# Still Wish He Was a Bull?



## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/180617-4686-179.html

He was goofing off in practice, they said. He was bringing his perpetually stormy home life to work, they said. Some members of the organization even believe he quit on the team during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Artest missed practice the day before Game 6. He missed the team's charter flight to Detroit later that evening. He then missed a shoot-around before the biggest game of the season.

If the Pacers weren't sure whether they could trust Artest before the playoffs, they were certainly sure after the team was eliminated. Then, to make matters worse, Artest blew off a postseason meeting with Larry Bird, which is a terrific way to get yourself traded.

Artest is ticking, and the Pacers know it.

Already this summer, Artest has made some ridiculous noise that threatens to further strain his relationship with his teammates, and notably O'Neal.

"I thought I was the MVP last year because we had the best record and I was the best player on the team," he told Slam. "So I felt that I should have at least been talked about for it."

And whether you want to believe it or not, this is very mild stuff compared to what went on while he was with the Bulls. I'm also going to speculate that what we're reading about right now is merely the tip of the iceberg. Just like when he was with the Bulls, alot of his antics in Indiana may never reach print. But I have no doubt that the Pacers are every bit as motivated to rid themselves of him as the Bulls were back in '02


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## Tersk (Apr 9, 2004)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/180617-4686-179.html
> 
> He was goofing off in practice, they said. He was bringing his perpetually stormy home life to work, they said. Some members of the organization even believe he quit on the team during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals.
> ...


If your such a good talent then why is he ruining his chances to become great


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## Rodman (Feb 5, 2004)

Good question, it's amazing how some NBA-players don't even realize how privileged they are, earning lots of $$ with playing the best sports on earth..


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## DaBullz (Jul 15, 2002)

As opposed to hard working guys who never even sniffed a game 6.


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## Dan Rosenbaum (Jun 3, 2002)

It sure would be nice to be discussing a missed practice in the Eastern Conference Finals and other psycho behavior from Artest rather than whether or not the season will be a wash by the time the circus trip is completed.


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## Kid_kanada (Jun 23, 2003)

Come on guys what are we talk about here Practice, we're talking about practice...practice


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## GB (Jun 11, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> And whether you want to believe it or not, this is very mild stuff compared to what went on while he was with the Bulls.


All the sportswriters in the city say the same thing.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

people lament over his silly behavior , buti would take the play for 82 games and however many playoff games and some antics along the way as opposed to , a scrub who never does anything positive on the court and nothing negative off of it.

this is not a league for nancy boys its a man's league and sometimes things happen , even MJ smacked a couple of teammates around pippen called chicago fans racists , rodman was well rodman , you can only cry so much about it before looking like sissies yourselves as long as they produce on the court.

they aren't paid to be saints they are paid to play basketball well. If they cant do that no one cares what kind of person you are because no team will even look at you.


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## ballafromthenorth (May 27, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> people lament over his silly behavior , buti would take the play for 82 games and however many playoff games and some antics along the way as opposed to , a scrub who never does anything positive on the court and nothing negative off of it.
> 
> this is not a league for nancy boys its a man's league and sometimes things happen , even MJ smacked a couple of teammates around pippen called chicago fans racists , rodman was well rodman , you can only cry so much about it before looking like sissies yourselves as long as they produce on the court.
> ...


Good post.. :yes:


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## Machinehead (Jun 12, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> people lament over his silly behavior , buti would take the play for 82 games and however many playoff games and some antics along the way as opposed to , a scrub who never does anything positive on the court and nothing negative off of it.
> 
> this is not a league for nancy boys its a man's league and sometimes things happen , even MJ smacked a couple of teammates around pippen called chicago fans racists , rodman was well rodman , you can only cry so much about it before looking like sissies yourselves as long as they produce on the court.
> ...


Word


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

do i wish he was still a bull?
instead of Rose and his salary fallout? in a heartbeat

resigning Miller, Artest, and Brand instead of having Chandler and Rose's salary was still cheaper to Jerry Reinsdorf...which is the other question.

but would I rather have Miller and Artest instead of Rose? 
In a major way


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## Johnjo (Jun 4, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> people lament over his silly behavior , buti would take the play for 82 games and however many playoff games and some antics along the way as opposed to , a scrub who never does anything positive on the court and nothing negative off of it.
> 
> this is not a league for nancy boys its a man's league and sometimes things happen , even MJ smacked a couple of teammates around pippen called chicago fans racists , rodman was well rodman , you can only cry so much about it before looking like sissies yourselves as long as they produce on the court.
> ...


Obviously no one wants a scrub on their team, but what's with this horrible Bulls' comparison. MJ smacked a couple teammates around because he was the best ever. Pippen calls people racists, so what. And Rodman was just weird, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

You are right, this is a man's league, and that's exactly the problem. Artest doesn't act like a man. He is just a frickin' baby that cries when the slightest thing doesn't go his way. He simply needs to grow up.

And yes, they aren't paid to be saints they are paid to play well. And that's what he plays. He is no MVP, and he never will be. He doesn't have the heart to carry a team like that. And btw, Artest, ONeal is so much better.


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## lorgg (Dec 8, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>DaBullz</b>!
> As opposed to hard working guys who never even sniffed a game 6.


I am sorry DaBullz, but you NEED to join the TEAM. The guy has been in the job 1 year.

Do you honestly think this pre-Paxson team would've done anything? 

JK got years of le-way and you won't allow Pax 2 years to assess his performance.

I grow weary of you hating Pax!

Everyone is entitled to there opinion. Yours brings me down. 

Where is your fan loyalty? Don't you remeber....." Paxson hit the 3"? 

For that shot alone he deserve at least 2 years of your support. John Paxson has always conducted himself professionally and has always been successful. Player, Commentary have been successes for him. Gm will be also.


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## Machinehead (Jun 12, 2002)

Ron Artest is a helluva player who is offensive bottleneck breaking habit away from being truly great 

Has he got poop for brains?

Yeah sure 

Who cares 

As Crash Davis uttered those immortal lines to Eddy Calvin Laloosh in Bull Durham 

_ Your sloppy . Your shower shoes have mould on them 

Until you pitch 20 no hit winners in the show your a slob 

Achieve that - then they'll think your colourful _

I paraphrase but that was pretty close to it 

The point is eccentricities and just plain lunacy doesn't mean dick when your winning and even though you'll still have those pressure points of a "personality" like Artest to contain ... I guarantee that he will be a key part to another 55 win season for the Pacers this season 

If the Pacers want to win they better learn how to live with him and not fall into the Camp Yuckamuck style of man management our Dudley Do Right front office have had a tendency to do ( albeit this was more prevalent in the Krause regime )

Ron Artest for Manu Ginobili would be a fair swap although I could not see Pop dealing Manu for Ron in a zillion years


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## Maestro (May 28, 2002)

I have said it before, I would not touch Artest with a ten foot pole. I do not always agree with Kismet because IMO he defintely brings some level of spin to things. Pro Paxson/Skiles that is. However, in this case I do believe he is absolutely right. It has nothing to do with the macho posturing about "this being a man's game" or other such nonsense. In this particular case it's clear, Artest is a LOON. The guy is nuts. And it is no use in dickering over if it was a practice or a flight that was missed, or even how much that might mean relative to the current scenario. It's slow on the board now but sheesh! Those things pale in respect to the general picture he has given the public of himself over the last several years.

Given what he brings to the table as a player versus his mental state of being. No Thanks.


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## Darius Miles Davis (Aug 2, 2002)

Whatever happened to those Ron Ron for Peja trade rumors. With Peja still claiming he wants out and Artest pissing of the Pacers, doesn't it make sense? 

I'd love to see Ron Ron in the West going up against Kobe and TMac on a more regular basis.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>F.Jerzy</b>!
> Ron Artest is a helluva player who is offensive bottleneck breaking habit away from being truly great
> 
> Has he got poop for brains?
> ...


WORD.
Brilliance here.


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## ChiBron (Jun 24, 2002)

I certainly do wish he was still a Bull. I also wish Brand, Rose, JC and Marshall still played on the Bulls too. Headcases? Who cares!! They're TONS better then the crap Krause and especially Paxson has now brought in. I wanna see us win, and win NOW! This ain't some contest of whose got the best attitude or who stays out of trouble the most. I believe in production. And production from a bunch of good players brings something called WINS. Something this franchise hasn't sniffed for 6 years and we are STILL COUNTING. I can't believe there are still some fans out there who are against adding/keeping proven talent. They just seem content with piling up "good boys" with "upside".


