Bulls biggest mistakes over the Paxson era

[dougthonus]

I was trying to compile a list of big mistakes over the Paxson era and came up with this:

1: Drafting Tyrus Thomas over LaMarcus Aldridge (technically a trade):
Tyrus was the high upside swing, Aldridge was the safe pick. If you look at traditional translating college metrics, Tyrus was the right pick with a much higher steal, block, and rebound rate. His scoring rate was even about the same. After one year in the league, this actually looked like the right decision as well as Aldridge had heart surgery to end the season and Tyrus had a roughly equivalent rookie campaign but much more perceived upside due to being a more raw athletic talent. Tyrus then went straight in the crapper and Aldridge went on to be a very good (maybe great) player. Tyrus, in a different world, could have become a superstar if he put it all together, but he didn't and never really came close.

2: Signing Ben Wallace / Trading Tyson Chandler
The move is the ultimate reminder that you pay for future performance not past performance. Skiles ruined Chandler, and the Bulls probably needed to move on from Skiles if not Chandler, but in retrospect, you'd have been much better off firing the coach, leaving Wallace in Detroit and saving your money. You simply don't pay that much for a defensive guy who's undersized and aging out of the league. At least the Bulls didn't go max on him.

3: Early extension on Derrick Rose
Completely and totally defensible, and the Bulls may have been goaded into maxing Rose even after the ACL injury (that would have been an interesting discussion). However having rose on the Books for 5 years after this simply set them back a huge amount of time.

4: Signing Rip Hamilton
Not sure if this qualifies as a big mistake because you got out of his deal so much faster than you would have gotten out of Jason Richardson's deal which was worse, but Jamal Crawford would have been a much better choice. In the end, it didn't really matter because of Rose's ACL injury, but a healthy Rose + Crawford would have been far more deadly in the playoffs.

5: Trading up for Doug McDermott
Almost everyone hated this move when it was made, and it worked out nearly exactly how we thought it might. Doug appears to actually be finding his stride now and going on to have the career we needed him to have as a rookie. It was probably silly to expect him to have that impact right away though. We drafted to fill a need, and even though that player may end up being exactly what we needed him to be, you don't draft role players and count on them to make an immediate impact. The guys taken in the picks we used for McDermott were both super valuable, but who knows if the Bulls would have taken the same guys, and the rest of that class has sucked.

6: Handling of coaches?
I'm not sure if there's a critical mistake here or not. VDN seems like a terrible hire, but what would have been a better choice in those two years really? They went cheap at a point it probably didn't matter then brought in a great coach when it did. They let their relationship with Thibs sour, but over time, that looks like it was probably more on Thibs. They hire Hoiberg whom ultimately didn't fit and have no hired Boylen (wait to see what happens). Overall, i'm not sure there is a huge mistake in here per se based on the situation of the team, but it hasn't been smooth by any stretch.

7: Extending Felicio
The problem isn't that they wanted to extend a guy they felt was promising and young, the problem is that they decided to make a really bold first move and paid him at the rate of the market cap spike when every one in the league had money instead of just waiting a few weeks and seeing that there was no market and getting him for half the price. Felicio was always a gamble, and it's okay to take those kind of gambles and miss, you just don't want to take them and miss at double the market rate.

I'm sure there are lots of little things you can nit pick. Some of these mistakes show errors in judgment, some had significant impact but were simply toss ups, some of them were circumstances where it made total sense but just didn't work out.

[dougthonus]

Also, I think that's a pretty small list of things over the tenure of this FO group. The biggest thing that has hurt them has been injuries and quickly declining play of Rose/Noah.

[Red Larrivee]

I feel like Hamilton shouldn't even be on there. He was about what you expect from an MLE signing. And, as you mentioned, ultimately it didn't matter because we never got a playoff run with Rose and Hamilton. I'd probably drop that and the Rose extension (which was a unanimous no-brainer) from the list.

The McDermott trade ended up being a pretty big blunder, though I was a fan of it at the time.

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[sco]

I was trying to compile a list of big mistakes over the Paxson era and came up with this:

1: Drafting Tyrus Thomas over LaMarcus Aldridge (technically a trade):
Tyrus was the high upside swing, Aldridge was the safe pick. If you look at traditional translating college metrics, Tyrus was the right pick with a much higher steal, block, and rebound rate. His scoring rate was even about the same. After one year in the league, this actually looked like the right decision as well as Aldridge had heart surgery to end the season and Tyrus had a roughly equivalent rookie campaign but much more perceived upside due to being a more raw athletic talent. Tyrus then went straight in the crapper and Aldridge went on to be a very good (maybe great) player. Tyrus, in a different world, could have become a superstar if he put it all together, but he didn't and never really came close.

