 1-1 1/2 years as his defining moments as a gm. can he define this team's identity? can he acquire a star? can he find a coach that can maximize the remainder players' abilities?

i'm sure he's disappointed in what wallace has turned out to be, but i think he expected more from the deng, gordon, hinrich group that would've made wallace's contribution far more role-worthy than leadership wise. i think he believes thomas still has "star" potential, as do i, but he's got to have a better support system from a coaching standpoint to realize that. the chandler fiasco should have taught him that; and i didn't mind seeing chandler go.

i'd like to think he's going to have answers to all of this, but it's going to be interesting to see how he approaches it.

[Neusch23]

I don't want to sound as if I disagree with you, Doug, however, you say that you can't blame pax for how the players play, which is true....however you can blame pax for putting the players on the team, and for hiring a coach that is trying to run a square offense with a bunch of round players if you understand what I mean.

I believe that Pax is the right man for the Job. However, I don't think that he is very good at judging the talent that is needed for a specific coach's offense.

In a round about way we have talked about this before. Pax's job right now is to finish this season. He should only make a move if he is the one getting the good deal.

THEN, he needs to make what ever moves he thinks he needs to make to bring us to the next level.

He then needs to find the best coach to install a system that high lights the best players on our teams strengths.

Sadly my hopes for this season is to play the youth as much as possible to get them experience, and to put us in a postion to get as good of a draft pick as possible.

[coldfish]

I believe that Pax is the right man for the Job. However, I don't think that he is very good at judging the talent that is needed for a specific coach's offense.

Interesting thought. I will put this spin on this:

Skiles loved defense and I think Paxson was with him on that. Guys that don't play defense don't play for Skiles. Skiles seemed to hate people who had trouble on that side of the court.

What does Paxson do?
- Sign Wallace
- Draft Tyrus
- Draft Thabo
- Draft Noah
All defensive specialists. To some extent, I think Paxson was catering to Skiles' personnel favorites.

I think its ironic that the guys I though Skiles had the most success with "coaching them up" were offensive specialists, namely Gordon and Curry.

Essentially and ironically, the best type of players to bring in to work for Skiles were the type of players that he hated. The type of players that he seems to like (defensive specialists) he ends up beating down and making them look even worse on offense than they are.

That's an odd predicament for a general manager.

[theawakening]

Yes, Doug's post makes total sense. The team was making incremental progress every year and all pundits rightfully assumed the team would ascend to the next level this year. Paxson cannot be blamed for the mental weakness and regression in skill. One thing is evident: for Paxson to be successful this offseason, he needs to conduct an honest appraisal of what he has in Tyrus, Thabo, Noah, Gray, etc. This will only happen if playing time is allocated to these players. Once he can gauge their talents, he will know what kind of coach can be conducive for their abilities, what players will complement them, and whether they are even worth keeping. I think we all know what Hinrich, BG, Luol, and the veteran circus brings to the the table.

[BR0D1E86]

Incorrect, it

[Neusch23]

Interesting thought. I will put this spin on this:

Skiles loved defense and I think Paxson was with him on that. Guys that don't play defense don't play for Skiles. Skiles seemed to hate people who had trouble on that side of the court.

What does Paxson do?
- Sign Wallace
- Draft Tyrus
- Draft Thabo
- Draft Noah
All defensive specialists. To some extent, I think Paxson was catering to Skiles' personnel favorites.

I think its ironic that the guys I though Skiles had the most success with "coaching them up" were offensive specialists, namely Gordon and Curry.

Essentially and ironically, the best type of players to bring in to work for Skiles were the type of players that he hated. The type of players that he seems to like (defensive specialists) he ends up beating down and making them look even worse on offense than they are.

That's an odd predicament for a general manager.

However, if you have a defensive team, as we had, don't you think that he would also want to have a mix of offensive players?

While we were still able to put points on the board we had to do so with streaky jump shooters.

We win closer to 60 games last year if we had ONE constistant scoring option.

You can't put a team together that can run a NORMAL offensive if you have a couple guys on the court that you don't have to guard.

Our starters right now. Does the other team need to guard wallace even 30% of the time? No. How about Duhon? can they sag off of him up top to help out on Kirk or Noc? Sure.

That now stats that the other team can focus its D on 3 players for about 70% of the time.

Now. Lets look at the 3 other starters. Noc, Smith, and Kirk.

How good of shooters are they? Are they all good enough to create their own shot? What kind of shots to they take? can they get to the rim?

We are a team of glue players, with no number one option.

We have to liquidate some of these players.

As fans we need to stop talking about what could have been. Sure Jay Willams costs us Carmello. Sure, Eddy Curry had a heart issue. Sure we traded a post option for another D guy. It is done.

How do we fix it? We can start by thining things out.

To me I start right now. I play Noah and Tyrus. I start Gordon at the point. I think that is a key to see if we can run an offense that he controls. I believe he will make some mistakes, but he needs to be able to play through them.

I bench kirk and Wallace. Kirk is a good defender, but to me he is the biggest reason for our fall, just a bit bigger than Wallace. His ablity to guard the 2 as well as he did was a major factor for us never developing gordon at the position he basically has to play in this league. They are a good match together, but for how much longer?