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## DaBullz (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> this is not a league for nancy boys its a man's league


I prefer the term "girley men"


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## Maestro (May 28, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>SPMJ</b>!
> I certainly do wish he was still a Bull. I also wish Brand, Rose, JC and Marshall still played on the Bulls too. Headcases? Who cares!! They're TONS better then the crap Krause and especially Paxson has now brought in. I wanna see us win, and win NOW! This ain't some contest of whose got the best attitude or who stays out of trouble the most. I believe in production. And production from a bunch of good players brings something called WINS. Something this franchise hasn't sniffed for 6 years and we are STILL COUNTING. I can't believe there are still some fans out there who are against adding/keeping proven talent. They just seem content with piling up "good boys" with "upside".


this thread, as far as I see it, is not about revisionist history at all. Nor is it about projected wins with a given roster. It is about the mental health of a player ultimately. And not the current roster or trends in any case.:|


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## DaBullz (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>lorgg</b>!
> 
> 
> I am sorry DaBullz, but you NEED to join the TEAM. The guy has been in the job 1 year.
> ...


I'm a bulls' fan, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But that doesn't mean I should show blind loyalty to a man who's made few moves in his tenure to give me confidence he is going to make my favorite team into anything but a winner for the bean counters. No matter what I thought of him as a player.

Nor does it mean I should just blow sunshine up everyone's skirts and write stuff I don't believe in.

I give him credit for a good draft. I don't give him credit for the serious lack of depth we have or the lack of quality NBA veteran talent. 

Nor do I have to be happy about shelling out the ~$180 for NBA League Pass to watch my favorite team lose.

I didn't like Krause and I never did. But the roster he left is looking a LOT better than the one we have now, and a lot better than the one I anticipate we're going to have after the season.

I don't ask for much. Just enough victories to end this miserable string of horrible losing seasons or even a losing team that shows loyalty to its guys like Chicago teams have shown in the past - to guys like Sosa or Banks or Payton (who haven't exactly been big winners over their careers).


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

hard to believe some people still think a Jalen Rose Bill Cartwright Jamal Crawford led team that never won *you know what* was looking better.
BTW Pax wanted to keep JC, but not at Zeke Thomas prices...so WTF? JC forced their hand. He was going to leave for nothing


Eddy Curry was on the serious road to palookaville. For all we know, he's still in palookaville...but under that soft leadership, full of whining entitlement sentiments, Curry was totally doomed with no hope. That team had no heart, no fire (lol and no victories either to make such a statement that they were loking better). Road to ruin, or continued ruin.

Maybe now, with the new players, theres still hope for the future with toughminded people in there to give a profesional effort, and appropriate leadership. THey won't win much this year...but thats not the point. *You can't make lemonade from lemons overnite*

yes, we also don't know if Skiles and Pax leadership will right this ship.....but to say that previous team was looking better (as bad as they sucked) is plain loonytoons. One thing we should know. that previous team blew. To say a team that blew, looked better, aint saying too much in any case.

Ohh the good old days, when the Bulls stank. But thank goodness they didn't stink as bad as they do today :laugh:


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnjo</b>!
> 
> 
> Obviously no one wants a scrub on their team, but what's with this horrible Bulls' comparison. MJ smacked a couple teammates around because he was the best ever. Pippen calls people racists, so what. And Rodman was just weird, absolutely nothing wrong with that.
> ...


did you actually excuse jordan's behavior by saying it happened because he was the best player ever?

jordan wasn't acting like a man when he hit will purdue , he hit purdue for setting a good pick on him., to me thats being a baby , he expects everyone to play hard and when someone did and it and he got mad and whacked him.

if allen iverson can get sportwriters to vote him mvp than really anyone can because they at one point absolutely hated him, so since artest is really good it wouldn't be smart to count him out since he is still improving. 

what artest did much like jordan is a team matter why they would choose to disclose it is probably because they are laying the groundwork for a trade so people will accept it i dont doubt that he did it , but in the company of grown men it should have been handled internally and if o'neal is really the mvp he should assume a leadership role and be a leader and end this stupidity , but for some reason i doubt that he will.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

not going to presume to call anyone a man, or not a man, especially without walking the walk, just talking the talk

all i care about really, was victories. MJ brought me those. And no, no excuses for anything serious.....is wacking around a stiff something i should worry about?

BTW, i'll take Artest too. Not that I wouldn't like to find a way to trade him, because i might. But the question that do we still want him on the team is not a fair question, because thats not the whole story. Its incomplete. I'll take him over what we got in return bare minimum


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> hard to believe some people still think a Jalen Rose Bill Cartwright Jamal Crawford led team that never won *you know what* was looking better.
> BTW, Pax wanted to keep JC, but not at Zeke Thomas prices...so WTF? JC He forced their hand. He was going to leave for nothing
> 
> ...


but at the end of the day players are paid to play well and win ...in that order . our tough minded players haven't done squat in the nba a quick comparison carmelo anthony vs. our starting backcourt . for all the percieved immaturity that has been heaped upon melo over the summer , when he faced off against kirk in the NCAA's he beat him .

ditto for ben gordon who likely would not have even champs of the big east let alone the ncaa's if melo decided to stay another year because he couldn't beat his his team out a year earlier.

for all the blather about the tough minds and hard working of the "new bulls " what did they produce ?

antonio davis ? he played but he is clearly on the downside of his career

JYD is already gone

LJ3 gone 

dupree gone 

pargo ...fighting for a roster spot

pippen ...was he working hard? did you see how tough his mind was ...outside of refusing to give back a dime to the bulls in a buyout 

gill gone

kirk ...good job

frank williams ...has a suspect work ethic

chris jeferies ...has a suspect work ethic 

eric piatkowski ...coming of the worst year of a mediocre career

duhon if he even makes the team , gordon , nocioni and deng are rookies and have done nothing good or bad yet.

trybanski ..., bagaric would have been better 

harrington decent player ....also however coming off a career worst season

rick brunson ..the immortal rick brunson who was cut by paxson only to have pax need him so bad he had to trade for him only months later.

and of course the holdovers eddy curry tyson chandler and eddie robinson all of whom have suspect work ethics and its better than even money that at least 2 of the 3 wont be bulls come next year's training camp.

as far as tough minds and work eithics its very debatable pax has actually improved the team at all , the rooks have done nothing yet , can anyone name any rookies from this years draft on another team who hasn't got nothing but positive press about him since he's been drafted?

they all at this point have good work ethics and tough minds ...and all that other stuff(like talent) all the teams do the same sales job but since the bulls have about 4 of them the sales job is greatly exaggerated because rooks very rarely affect the win column in and great way 

is the team really any better at all , to me it looks alot worse ...we went from "no excuses" to 'through thick and thin" ...which to me translated is "please dont expect us not to be last in our division"

which sucks.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

sometimes you have to take two steps back to take a step forward.

this is called backing up the truck Grinch. It gets worse B4 it gets better....*TO* get better...and BTW i don't think they can be much worse. So thats not the problem here

besides....
Q- what have they given up? 
A- a dumpster full of wilted Lettuce. That team was garbage


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

Towards the end of 2003 the team was making significant strides. It seemed to me that we could get a new coach, deal Rose for something decent like maybe Szcerbiak for instance? Draft wise, become a contender. We were headed down the right path. Then J-Will got injured, Curry came into camp out of shape, Rose had an injured hand, we LOST momentum. Nevertheless, I definitley feel that team could have contended if given a few more moves and time to gel. I am not so sure on this team we have now. 

And those of you that love Pax shouldn't blind yourself to the fact that he HAS made some serious errors in his tenure as Bulls gm.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

Artest has come a long long way with his attitude. So this incident proves he hasnt completely eclipsed those problems cold turkey, but he is still headed in the right direction. 

Its amazing how we as Bulls fans can relish in very marginal improvements in one of our "projects" and decide that hes worth keeping from that. Then you have Ron Artest, one of the best (if not the best) small forwards in the league, who has made huge strides with controlling his attitude, and here we are focusing on one isolated incident just because the timing was bad. 