2: Signing Ben Wallace / Trading Tyson Chandler
The move is the ultimate reminder that you pay for future performance not past performance. Skiles ruined Chandler, and the Bulls probably needed to move on from Skiles if not Chandler, but in retrospect, you'd have been much better off firing the coach, leaving Wallace in Detroit and saving your money. You simply don't pay that much for a defensive guy who's undersized and aging out of the league. At least the Bulls didn't go max on him.

3: Early extension on Derrick Rose
Completely and totally defensible, and the Bulls may have been goaded into maxing Rose even after the ACL injury (that would have been an interesting discussion). However having rose on the Books for 5 years after this simply set them back a huge amount of time.

4: Signing Rip Hamilton
Not sure if this qualifies as a big mistake because you got out of his deal so much faster than you would have gotten out of Jason Richardson's deal which was worse, but Jamal Crawford would have been a much better choice. In the end, it didn't really matter because of Rose's ACL injury, but a healthy Rose + Crawford would have been far more deadly in the playoffs.

5: Trading up for Doug McDermott
Almost everyone hated this move when it was made, and it worked out nearly exactly how we thought it might. Doug appears to actually be finding his stride now and going on to have the career we needed him to have as a rookie. It was probably silly to expect him to have that impact right away though. We drafted to fill a need, and even though that player may end up being exactly what we needed him to be, you don't draft role players and count on them to make an immediate impact. The guys taken in the picks we used for McDermott were both super valuable, but who knows if the Bulls would have taken the same guys, and the rest of that class has sucked.

6: Handling of coaches?
I'm not sure if there's a critical mistake here or not. VDN seems like a terrible hire, but what would have been a better choice in those two years really? They went cheap at a point it probably didn't matter then brought in a great coach when it did. They let their relationship with Thibs sour, but over time, that looks like it was probably more on Thibs. They hire Hoiberg whom ultimately didn't fit and have no hired Boylen (wait to see what happens). Overall, i'm not sure there is a huge mistake in here per se based on the situation of the team, but it hasn't been smooth by any stretch.

7: Extending Felicio
The problem isn't that they wanted to extend a guy they felt was promising and young, the problem is that they decided to make a really bold first move and paid him at the rate of the market cap spike when every one in the league had money instead of just waiting a few weeks and seeing that there was no market and getting him for half the price. Felicio was always a gamble, and it's okay to take those kind of gambles and miss, you just don't want to take them and miss at double the market rate.

I'm sure there are lots of little things you can nit pick. Some of these mistakes show errors in judgment, some had significant impact but were simply toss ups, some of them were circumstances where it made total sense but just didn't work out.

Great list Doug!

On 2) IIRC, Chandler looked to be having some chronic injuries the prior 2 seasons that had folks worrying about his durability. Wallace's game fell apart due to back issues, not necessarily age. I still don't get why the league hasn't figured out that putting too much muscle on guys hurts way more than it helps. It puts too much pressure on backs and knees - really hope they figure it out on Lauri.

5) Doug's drafting was another cautionary tale on 3 levels. First Doug's drafting was clearly a drafting for need situation...they wanted a 3pt shooting SF, but there were clearly better players available. Second, Doug did most of his damage against lesser competition and clearly had trouble against bigger/quicker guys. Third, Doug played mostly PF in college and he struggled to adjust to SF, which was more focused on the perimeter and against quicker guys.

[dougthonus]

5) Doug's drafting was another cautionary tale on 3 levels. First Doug's drafting was clearly a drafting for need situation...they wanted a 3pt shooting SF, but there were clearly better players available. Second, Doug did most of his damage against lesser competition and clearly had trouble against bigger/quicker guys. Third, Doug played mostly PF in college and he struggled to adjust to SF, which was more focused on the perimeter and against quicker guys.

I haven't followed Doug's career closely or anything, but it looks like he's more or less become the player we needed him to be earlier. I agree with your take though. Don't draft on need and be especially wary about a PF moving to SF that isn't a plus athlete.