We need a REAL shooting guard on this team.

I have a lot more I want to say and clarify on, but it is daddy day, and my 3 week old, and my 3 year old just woke up from naps and NEED my attention!

[The Big Dog]

Interesting thought. I will put this spin on this:

Skiles loved defense and I think Paxson was with him on that. Guys that don't play defense don't play for Skiles. Skiles seemed to hate people who had trouble on that side of the court.

What does Paxson do?
- Sign Wallace
- Draft Tyrus
- Draft Thabo
- Draft Noah
All defensive specialists. To some extent, I think Paxson was catering to Skiles' personnel favorites.

I disagree that Paxson was getting players for Skiles. Paxson's line in '06 was getting longer and athletic, and that's what he did with Tyrus and Thabo. Ben Wallace was simply the biggest free agent on the market and Noah was BPA and long and athletic himself.

Unless Paxson's line was PR BS, I don't think he was GMing for Skiles tastes.

Maybe Skiles can be blamed for Chandler, but he was a defensive player and a great rebounder. He was just a headcase that didn't get along with Skiles and a huge embarassing failure in the '06 series against the Heat.

[topper09]

I've seen a lot of people really pissed about Paxson due to our poor play.

I don't think it's time to be pissed at Paxson. The poor play is not his fault. The poor play is the fault of players who have drastically underperformed their previously established ability levels. The additions to this years team (Joe Smith, Joakim Noah, and Aaron Gray) all look very good in their time (albeit limited for Noah and Gray). The problem is that previously established young veterans have inexplicably played considerably worse.

I don't blame Paxson for that, because there's no way to have predicted that. So the time to blame Paxson isn't now.

It is time to watch what he does. The team needs to be re-evaluated after this year from top to bottom. I don't think things will happen at the deadline, because at the deadline 2 types of teams make moves. Those selling off star players to rebuild (we aren't that team unless Ben Wallace or Joe Smith counts as star players), or the team selling off young pieces to get a star player to push for a title this year (we're definitely not that team either).

The time we can next really shake things up is the off season. We'll have a new coach to hire, and we'll be able to make trades without roster concerns as well as having Hinrich and Nocioni off of BYC deals and far more tradeable and making matching larger salaries far easier.

The time to call for Paxson's ouster as GM will be if he's ineffectual of making viable chances for this team next year and the team is still floundering around. My personal timeline is the end of the 08/09 season I want to feel good about our direction again.

I do not agree with this. I was at that state two years ago when the Bulls were exposed to have major holes in their team that needed to be addressed. Sorry, Paxson had two full season to pull the trigger on a deal or sign the pieces that fit.

Like I said, I was at the same stage you're in now, two years ago, and personally growing sick and tired of it. I blame Paxson for this team why? Because he's the manager that needs to fit the pieces together to make this team rise above all the obstacles. He hasn't done that, he deserves to be fired also.

[Jo Jo English]

I couldn't agree more Doug. I'll cut/paste my previous thoughts from the Mike North (vs. Paxson) thread...

As far as all of the criticism directed at John Paxson, I understand it, but still don't feel he deserves most of it. I am as frustrated as any other Bulls fan by how the season has progressed, but I don't really think Paxson directly screwed anything up to get us to this point. Or maybe I should say that since I would NEVER have predicted this season turning out the way it has, why should I have expected John to? I will, however, hold him accountable for how he tries to resolve the problems facing the team now. Since I never really criticized the moves he made over the past few years (even though I was leery of the Chandler trade) I don't think it is fair for me to second guess all of the decisions he has made now.

Like I said before, I'll judge Pax by how he handles all of the problems facing the team in the coming months and years. Hopefully he is up for the challenge.

[BULLHITTER]

I do not agree with this. I was at that state two years ago when the Bulls were exposed to have major holes in their team that needed to be addressed. Sorry, Paxson had two full season to pull the trigger on a deal or sign the pieces that fit.

Like I said, I was at the same stage you're in now, two years ago, and personally growing sick and tired of it. I blame Paxson for this team why? Because he's the manager that needs to fit the pieces together to make this team rise above all the obstacles. He hasn't done that, he deserves to be fired also.

so you've run out of patience, even though the team recovered from two years ago to win more games than they the prevous two years. didn't they go, 47, 41, 49? which begs the question; what deal do you think he "missed out on"? and since you nor i know what was on the table for gasol or KG, please don't rehash what you don't know. i already know what you don't know. also, if you can recall, name me a gm that's been removed for his team finishing around .500 (which is about where i think the bulls will end up).

sorry to disappoint but paxson's not close to getting fired; he's going to get every opportunity to right the ship, and reinsdorf is right in allowing it.

and here's betting you'll be back on the bandwagon (head cheerleader?) when the team resurrects itself.

[DuckIII]

Prediction: 85% of this board and 100% of Chicago media personalities won't give a **** about anything you just wrote, regardless of the fact that its obviously correct.

Where's the misplaced outrage, doug? Where's the vitriolic sensationalism and hollow rhetoric? Nobody cares about accuracy and logic anymore, didn't you get the memo?

P.S. Good post.