So if Eddy Curry was to average 25/12 next season, play hard on the floor at all times, dive after loose balls, show great passion and durability on the floor, etc. If he was to do that and lead us to the ECF where we lost because he seemingly stopped trying in the last game, we'd focus on that instead of the enormous progress he made during the season? I dont buy it. 

Artest is headed in the right direction, but we still criticize. Our projects have seemingly been in the same spot for a couple of years, and all we can do is magnify the minimal progress so it seems great. 

I'd want Artest on our team in a heartbeat.


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## GB (Jun 11, 2002)

Not only isn't Artest headed in the right direction, there are those in the league wondering if he's _regressing_.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>GB</b>!
> Not only isn't Artest headed in the right direction, there are those in the league wondering if he's _regressing_.


regressing?

and this is based off of last season which was his best year to date.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> sometimes you have to take two steps back to take a step forward.
> 
> this is called backing up the truck Grinch. It gets worse B4 it gets better....*TO* get better...and BTW i don't think they can be much worse. So thats not the problem here
> ...


wasn't the team paxson inherited better than the year before ?

and wasn't the team after an off-season of gereral paxson better than that team ...until the rose trade?

why take 2 steps back when you are still going forward?

i dont know many GM's who would do that, in fact i can think of only 1.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> 
> 
> wasn't the team paxson inherited better than the year before ?
> ...


EXCELLENT POINT. Pax has made some...strange....moves to say the least. I frankly don't understand how some people can be 100% behind the moves he has made. Still, I guess some people automatically support people in authority. Just like people that always support 100% of what the president says just because he is the president. I never understood that sort of herd mentality myself.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> 
> 
> EXCELLENT POINT. Pax has made some...strange....moves to say the least. I frankly don't understand how some people can be 100% behind the moves he has made. Still, I guess some people automatically support people in authority. Just like people that always support 100% of what the president says just because he is the president. I never understood that sort of herd mentality myself.


and dont forget if you question the moves made too much you are unloyal. just like if you question the president you aren't a loyal american .those people need 3rd grade history classes and they'll find out questioning authority built this country and freedom of speech and opinion are the basis for what we have today.

herd mentalities are for sheep, and everyone knows what happens to sheep in the end.


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## Electric Slim (Jul 31, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Maestro</b>!
> I have said it before, I would not touch Artest with a ten foot pole.


That's because he'd rip that ten foot pole from your hands and turn you into a human popsicle.


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## Electric Slim (Jul 31, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> 
> 
> herd mentalities are for sheep, and everyone knows what happens to sheep in the end.


They become Bulls fans?


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> EXCELLENT POINT. Pax has made some...strange....moves to say the least. I frankly don't understand how some people can be 100% behind the moves he has made. Still, I guess some people automatically support people in authority. Just like people that always support 100% of what the president says just because he is the president. I never understood that sort of herd mentality myself.


The president comparison doesnt stick really, because it hurts other countries, and thats where the comparison drifts off. Paxson isnt hurting other teams, etc. 

However, I can think of one other GM who took a step backwards to take two steps forwards, and thats the GM of the NBA champions. 

I, personally, see exactly what Paxson is doing I think it will pay off. I dont support him blindly, just because he is the GM, I support him because I think the moves hes made have had a consistent theme, and hes bringing in talented players who all mesh and have a lot of the same will to win.


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## fl_flash (Aug 19, 2002)

Grinch and Ace, you two are thinking too much alike. When will all this herd mentality end??????????


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> 
> The president comparison doesnt stick really, because it hurts other countries, and thats where the comparison drifts off. Paxson isnt hurting other teams, etc.
> ...


Paxson doesn't hurt other teams you are right he helps them by giving them an easier team to face ...he does however hurt bulls fans who want a team worth rooting for , not some losers who will supposedly lose with dignity.

joe dumars lost grant hill not by his own doing he didn't want to take that step back, he was forced to, not really comparable to the bulls at all, and we didn't get a ben wallace in the deal either .

and i'll ask you ...who were these players before they got here ? was rose a loser in indy or donyell in utah , the bulls didn't bring in losers , or even JYD or antonio davis, they became losers when they got here, because no one was saying it about them in tor. , at some point instead of blaming the players you are going to have to look elsewhere. constantly blaming the players who lose without any regard to how they got here , or why is simply following the crowd and being reactionary to the events that transpire .

did paxson change the losing culture last year ?

is this years team going to be a team that wins? and if they dont win wont that still be in the culture of losing?

instead of the GM saying basically , "It was his fault and his fault we aren't winning" , to actually take some of the responsibility for the moves HE made . I was led to believe that winners take responsibility and make things better , not blame others when what you brought upon them doesn't work. 

instead of working together as a team i believe pax is making players compete with each other , putting together a team of no clearly defined roles . Is it curry's team since our future rides on him , or is it his with tyson ? or is it kirk's team since he is the golden boy? maybe its ben gordons squad since he is our new designated gunner in the mold of JC and rose and mercer....so many questions are going to sorted out or tried to be sorted out in training camp , no team outside of the bobcats has so many questions. 

thats not leadership , if he were a president i would want him impeached.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> Paxson doesn't hurt other teams you are right he helps them by giving them an easier team to face ...he does however hurt bulls fans who want a team worth rooting for , not some losers who will supposedly lose with dignity.


So its not like the president comparison. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> and i'll ask you ...who were these players before they got here ? was rose a loser in indy or donyell in utah , the bulls didn't bring in losers , or even JYD or antonio davis, they became losers when they got here, because no one was saying it about them in tor. , at some point instead of blaming the players you are going to have to look elsewhere. constantly blaming the players who lose without any regard to how they got here , or why is simply following the crowd and being reactionary to the events that transpire .


Jalen Rose is cancer. He was on a winning team before, but that team is still winning, and now Rose is on the Raptors, whos fans are unhappy with him and want him traded. 

Now thats just his team history, but of course, its most important to look at him as a player. He just isnt passionate enough about winning, and is more concerned with getting his glory stats. Thats the kind of player who bounces around the league a lot, guys I like to think are temporary solutions, and are never part of a long term plan. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> did paxson change the losing culture last year ?


Thats for us to find out this upcoming season. If you mean did he change it before last season, before the season started, hell no. If he would have done that, you guys would have crucified him even more than you do now, because the Bulls were touted as the up and coming team of the year. 

Soon as he recognized that that obviously wasnt happening, he did what was necessary to begin executing his own plan of attack. The first step was to get rid of Rose, and the cost of that was Marshall, unfortunetly, but he got that done. The next step was letting go of Crawford, who doesnt have the same passion as the other talent we have on our roster. Paxson wants to get rid of Curry as well, and dont be surprised if that happens by the trade deadline if we dont see some serious change in Curry. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> instead of working together as a team i believe pax is making players compete with each other , putting together a team of no clearly defined roles . Is it curry's team since our future rides on him , or is it his with tyson ? or is it kirk's team since he is the golden boy? maybe its ben gordons squad since he is our new designated gunner in the mold of JC and rose and mercer....so many questions are going to sorted out or tried to be sorted out in training camp , no team outside of the bobcats has so many questions.
> 
> thats not leadership , if he were a president i would want him impeached.


You cant give the team to one guy when we dont have one guy on our roster who is worthy of being a franchise player. The Pistons are running the same system. Earn your minutes, each spot is competitive, no defined franchise player. They are doing quite well as a team if you ask me.

Thats how it should, the NBA nowadays is such a rush to find a franchise player, and it gets to the point where people start pushing guys like Baron Davis or Paul Pierce into the role of a franchise player. 

Maybe its Paxsons fault that we dont have Duncan, Garnett, Shaq, Kobe or McGrady. I dont believe it is, but I believe if you're a team that doesnt have one of those guys, you shouldnt be looking to define anyone on your roster as franchise. That will only give them an unjustified ego.


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## Philomath (Jan 3, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> And whether you want to believe it or not, this is very mild stuff compared to what went on while he was with the Bulls.


This is a message board, and we're all aware these are just rumors - can somebody please spill the beans with what they've heard about Artest? Or make something up? I'm bored of inaudible whispers and innuendo about how bad/crazy this guy is off the court. Need some details!

Anyway, with what I know now - which is basically what I've seen on the court - even with all the things this guy has done to hurt his teams, I would still take him back in a second. His talent notwithstanding, this is the kind of guy that holds trophies while Bill Walton yells "Vindication for Ron Artest! What must he be feeling right now?"