[dougthonus]

I feel like Hamilton shouldn't even be on there. He was about what you expect from an MLE signing. And, as you mentioned, ultimately it didn't matter because we never got a playoff run with Rose and Hamilton. I'd probably drop that and the Rose extension (which was a unanimous no-brainer) from the list.

The McDermott trade ended up being a pretty big blunder, though I was a fan of it at the time.

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Hamilton one is dicey because the impact was ultimately not that big, and I debated about whether to put it on the list or not.

The Rose extension was obvious and no one questioned it at the time, but it also had probably the most negative impact on the franchise of any of the moves they've made. Granted, they still may have chosen to max Rose after the ACL if they had waited.

[bpguimaraes23]

- The Payne trade?

- Having made only 2 trades to emprove the team in 15 years.

- Signing Wade and Rondo to build around Butler.

- Signing Jabari and expecting this year's team to improve.

Also, I don't think que questionmark after "Handling Coaches" should be there. That's clearly a problem for this FO.

[bpguimaraes23]

- As a process over results type of person, I still maintain that the Butler trade was terrible based on the info available at the time.
- Not having anyone that they liked for the second round pick that year was pretty terrible too, especially considering that drafting is the only above average quality as a FO.

[Red Larrivee]

I feel like Hamilton shouldn't even be on there. He was about what you expect from an MLE signing. And, as you mentioned, ultimately it didn't matter because we never got a playoff run with Rose and Hamilton. I'd probably drop that and the Rose extension (which was a unanimous no-brainer) from the list.

The McDermott trade ended up being a pretty big blunder, though I was a fan of it at the time.

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Hamilton one is dicey because the impact was ultimately not that big, and I debated about whether to put it on the list or not.

The Rose extension was obvious and no one questioned it at the time, but it also had probably the most negative impact on the franchise of any of the moves they've made. Granted, they still may have chosen to max Rose after the ACL if they had waited.

In hindsight, there doesn't seem to be a plausible scenario where they don't give him a max deal. It ended up being a mistake, but it was unavoidable.

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[coldfish]

Also, I think that's a pretty small list of things over the tenure of this FO group. The biggest thing that has hurt them has been injuries and quickly declining play of Rose/Noah.

Overall, the Bulls have made one trade over Paxson's tenure where they used up non-talent assets (capspace and pics) to get talent. Otto Porter Jr.

More likely than not, their biggest mistakes were the moves they didn't make but we as fans don't know about it. Particularly with the Skiles Bulls team, that team was screaming for a consolidation trade. There was no way the team was going to pay for all of them. Signing Wallace and trading Chandler just compounded the error.

The Bulls in 2005 or so were where Toronto was a few years ago. Toronto was able to keep adding talent and making trades. Paxson basically **** the bed on handling that team once he created it. The problem is that what he did wrong is going to be something based on pure conjecture. What could he have traded Curry, Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon and Nocioni for in 2005? He did a great job with Curry but it almost makes it worse because then he had Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon, Nocioni, future capspace, a high lottery pick in 2006 and an unprotected pick swap in 2008.

He had a mountain of assets that he pissed away and turned into a full rebuild with only Deng sticking around.

[panthermark]

The big one that I will never forgive Pax for:

Signing Ronnie Brewer over Wes Matthews (when we were raiding the Jazz for their players) when we knew the starting line-up had no three-point shooting.

There are others...but that one always bothered me.

[Grodoboldo]

The biggest mistake was keeping GarPax after the three alphas fiasco.

Edit (expanding the point): Signing Dwade and Rondo at their point in their careers and having very little shooting around the iso-heavy best player in the team already sounded bad when in happened, but you could argue that they deserved to have their guys play it out the season. But keeping them after the way it ended was absurd. The Bulls should have fired them and let a new FO handle the rebuild

[tgmxd]

Part of the reason why they don’t have many “failures” is because they don’t take big swings and have an extremely conservative approach

The result is less things you can blame them for screwing up but also plenty of times they sat on their hands when they could have been more aggressive

[dougthonus]

Also, I think that's a pretty small list of things over the tenure of this FO group. The biggest thing that has hurt them has been injuries and quickly declining play of Rose/Noah.

Overall, the Bulls have made one trade over Paxson's tenure where they used up non-talent assets (capspace and pics) to get talent. Otto Porter Jr.

