Tommy Udo 6 wrote:A screw-up is when you draft someone with a better player available. Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Duhon (2nd round), Tyrus & Noah are all solid picks. It's not like the Bulls passed up any superstars. LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Anthony, Howard were all gone before the Bulls got to make their pick. The Bulls got a good selection of players but no stars. However, stars were just not available when they picked.
Krause was a screw-up but he's long gone. Dont judge Paxson by the mistakes that Krause made.
I'll give you most of that. And I probably shouldn't have been too critical of the franchis as a whole - especially when you consider a situation like Jay Williams and the impact it can have on a team.
But I think you're a bit too generous with the recent picks. There's a good chance that Gordon and/or Hinrich might not be on the team after this summer. Maybe Deng & Iggy would have been a better pair than Gordon & Deng? The real issues, I think, will be Ty Thomas instead of Aldridge, Roy, and Gay - and Noah instead of Wright, Thornton, & Young. Maybe it will still work out in the long run. But right now, there just isn't a lot to show for all of those picks.
And that's really the point. Looking at each selection individually misses the bigger picture. The Bulls are about to get their 10th top 10 pick in the past decade. The average draft position (including this year's #1) is around 4th. Imagine having the 4th pick every year for a decade. And what do they have to show for it right now? They didn't even make the playoffs in the East. Several of their guys are coming up for FA, and they have some hard decisions to make. And the roster is still somewhat unbalanced.
Plus, even if there wasn't that surefire star out there that they missed on (well, David West, al Jefferson, and some others that a lot of teams missed on), why not get creative? Package some picks & players to get guys who could really help. Some people here still hate the Jamison trade, but EG took a pick where maybe he didn't see a bona fide star, and turned it into an All-Star.
So I'll give you that there's not much daylight to second-guess any one selection in that time. But, really - 10 top ten picks in 9 years? And they've won exactly one playoff series in that time? That's all I'm saying - you would think they'd have had more for their efforts than the current roster shows.