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

*Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>Philomath</b>!
> 
> 
> This is a message board, and we're all aware these are just rumors - can somebody please spill the beans with what they've heard about Artest? Or make something up? I'm bored of inaudible whispers and innuendo about how bad/crazy this guy is off the court. Need some details!
> ...


He used to do naked push ups in the locker room at halftime & the end of game. Used to cuss a lot, blame people, throw things...that sort of stuff.


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>Philomath</b>!
> 
> 
> This is a message board, and we're all aware these are just rumors - can somebody please spill the beans with what they've heard about Artest? Or make something up? I'm bored of inaudible whispers and innuendo about how bad/crazy this guy is off the court. Need some details!


http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/180617-4686-036.html


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> 
> So its not like the president comparison.
> ...


Raptor fans dont seem to share your view that they are unhappy with him and want him traded.

http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110206&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

in fact they dont seem to have strong feelings about him one way or another and accept him as a #2 guy behind vince for now and i had to go back 5 pages to find a thread with his name in the title. i doubt very much i'd have to do the same with our resident cancer e-rob.there was no mention of trading him at all and the sole person who said anything negative was quickly shot down as a raptor troll who they claimed didn't know anything about rose....so he may not have been a fan.

crawford is the only one of the 3 C's who actually improved every season and was the lone one who didn't have his work ethic questioned ...in fact he appears to have a very strong one ....so you might want to lay off the passion talk until we are discussing Caviezel DVD's since he appears by his actions to be quite passionate.

you dont have to give teams away to players but they should all know where they stand and there is no way any player who makes the roster knows anything about his role this upcoming season because none of it has really been decided yet and the season starts in 5 weeks.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> Raptor fans dont seem to share your view that they are unhappy with him and want him traded.
> 
> http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110206&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
> ...


Well, it is offseason, so folks lay off, but I remember during the season some of the Raptors fans were pretty unhappy with his performance. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> crawford is the only one of the 3 C's who actually improved every season and was the lone one who didn't have his work ethic questioned ...in fact he appears to have a very strong one ....so you might want to lay off the passion talk until we are discussing Caviezel DVD's since he appears by his actions to be quite passionate.


He didnt really improve, his minutes increased, and with that, his production did as well. The same could be said with Curry/Chandler. Maybe we see him totally different, because when I see him, I dont see a passionate player. In any case, Paxson did offer what he was worth, and Crawford wanted more. Theres nothing we can really do in that situation besides let him go or engage in a bad deal, and when dealing with a dime a dozen shooting guard like Crawford, its best to let them go. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> you dont have to give teams away to players but they should all know where they stand and there is no way any player who makes the roster knows anything about his role this upcoming season because none of it has really been decided yet and the season starts in 5 weeks.


They dont where they stand? How dont they? They know what position they play, they know whos going to start, the only confusion with whos starting would be with Nocioni and Deng, but it was said in the papers that Nocioni would start. So they have been establishing these things, I dont know what type of things you're looking at as far as not knowing roles.


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## Maestro (May 28, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Electric Slim</b>!
> 
> 
> That's because he'd rip that ten foot pole from your hands and turn you into a human popsicle.


:laugh:


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> 
> Well, it is offseason, so folks lay off, but I remember during the season some of the Raptors fans were pretty unhappy with his performance.
> ...


http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89737&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

are you sure they dont like him?

this is a thread at the end of the season , it seems raptor fans like him .

crawford improved in role as he became the #1 option a pretty big leap considering he was the backup pg for most of the previous year.

the bulls dont have roles who is the 1st option on offense ...#2 option ? who is the team leader , there isn't another team in the league who doesn't know that already except for the bobcats...and that is alot not to know...considering the season starts in less than 40 days


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89737&perpage=15&pagenumber=2
> 
> are you sure they dont like him?
> ...


The fact he was left unprotected in the expansion draft speaks volumes. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> crawford improved in role as he became the #1 option a pretty big leap considering he was the backup pg for most of the previous year.


His improvements still come from minutes increased. I'd say he was 1st perimeter option, and only 1st overall option when curry was injured. 



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> the bulls dont have roles who is the 1st option on offense ...#2 option ? who is the team leader , there isn't another team in the league who doesn't know that already except for the bobcats...and that is alot not to know...considering the season starts in less than 40 days


Curry = 1st option in the post
Gordon = 1st perimeter option
Curry = 1st option overall in the offense

Hinrich is the team leader, being the distributor and point guard. I think those roles are pretty set. Gordon and Curry are the main options. 

I think the roles are more established than you claim them to be.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

let me clear this up for you Johnny. Its simple
Grinch wants to know why the Bulls aren't going to win the title this season...and who can he blame for not taking a terrible team and turning it around imediately?

Ace wants to know why Pax has made his own moves, and not Aces moves. 

They want instant gratification :curse:


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> let me clear this up for you Johnny. Its simple
> Grinch wants to know why the Bulls aren't going to win the title this season...and who can he blame for not taking a terrible team and turning it around imediately?
> 
> ...


no i want competence ...apparently that is more than you want.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

actually Grinch. i do want competance. I like whats been done so far, and the direction the team is taking.
However, i don't expect to be proven right or wrong in the next 5 minutes, *or the next season*.
I have reasonable standards of...... wait and see how it all shakes out. I don't like it, that we are on the longest streak of sucking in history...but thats what Pax has to turn around.

and it doesn't happen overnite...or to any lasting good effect with stop-gaps.

I'm, glad he's taking the time to build from proffesionalism first. To make that his building block (if you will)

Plus, i don't expect this team will be the same in two or three seasons.....thats what you seem to asume. You have to understand this is a process, and it takes time


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> 
> 
> Ace wants to know why Pax has made his own moves, and not Aces moves.


So does _Darius Rice_, as he prepares to share a couple of Busch Light Drafts with the Gary Steelheads management at Smokey Bones BBQ and Sports Bar in Merrillville, welcoming him to the CBA, instead of the NBA.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> actually Grinch. i do want competance. I like whats been done so far, and the direction the team is taking.
> However, i don't expect to be proven right or wrong in the next 5 minutes, *or the next season*.
> I have reasonable standards of...... wait and see how it all shakes out. I don't like it, that we are on the longest streak of sucking in history...but thats what Pax has to turn around.
> ...


can you name a bad team with a great attitude last year ?

i bet you cant because losing sours teams ....thats the thing they are all competitors , nobody wants to lose and its the losing that causes most of the problems, winning cures a lot of whats wrong . if the players are degenerates , they will be happy degenerates if the won 60 games...and a team of heros and and saints will be not much fun to be around in a 65 loss season , that is just the way it is . 

is there a team that can lose as much as the bulls and not have at least one malcontent on it, i want guys on my team upset if they lose scrimages to their own teammates. 

do you honestly believe last years team lost because they weren't professional enough? that the reason they were losing is because the other teams were more professional?

if pax's goal to make a losing squad that can take losing well. i want guys who hate losing and do whatever to win if they accept losing but are happy with a good effort i dont want them , i dont want guys who lose with dignity i want guys who win, period ...at this point i dont care if they are weed smokers , jaywalkers, guys with gingivitis or women with really tight sports bras, its not really an issue to me. 

for paxson all he is doing is placing the blame elsewhere for his own mistakes ...you may hate e-rob but he is a better player than pippen ...as was brad miller mercer and donyell marshall ...in the last 5 seasons these are the free agents brought in by the bulls why is that paxson has brought in the worst ...and erob is among them...but pax is beyond blame because he has a vision .

how come a 2nd round pick has to refuse to go to europe , why isn't he a lock to make the team ...where are last years 2nd round picks...or does paxsons scouting eye only matter when drafting players in the top 7? it seems almost like pax only watches the final four and picks the one he likes best.

where was this vision 12 months ago...why did pax only began to see on dec.1st 2003 when he was hired in april of that year?

you preach patience, i preach positive steps and the bulls aren't making nearly enough of them and until then i will continue to have a problem with how they are run.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

> Originally posted by <b>TomBoerwinkle#1</b>!
> 
> 
> So does _Darius Rice_, as he prepares to share a couple of Busch Light Drafts with the Gary Steelheads management at Smokey Bones BBQ and Sports Bar in Merrillville, welcoming him to the CBA, instead of the NBA.