More likely than not, their biggest mistakes were the moves they didn't make but we as fans don't know about it. Particularly with the Skiles Bulls team, that team was screaming for a consolidation trade. There was no way the team was going to pay for all of them. Signing Wallace and trading Chandler just compounded the error.

The Bulls in 2005 or so were where Toronto was a few years ago. Toronto was able to keep adding talent and making trades. Paxson basically **** the bed on handling that team once he created it. The problem is that what he did wrong is going to be something based on pure conjecture. What could he have traded Curry, Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon and Nocioni for in 2005? He did a great job with Curry but it almost makes it worse because then he had Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon, Nocioni, future capspace, a high lottery pick in 2006 and an unprotected pick swap in 2008.

He had a mountain of assets that he pissed away and turned into a full rebuild with only Deng sticking around.

That's probably true to an extent, the Bulls operate very conservatively, and so they make few mistakes and their wins are largely wins in the draft. Their big wins through trade were probably Eddy Curry trade and that might be about it. Nocioni trade was a great trade but mainly a salary dump, not a big win for value of players. They've made lots of other dump player for picks trades that worked out well (Thabo, Tyrus, Johnson, and Mirotic) which shows they're at least willing to move on from guys.

However, they've not ever traded for talent outside of Porter. When I think of times they could have traded for talent, I think Luol Deng in year 3 (though boy was he a tantalizing prospect going forward at the age of 21 doing what he did and then just declined rather than improved). Gordon after year 3 was maybe the one guy we held on to for too long and got nothing back at all from. Outside of that, I'm not sure who else you think they should have traded or what pile of assets you think they had or when they were positioned that it made sense to trade them all (which is probably most important of these points).

[dougthonus]

- The Payne trade?

- Having made only 2 trades to emprove the team in 15 years.

- Signing Wade and Rondo to build around Butler.

- Signing Jabari and expecting this year's team to improve.

Also, I don't think que questionmark after "Handling Coaches" should be there. That's clearly a problem for this FO.

Payne trade really had no impact.

They've made lots of trades that have improved the team.

Wade/Rondo were low opportunity cost moves, the Jabari signing ended up working out fine as we flipped him into Otto Porter.

In terms of coaches, I'm not sure what you would have done differently that would have made any real difference which is why I was like "meh" about it to an extent, though I listed it because clearly it has been problematic.

[JohnnyKILLroy]

Regarding Dougie, I too was on board with the pick/idea of a player like him.

Thibs unimaginative offense and Jimmy ISO ball also didn't do him any favors either.

Still - it's a trade that in hindsight has been pretty bad.

[bpguimaraes23]

- The Payne trade?

- Having made only 2 trades to emprove the team in 15 years.

- Signing Wade and Rondo to build around Butler.

- Signing Jabari and expecting this year's team to improve.

Also, I don't think que questionmark after "Handling Coaches" should be there. That's clearly a problem for this FO.

Payne trade really had no impact.

They've made lots of trades that have improved the team.

Wade/Rondo were low opportunity cost moves, the Jabari signing ended up working out fine as we flipped him into Otto Porter.

In terms of coaches, I'm not sure what you would have done differently that would have made any real difference which is why I was like "meh" about it to an extent, though I listed it because clearly it has been problematic.

- The Payne trade having no impact doesn't mean it was not terrible, but I agree that it's not a big deal on the grand scheme.

- Aside the Salmons trade on Rose rookie year and this years Otto trade, I can't remember any other trade for talent.

- Wade/Rondo trade wasted one year of Butler's prime that could have changed everything, and a can't remember anyone (other than See Red Fred) thinking it was a good idea.

- "Jabari signing ended up working out fine" is a result over process argument that I have a hard time accepting.

- As for the coaches, their hiring process is very suspect, just as their ability to manage those relationships.

[League Circles]

Biggest mistakes off the top of my head in no particular order:

Hiring VDN
Hiring Fred
Giving Fred so much time
Trading Rose (due to taking on longer term salary of very questionable benefit)
Trading Butler
Trading Chandler
Letting BG walk and signing Korver+ Brewer effectively with that money. I know this isn't easily supported seeing as how poorly Ben fared after he left but I'm big on the importance of roles dictating impact and performance and I believe he'd have kept up his fine play had he stayed. I think he'd have been a great #2 scorer to Rose as he was Rose's rookie year.
Not tanking fully in 17-18. We should have had 10 40 year old scrubs to MAKE SURE we were worse than 7th. Guys like Nazr Muhammad and Kirk Hinrich should have been playing 20+ mpg.
Not trading Noah in summer 2012 or 2013.