Darius My last name is Rice, Rice?  

Those Steelheads..smooooth operatas


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> wasn't the team paxson inherited better than the year before ?
> 
> and wasn't the team after an off-season of gereral paxson better than that team ...until the rose trade?
> ...


I can name two more recent GM's: Kiki Vandeweghe and Joe Dumars.

The Nuggets were 40-42 in 00/01. Kiki took over as GM on 8/9/01. The Nuggets went 27-55 in 01/02 and 17-65 in 02/03.

The Pistons were 42-40 in 99/00. Joe took over as GM on 6/6/00. The Pistons went 32-50 in 00/01.

If you would have been as critical of them after their first seasons in charge, you'd have been jumping the gun on them just as you are right now with Paxson. You'd have been wrong with Vandeweghe and Dumars. And I'm confident you're just as wrong about Paxson.

Sometimes you really do need to take a few steps back before you can move foreward on solid ground.


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## Machinehead (Jun 12, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> 
> 
> He used to do naked push ups in the locker room at halftime & the end of game.


Using AJ Guyton's buttocks as a cushion I believe

Such services not always been volunteered by AJ


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

*Re: Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> He used to do naked push ups in the locker room at halftime & the end of game. Used to cuss a lot, blame people, throw things...that sort of stuff.


I'll confirm that, ace. He did a lot of very strange things in the locker room similar to what you described. His teammates were convinced he was nuts...and in a dangerous way.


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## Machinehead (Jun 12, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> I'll confirm that, ace. He did a lot of very strange things in the locker room similar to what you described. His teammates were convinced he was nuts...and in a dangerous way.


Particularly AJ


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## such sweet thunder (May 30, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>F.Jerzy</b>!
> 
> 
> Using AJ Guyton's buttocks as a cushion I believe
> ...


This explains why he was always begging to get off the bench.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> I can name two more recent GM's: Kiki Vandeweghe and Joe Dumars.
> ...


dumars didn't decide to take step back....grant hill left causing the drop in wins.

and the nuggets weren't improving they were losing ground ....they lost more games because mcdyess only played 10 games...he didn't choose to lose more games...they weren't moving forward they were backpeddling , so kiki made some decisions . 

and it should be noticed that after 2 offseasons both kiki and dumars won more games than they lost paxson will most likely not follow that trend , but if he does i will be the 1st to say i was wrong...but this looks like a 50+ loss season.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> dumars didn't decide to take step back....grant hill left causing the drop in wins.


He could have "decided" to pay him more than anyone else, maybe kissed his buttocks a little bit and maybe kept him, couldn't he? He did want to remain a Piston, afterall. Nothing is ever etched in stone, but I want to be a Piston, despite the fact that I haven't really been appreciated in Detroit, from what I hear from various people. There might be people who don't like me, but there are a lot who do. *I like the team and the organization, so I want to be here. I want to start and end my career with the same team.*

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_15_223/ai_54451018



> and the nuggets weren't improving they were losing ground ....they lost more games because mcdyess only played 10 games...he didn't choose to lose more games...they weren't moving forward they were backpeddling , so kiki made some decisions.


That's a very liberal analysis of why the Nuggets record went from 40-42 to 17-65 in two seasons. A healthy McDyess meant 23 more wins? Wow! You're giving him an awful lot of credit. And of course you'd never admit that there might be some similarities between their trade of Van Exel and LaFrentz during the 01/02 season and Paxson's trade of Rose and Marshall last year, would you? 



> and it should be noticed that after 2 offseasons both kiki and dumars won more games than they lost paxson will most likely not follow that trend , but if he does i will be the 1st to say i was wrong...but this looks like a 50+ loss season.


Denver didn't become a .500 ballclub until Vandeweghe's _third_ season as GM. And condemning Paxson before the start of training camp of his second season as GM seems like a real rush to judgement.

Hey, I'm not trying to change your mind. There's a core group of posters who have already tied a noose around Paxson's neck. I just think that's premature. His predecessor had five years to rebuild..._FIVE YEARS._ Paxson's being written off by some after _one season._ Maybe it's just me but I think that's a little unfair. But that's your prerogative. Have fun with it.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

hey Kismet, apparently, the losses of Tyson Chandler and Jay Williams don't qualify as setbacks to some


All that matters is that the job gets done.
Every situation is different in its particulars. Theres absolutely nothing to this argument about it has to be done on a certain posters timetable


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>fleetwood macbull</b>!
> let me clear this up for you Johnny. Its simple
> Grinch wants to know why the Bulls aren't going to win the title this season...and who can he blame for not taking a terrible team and turning it around imediately?
> 
> ...


Hey now, thats not fair. Of COURSE I'd love it if Pax made every move I thought should be made. I do have SOME strength in my convictions, particularly when it comes to basketball which I am fanatical about, especially evaluating players. I mean, I will watch ANYTHING thats basketball related. A lot of the times I will take notes on players. I watch everything basketball related I can find. Whether it is a euro game, a college game, the Portsmouth tourney, an ABDC camp, an HS all star game, the derby city classic, and 1 tour, EBC championships, the guys at the park. I LOVE basketball, I love evaluating basketball. About the only thing I haven't stooped to is watching the WNBA. No offense girls, just not down with it. In any case, ALL I really want to see is Paxson making GOOD moves. Trading Rose & Marshall for AD & JYD isn't a good deal. Letting Crawford walk when we could have retained him at about a mil over the mid level exception is not a good dea. Signing Pippen instead of Posey (to a 2 year GUARANTEED deal no less) is NOT a good deal. And there are a myriad of other little things I could point to and say WHY? Like letting Blount go a day too late to make a playoff roster, or waiving Hassell (instead of Mason) to make room for LJIII, or letting LJIII go this offseason. 

I know a good move when I see one and I know a BAD move when I see one. Thus far, outside of the draft (I disagree with Grinch and think Paxson has had really good second round choices, in fact Smith & Austin were both guys I had labeled "diamonds in the rough"). I am sure Pax is privy to more inside information than I am so maybe his deals aren't as horrible as they appear on the face of things. But I certainly haven't been impressed THUS far (other than the draft). Still, if Paxson made moves I considered good, or even decent, I'd be a lot more approving. As it stands most of the deals he has made I can describe in only one word....BAD. It amazes me that people out there think otherwise. We have squandered a lot of assetts. Sure, we DO have some talented players now but it seems like we COULD have had a lot more if the assetts were wisely managed. Paxson IS a rookie gm with no previous experience AS a gm, is it THAT hard to believe that he could make some rookie mistakes? Frankly I don't see how given the caliber of moves he has made so far.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>TomBoerwinkle#1</b>!
> 
> 
> So does _Darius Rice_, as he prepares to share a couple of Busch Light Drafts with the Gary Steelheads management at Smokey Bones BBQ and Sports Bar in Merrillville, welcoming him to the CBA, instead of the NBA.


http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/7457722

http://www.spursreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13412

"SLEEPER: Darius Rice, SF, Blazers
Stats: 15.1 ppg, 5 rpg, 43 percent from 3 in the Rocky Mountain Revue
The skinny: Rice, a former McDonald's All-American, went undrafted after a poor pre-draft camp performance and a lackluster senior season. However, scouts have always been intrigued by his size (6-10), athleticism and ability to stroke the ball from just about anywhere. He looked great in Salt Lake, especially in the first few games before Qyntel Woods began hogging the ball. He played well enough to earn a roster spot for the Blazers. He may never be more than a 3-point specialist in the league, but given his size, that should earn him a steady paycheck over the course of his career. 