[coldfish]

Also, I think that's a pretty small list of things over the tenure of this FO group. The biggest thing that has hurt them has been injuries and quickly declining play of Rose/Noah.

Overall, the Bulls have made one trade over Paxson's tenure where they used up non-talent assets (capspace and pics) to get talent. Otto Porter Jr.

More likely than not, their biggest mistakes were the moves they didn't make but we as fans don't know about it. Particularly with the Skiles Bulls team, that team was screaming for a consolidation trade. There was no way the team was going to pay for all of them. Signing Wallace and trading Chandler just compounded the error.

The Bulls in 2005 or so were where Toronto was a few years ago. Toronto was able to keep adding talent and making trades. Paxson basically **** the bed on handling that team once he created it. The problem is that what he did wrong is going to be something based on pure conjecture. What could he have traded Curry, Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon and Nocioni for in 2005? He did a great job with Curry but it almost makes it worse because then he had Chandler, Gordon, Deng, Hinrich, Duhon, Nocioni, future capspace, a high lottery pick in 2006 and an unprotected pick swap in 2008.

He had a mountain of assets that he pissed away and turned into a full rebuild with only Deng sticking around.

That's probably true to an extent, the Bulls operate very conservatively, and so they make few mistakes and their wins are largely wins in the draft. Their big wins through trade were probably Eddy Curry trade and that might be about it. Nocioni trade was a great trade but mainly a salary dump, not a big win for value of players. They've made lots of other dump player for picks trades that worked out well (Thabo, Tyrus, Johnson, and Mirotic) which shows they're at least willing to move on from guys.

However, they've not ever traded for talent outside of Porter. When I think of times they could have traded for talent, I think Luol Deng in year 3 (though boy was he a tantalizing prospect going forward at the age of 21 doing what he did and then just declined rather than improved). Gordon after year 3 was maybe the one guy we held on to for too long and got nothing back at all from. Outside of that, I'm not sure who else you think they should have traded or what pile of assets you think they had or when they were positioned that it made sense to trade them all (which is probably most important of these points).

The Nocioni trade is a good example of their issues. They had a young player on a good deal. They could have traded him as part of a package in a consolidation trade. Instead, they overpaid to keep him and then had a problem with his salary and were able to shed it.

The whole Nocioni thing was weird:
- Great acquisition
- Decide not to trade
- Bad contract
- Good salary dump trade

Optimally, they would have used their good move to enable further good moves. Instead, they bumbled it and then mitigated the impact of their mistake later.

[dougthonus]

- The Payne trade having no impact doesn't mean it was not terrible, but I agree that it's not a big deal on the grand scheme.

- Aside the Salmons trade on Rose rookie year and this year Otto trade, I can't remember any other trade for talent.

- Wade/Rondo trade wasted one year of Butler's prime that could have changed everything, and a can't remember anyone (other than See Red Fred) thinking it was a good idea.

- "Jabari signing ended up working out fine" is a result over process argument that I have a hard time accepting.

- As for the coaches, their hiring process is very suspect, just as their ability to manage those relationships.

Payne trade having no impact does sort of mean it wasn't terrible. They traded guys they weren't going to keep to take a swing on a prospect and missed. I agree it wasn't a good trade, but they gave up nothing of consequence to take a look at a guy they liked. The guy they liked also ended up being nothing of consequence. The process behind that wasn't bad for me and the result was irrelevant which is why I don't include it as a big mistake. It's a small mistake for sure in terms of talent evaluation.

Agree, they haven't traded for talent. I actually don't find that to be much of a detriment for reasons that are fairly long to describe here and could probably be a full post on their own, but it's absolutely true.

I don't think Wade/Rondo was a good idea at all either, but go back and look at the options, the best choice was to not lock yourself in long term to anyone, and the Bulls avoided that. I'm much happier with their outcome than if they tried to overpay the best guys they could and ended up screwing themselves for four years like so many teams did. In order to list it as a big mistake, there has to have been a much better viable option.

Not sure why you think the process was bad with Jabari. They signed the best player they could with the money they had left to a one year deal because they viewed the opportunity cost to be low. The process was right on the mark IMO. The opportunity cost was whether they could have done something interesting at the deadline with pure cap space instead, and it feels like the answer to that question is no.