Honorable Mention: Luol Deng (15.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg); Josh Smith, SF, Hawks (14.7 ppg, 39 percent from 3); Jameer Nelson, PG, Magic (17 ppg, 6.2 apg); David Bluthenthal, F, Kings (19.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 57 percent from 3); Andre Emmett, SG, Grizzlies (19.3 ppg); Ricky Minard, G, Kings (19 ppg); Tony Allen, SG, Celtics (14.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg); Andris Biedrins, PF, Warriors (11.7 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 50 percent shooting); Sasha Vujacic, PG, Lakers (13.1 ppg, 5 apg); Andre Iguodala, SG, Sixers (10.8 ppg, 5.8 rpg); Ben Gordon, G, Bulls (13.5 ppg); Sebastian Telfair (13 ppg, 5 apg); Beno Udrih, PG, Spurs (10.3 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 5 apg on 54 percent shooting); Damien Wilkens, SF, Sonics (15.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg); Dorell Wright, SG, Heat (30 points in one game) 
"

Thats Chad Ford's evaluation (not that I care much for Ford's basketball analyis or anything). Rice had a great Summer league, he has a pro body. Mark my words, he WILL be on an NBA team, maybe not this season but he is going to make it eventually I believe. It is funny how things sometimes come full circle. I mean, some of my previous 2nd sleeper picks were guys like Jason Hart, Jason Kapono, Tayshaun Prince (though he went earlier I think), Tommie Smith, Mario Austin...thats just to name a few. Anyway, Hart will probably get heavy minutes with the Bobcats, as will Kapono, and they will finally have a chance to prove themselves after being off of the radar for a while. Smith looked decent at worst in the summer league and could actually MAKE the Bulls roster. We all know what Prince is doing. 

In any case, the point is that just because Rice won't be a starting sf somewhere in the NBA this season it doesn't mean that he isn't talented or worthy of getting his shot and I am sure he will somewhere down the road. I stand by my evaluation of him 100%.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Still Wish He Was a Bull?*



> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> I'll confirm that, ace. He did a lot of very strange things in the locker room similar to what you described. His teammates were convinced he was nuts...and in a dangerous way.


So do you know why the team never got him help? I mean, it seems to me that if you have a headcase player on your team with real mental issues the right and humane thing to do would be to get him some professional help rather than just trading him off to another team and "washing your hands" of him. I mean, I am not saying the Bulls DIDN'T do that. I am just curious whether steps were taken to help Artest? I know when he got to Indy he got put on some medication that was a big help for a long time, could that not have happened when he was a Bull?


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

I understand your views from a talent evaluation ace, but look at it this way.

Jalen Rose
'04-05: $14.487mil
'05-06: $15.694mil
'06-07: $16.901mil

has now turned into

Antonio Davis
'04-05: $12mil
'05-06: $13mil

At the expense of Marshall and Crawford.

Crawford's potential will be missed, but frankly I'm sick of potential, and his stats while on the Bulls can easily be replaced. Marshall is the one I truely miss, but Tyson is supposedly our PF of the future which made Marshall expendable.

Getting rid of Rose freed up more money, and will make us a player in the FA market a year earlier.

People have been saying that Paxson has been very inconsistent with his vision. I, for one, think that he is being very consistent. He believes Curry and Chandler are his cornerstones (along with Hinrich now), and he's going to surround these guys with quality role players... those that will work hard and have that drive to win.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> 
> 
> http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/7457722
> ...


Hey, all I said is I bet Darius is wishing _you_ were making the calls for the Bulls, and not Pax.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

By the way, this thread has gone waaaaaaaaay off topic.


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## lorgg (Dec 8, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>ace20004u</b>!
> 
> 
> EXCELLENT POINT. Pax has made some...strange....moves to say the least. I frankly don't understand how some people can be 100% behind the moves he has made. Still, I guess some people automatically support people in authority. Just like people that always support 100% of what the president says just because he is the president. I never understood that sort of herd mentality myself.


People are behind Pax because they like him. He was a championship player. Many posters crucify him for his moves, but this woulda been a first round playoff exiter if they ever made it. Very average roster IMHO pre-Pax.

I think your opinion people's support for Paxson as blind loyalty maybe be apt for the casual fan. The more gung ho fans are fans of Paxson, but rather than being of herd herd mentallity they are just being patient with a man that has been on the job one year.
I believe these Pax supporters believe the pre-Pax roster would've accomplished little or nothing and are happy that Pax has brought in fresh attitudes and athletes.

"All I am saying....is give Pax a chance........"


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>lorgg</b>!
> 
> 
> People are behind Pax because they like him. He was a championship player. Many posters crucify him for his moves, but this woulda been a first round playoff exiter if they ever made it. Very average roster IMHO pre-Pax.
> ...


My sentiments exactly.

He has been consistent with his vision in my eyes. I think he jumped the gun a little early on the Rose trade (could have gotten a better deal in my mind).

The most likely scenerio is that he felt pressured to make changes fast (whether this was created by Reinsdorf or just himself, I don't know).

I see what he is trying to do, and am willing to support him until he fails. I'm not a Pax lover, but I do like him better than Krause, so I am happy that he is GM in my mind.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> Denver didn't become a .500 ballclub until Vandeweghe's _third_ season as GM. And condemning Paxson before the start of training camp of his second season as GM seems like a real rush to judgement.


That's deceptive. Vandeweghe took over at the end of a summer and didn't have a whole lot to work with. That summer he didn't get to draft, didn't get to have a summer to accomplish major trades... he *had* to go with what he had.

After two off-seasons to work with, Kiki had the Nuggets above .500.

Paxson took over at the end of a season, and had been closely watching his players and coaches well before that. He's had two summers to work now. Are the Bulls going to be anywhere close to .500?

Nope, not likely.


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>TomBoerwinkle#1</b>!
> By the way, this thread has gone waaaaaaaaay off topic.


What's a good thread without some Pax bashing?


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Rhyder</b>!
> I understand your views from a talent evaluation ace, but look at it this way.
> 
> Jalen Rose
> ...


Crawford has improved every year and he was drafted as a project. If getting rid of the more talented Rose & Marshall for the less talented AD & JYD because we save one year on Rose's contract is a good deal in your eyes then I can't really say anything much to change your mind. Crawford won't be replaced nearly as easily as people thing and your right, Marshall was a real loss. We won't be signing any big name FA's IMO. If anything taht money we saved will allow us to avoid the luxury tax to resign Curry & Chandler.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>lorgg</b>!
> 
> 
> People are behind Pax because they like him. He was a championship player. Many posters crucify him for his moves, but this woulda been a first round playoff exiter if they ever made it. Very average roster IMHO pre-Pax.
> ...


I like Pax the player too, who couldn't? I mean he WON an NBA championship for the Bulls. Sure, MJ was triple teamed and all he had to do was can the open jumper but hell, I'd have missed it and probably shot an airball I'd have been so nervous. 

I like the way Paxson has drafted but his other moves have left me scracthing my head. I'm not BASHING Pax, just evaluating what I have seen so far. I mean, I am willing to give Pax the benefit of the doubt and see what he does. I just am not in any way shape or form impressed with most of the deals he has made so far and I don't really see why anyone should be. THat being said, I still love Pax the player and I HOPE he succeeds as GM.


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## DaBullz (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> I can name two more recent GM's: Kiki Vandeweghe and Joe Dumars.
> ...


Consistently giving up the better player(s) in deals you make is not taking steps back before you move forward. It's self-destruction.

We've seen this kind of argument before. Particularly regarding Curry, Chandler, and Crawford. "Look at KG! Chandler's on the same path KG was at the same stage of his 'development.'" Some of us weren't fooled by this kind of logic then, and aren't now.

You want to compare Paxson using this logic to actual good GMs. So be it. But there's consequences: I suggest if Paxson doesn't make the Bulls into a 43 game winner, like Vanderweigh did, or into a 50 game winner like Dumars did (after those "steps backward"), then you join the Fire Pax club. I'll gladly (and I wish I could) drop the whole thing from my signature if the Bulls do win 43 games.


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## Rhyder (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>DaBullz</b>!
> 
> 
> Consistently giving up the better player(s) in deals you make is not taking steps back before you move forward. It's self-destruction.
> ...


I'll join the fire Paxson club if he lets Chandler or Curry go for anything less than getting back a second tier star. I envision that the Bulls are planning on comitting long-term dollars to both of them, unless there is some major setback this year.

If I understand Paxson's vision correctly, he has positioned ourselves to comfortably resign both players no matter how this season goes, and be a FA player after the 05-06 season.


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## DaBullz (Jul 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Rhyder</b>!
> 
> 
> I'll join the fire Paxson club if he lets Chandler or Curry go for anything less than getting back a second tier star. I envision that the Bulls are planning on comitting long-term dollars to both of them, unless there is some major setback this year.
> ...


I'm prepared for a re-run of the Crawford scenario. They'll become RFAs and Pax will refuse to sign either for as little as $1M over MLE.

Of course, Pax will talk about paying for winning, and he's set us up to not win this season. So it's a self-fulfilled prophesy.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>DaBullz</b>!
> 
> 
> Consistently giving up the better player(s) in deals you make is not taking steps back before you move forward. It's self-destruction.
> ...


I'm not a big "club" guy. But FYI, I'm already on record with my expectations:

http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=114685&pagenumber=4

I want to see this team approach a .500 record next season (05/06). That will be Paxson's third season as GM. If this team is still flopping around in the 20-30 win category IN 05/06, there'd better be a damn good explanation or I'm going to become very suspect and critical of this organization's intentions.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> He could have "decided" to pay him more than anyone else, maybe kissed his buttocks a little bit and maybe kept him, couldn't he? He did want to remain a Piston, afterall. Nothing is ever etched in stone, but I want to be a Piston, despite the fact that I haven't really been appreciated in Detroit, from what I hear from various people. There might be people who don't like me, but there are a lot who do. *I like the team and the organization, so I want to be here. I want to start and end my career with the same team.*
> ...


it was grant who decided to leave , and everyone knows it , so dumars didn't decide really to rebuild at all , his hand was forced , stackhouse couldn't carry a team so he traded him based on the fact his team was declining. not close to the bulls and paxson situation.

mcdyess wasn't even on the nuggets when they won 17 games he was a knick that season , and by that point kiki was in full rebuild mode , his team was already faultering , paxson was not in that position , his team was on the rise , until he stopped them by trading their best player .

look i go by offseasons because thats when GM's can do most of their work and have the most impact , most teams wont do any trades because they want to see how their work has melded together and then there is a trade deadline ...they also have the draft , summer leagues free agent camps and free agent signings to improve their teams , after 2 offseasons most people dont think he has as good a team as he was left ...it may have more talent but chances are it doesn't and it certainly would win more this season with JC rose and marshall than who was brought in trade for them , that cant really be debated we have seen JYD and davis's impact and basically donyell is better than both of them put together , plus i am highly pessimistic that the group of piatkowski , frank williams and cezary trybanski are equal to jamal crawford .

until proven otherwise the fact that the bulls are losing ground on the rest of the nba means john paxson is not a good GM.


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## ViciousFlogging (Sep 3, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> 
> his team was on the rise


I still can't quite get over this convenient memory lapse. No one remembers, or maybe they choose to forget, just how pathetic that team looked when they opened the season. Losing by 25 to the Wiz at home. Barely beating an atrocious Atlanta squad. Getting run off the floor by the Bucks, who we should have beaten or at least competed with on paper. Getting hammered by the Wiz again a little later. That team looked like it should be on the rise. It looked good on paper. It finished the previous season playing decent ball. None of that translated over to the court for the 03-04 season.

You say Dumars's hand was forced, which is at least debateable considering that Kismet pulled a quote that said Hill was thinking about staying. The way that the Bulls opened the 03 season forced Paxson's hand. He had a bunch of lazy, whining quitters on his team. Jalen cared more about being in the starting lineup than winning the game. Jamal continued his persecution complex routine. Curry was a sloth. Pippen couldn't go (assign some blame to Pax for that, though he did put Pip through a rigorous physical before signing him). Jay was hurt (which I think ended up being a bigger deal than we realized). Cartwright was doing things like playing Baxter ahead of Donyell. 

Crticize Pax's moves all you want. It's easy enough. I don't mind a bit that we unloaded Rose, but I was upset that we basically "threw in" Donyell, who would have been a godsend for the post-Jalen Bulls if he'd stayed. Blame Pax for unloading Hassell instead of Mason to keep Lint. Blame Pax for valuing Jamal at a lower dollar figure than Isiah and most of this board did, and dealing him for future flexibility and no real basketball help. I'm on the fence about that move until we see what that flexibility brings (and I see Gordon try to play SG), but I definitely see where the Pax-bashers are coming from, since Pax himself said he needs to acquire assets and he turned around and gave one up for nothing but the possibility of future assets.

So, criticize Pax's moves all you want. It's the insistence that he demolished a "team on the rise" that I simply can't agree with. That team was going nowhere but into the toilet. Maybe he acted too quickly. Maybe he shouldn't have made the trade AND the coaching change at the same time. Maybe he gave away too much just to replace Rose with "professionals". But the Bulls were showing no signs of being "on the rise" when he did what he did. and they weren't just losing games, they were quitting on them and getting blown out.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> crawford is the only one of the 3 C's who actually improved every season and was the lone one who didn't have his work ethic questioned ...in fact he appears to have a very strong one ....


Did Crawford improve last year? Not over how he ended the previous year.

Work ethic? He left the Berto 2 summers ago and pouted when JWill got drafted.

This is all revisionist.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> That's deceptive. Vandeweghe took over at the end of a summer and didn't have a whole lot to work with. That summer he didn't get to draft, didn't get to have a summer to accomplish major trades... he *had* to go with what he had.
> 
> After two off-seasons to work with, Kiki had the Nuggets above .500.
> ...


Thats deceptive. You say that its unfair to judge KiKi and Paxson the same way because of how they started, which is accurate, but where it evens out is the fact that we didnt have Carmelo Anthony fall into our lap. Do you think Denver would even be close to a .500 team without Carmelo? Nope, not likely. 

I'm sure we *would* be a .500 ballclub or better if we had that calibur player just land in our hands.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Did Crawford improve last year? Not over how he ended the previous year.
> ...


he was a better alll around player , he was surely a better defender by just about everyone's measure...and he was doing that at a different position.

he left the berto , but he worked out wherever he was , he was not even gone all that long as he did play summer league that summer and came into the next season in better shape than he left the previous as evidenced by the fact he didn't need that knee brace anymore.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> Thats deceptive. You say that its unfair to judge KiKi and Paxson the same way because of how they started, which is accurate, but where it evens out is the fact that we didnt have Carmelo Anthony fall into our lap. Do you think Denver would even be close to a .500 team without Carmelo? Nope, not likely.
> 
> I'm sure we *would* be a .500 ballclub or better if we had that calibur player just land in our hands.


I'm not sure I really agree with you. First, Carmelo's a very good player, but I'm not at all sure he's as big of a factor in Denver's success as you thing. Would they be that much worse with Bosh, Wade, or Hinrich?

If you look at the guys who really seemed to make a difference for the Nuggets, Andre Miller, Nene, and Camby were pretty important pickups too. That's not to say Melo sucked or anything, but I think you're overestimating him and underestimating them.

In contrast, you can say that Paxson, even after losing JWill, had three strong prospects- Curry, Chandler, and Crawford, that Kiki didn't really have when he started.


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## Bulls96 (Jun 25, 2003)

We been very fortune so far, getting a tough guys for the past 14 years:

Oakley, Rodman, Artest – the best from the best.

And now we landed Niocini . I am glad that Bulls continue its best tradition, at least in that area.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> I'm not sure I really agree with you. First, Carmelo's a very good player, but I'm not at all sure he's as big of a factor in Denver's success as you thing. Would they be that much worse with Bosh, Wade, or Hinrich?
> 
> If you look at the guys who really seemed to make a difference for the Nuggets, Andre Miller, Nene, and Camby were pretty important pickups too. That's not to say Melo sucked or anything, but I think you're overestimating him and underestimating them.
> ...


Carmelo Anthony pretty much dwarfed everyone in the rookie class not named Lebron James as far as impact. People can look at plus minus stats all they want and try to convince me that Nene was the best player on that team, but thats as ridiculous as Andrei Kirilenko being better than Tim Duncan. 

I'm not underestimating the importance of the other players, I'm just saying that Anthony was the best player on the team. Without him, they probably would have won somewhere in the ballpark of 30 or so games, which is about what we're predicted to win next season, even though I think we're due to get close to 40.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> Carmelo Anthony pretty much dwarfed everyone in the rookie class not named Lebron James as far as impact. People can look at plus minus stats all they want and try to convince me that Nene was the best player on that team, but thats as ridiculous as Andrei Kirilenko being better than Tim Duncan.
> 
> I'm not underestimating the importance of the other players, I'm just saying that Anthony was the best player on the team. Without him, they probably would have won somewhere in the ballpark of 30 or so games, which is about what we're predicted to win next season, even though I think we're due to get close to 40.


While I agree with you that Anthony was an honest-to-goodness impact player for the Nugz, I think it's important to note that good fortune finally smiled on the career of Marcus Camby as well. Prior to the 03/04 season, the perpetually injured Camby had averaged 50 games played per season over the previous seven seasons. Last year he was actually healthy enough to play in 72 games, the most games he'd ever played in a single season by far. Vandeweghe was eminently aware of the possibility that Camby's relative durability last year may have been an aberation which is why he overspent for the services of Kenyon Martin.

When you think about how well Chandler played at the start of the 03/04 season, it makes you wonder what the Bulls record might have been if he'd been healthy all year. For that matter, what if Fizer had made a full recovery from his knee injury? It's obvious now that the injury was much worse than he'd let on. And then there was the devastating loss of Jay Williams.

Its pretty apparent that the Bulls had more than their share of adversity to overcome from an injury standpoint. A team that managed 30 wins in 02/03 simply could not overcome the loss of three rotation players in Williams, Chandler and Fizer. Those three players had as much to do as any of their other teamates with the progress the team made in 02/03 over previous seasons. Lets also toss in the loss of Scottie Pippen who was being counted on to provide strategic minutes and function as a stabilizing influence down the stretch of close games.

Yeah, the Bulls were lousy last year, and for a lot of reasons. But when you lose four rotation players to injury, that's a lot to overcome.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> 
> Carmelo Anthony pretty much dwarfed everyone in the rookie class not named Lebron James as far as impact. People can look at plus minus stats all they want and try to convince me that Nene was the best player on that team, but thats as ridiculous as Andrei Kirilenko being better than Tim Duncan.
> ...


Let me put it another way- Would the Nuggets have been much better/worse if they'd drafted Wade instead of Melo, or if they'd drafted TJ Ford or Hinrich and then signed say, Corey Maggette instead of Andre Miller?

It's also worth noting that it wasn't just the luck of Camby getting healthy, it was the forsight to acquire him and Nene for Antonio McDyess.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> Let me put it another way- Would the Nuggets have been much better/worse if they'd drafted Wade instead of Melo, or if they'd drafted TJ Ford or Hinrich and then signed say, Corey Maggette instead of Andre Miller?


On paper, the team with Hinrich/Lenard/Mags doesnt look bad, but I doubt they win 41-42 games, and Mike, is a backcourt of Hinrich/Gordon/Nocioni going to be much worse than that? Hinrich cancels out. Would you rather have Gordon or Lenard for next season? Its not unfathomable for Nocioni or Deng to be as effective as Mags next season. Could Chandler be as effective as Camby? Could Curry be as effective as Nene? 

Maybe, its definitely best case scenario, but I think Paxson has done things right. He has put us in position to have a breakout year, instead of building up hopes for nothing. He hasnt made any playoff promises, but hes still working hard to put a passionate and talented team on the floor. 



> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> It's also worth noting that it wasn't just the luck of Camby getting healthy, it was the forsight to acquire him and Nene for Antonio McDyess.


Its also hindsight, it looks genius now, but it could have easily failed, and it still could. Nene has been known for his laziness, and Camby has been known to be injury prone. One good season doesnt eclipse that. 

Either way, you could look at a gamble like trading away next years pick to draft Deng/Gordon as the same type of risk, will it pay off? Who knows. 

Its hard to compare to other teams circumstances, especially when their circumstances have already paid off, and we're still waiting on ours. All I know is that Paxson has traded away Rose, who I think is more of a glory stats type of player, who hurts his team more than helps. He let Crawford go because of the same reason. Now you may disagree about Crawford, many do, but I think that was his line of reasoning, and I find it legitimate. I see Gordon as a no nonsense hard working player, same goes for Nocioni, Deng and Hinrich. 

He was doing this last season, except the most talented players available who fit that mold were Ronald Dupree and Linton Johnson. Now we actually have talented players who fit that mold, I think it will pay off.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> Its also hindsight, it looks genius now, but it could have easily failed, and it still could. Nene has been known for his laziness, and Camby has been known to be injury prone. One good season doesnt eclipse that.


I agree with MikeDC.

Kiki did a masterful job. They would have been just as good if they had gotten Wade. Even with Hinrich they would have had a massive improvement.

McDyse for Nene and Camby was brilliant and it didn't take much hindsight. Most of the press slammed the Knicks at the time.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> he left the berto , but he worked out wherever he was , he was not even gone all that long as he did play summer league that summer and came into the next season in better shape than he left the previous as evidenced by the fact he didn't need that knee brace anymore.


I remember how MJ, Pippen, and even guys like BJ and Grant worked on their games and bodies each summer. Crawford is a sick joke in comparision.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

I know Carmelo isnt popular on these boards, but I doubt the Nuggets do nearly as well with any other rookie aside from James. Carmelo had a fantastic season. 

Its easy to look at everything all clean cut and positive now, but back then, Andre Miller was just another point guard who could put up numbers on a bad team. Marcus Camby was injury prone and hadnt had a successful season in a long time, Nene was a question mark because of youth and work ethic issues. 

I dug up an old thread with predictions before the 2003-2004 season, and pretty much everyone had the Nuggets as one of the three worst teams in the west. So there *is* a lot of hindsight going on, despite all their additions, people still thought they'd be horrible.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> I know Carmelo isnt popular on these boards, but I doubt the Nuggets do nearly as well with any other rookie aside from James. Carmelo had a fantastic season.
> 
> Its easy to look at everything all clean cut and positive now, but back then, Andre Miller was just another point guard who could put up numbers on a bad team. Marcus Camby was injury prone and hadnt had a successful season in a long time, Nene was a question mark because of youth and work ethic issues.
> ...


John Hollinger pre-season predictions had them improving tremedously because their guard play was so miserable the previous year. They replaced a bunch of CBAs with Andre Miller, Boykins, John Barry and Leornard. This was the biggest reason for their improvement. A healthy Camby second. Carmelo third.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> John Hollinger pre-season predictions had them improving tremedously because their guard play was so miserable the previous year. They replaced a bunch of CBAs with Andre Miller, Boykins, John Barry and Leornard. This was the biggest reason for their improvement. A healthy Camby second. Carmelo third.


Obviously thats highly debatable, and I'd say the majority of people had the Nuggets as one of the worst teams in the league yet again. Infact, more people predicted the Bulls to be better than the Nuggets than vice versa. 

Thats how much things can change and all of the sudden seem like its always been that way.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> Obviously thats highly debatable, and I'd say the majority of people had the Nuggets as one of the worst teams in the league yet again. Infact, more people predicted the Bulls to be better than the Nuggets than vice versa.


The fact that most people were wrong abou this team doens't really matter. It certainly doesn't help us determine why they were better than expected.

p.s. Not everyone was wrong about them. I was certain they were much improved. Just ask the Grinch.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> The fact that most people were wrong abou this team doens't really matter. It certainly doesn't help us determine why they were better than expected.
> 
> p.s. Not everyone was wrong about them. I was certain they were much improved. Just ask the Grinch.


I'm just saying the majority. I'm not saying you as an individual were right or wrong, but the majority was wrong about both teams, and that same thing could happen again, despite what one individual thinks.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> I know Carmelo isnt popular on these boards, but I doubt the Nuggets do nearly as well with any other rookie aside from James. Carmelo had a fantastic season.
> 
> Its easy to look at everything all clean cut and positive now, but back then, Andre Miller was just another point guard who could put up numbers on a bad team. Marcus Camby was injury prone and hadnt had a successful season in a long time, Nene was a question mark because of youth and work ethic issues.
> ...


And we thought the Bulls would be in the playoffs. The joke was on us. :laugh: 

And that's leads to another point for me. A lot of folks look at last off-season and say it's ok that Pax got snookered like the rest of us so he doesn't bear a lot of blame. That he was just "giving what he had" a chance first.

I don't buy that. Most importantly, Paxson isn't just a fan. While I question how much the "attitude" meme is important, let's take it as a given and consider the information Paxson had vs. the information we had. He had vast amounts more information to work with than we did. He knew what kind of shape Curry was in, he knew how hard guys were or were not working. He knew what kind of coaching Cartwright was going to do. Before he took over, he still followed the team very closely as the announcer. Every time he says things are much more intense and much more hard working this year, it's an indictment of the fact that he saw the lack of those things last year, and rather than doing something about it, he built on a core he thought was hollow.

So yeah, Paxson is damned either way. If he didn't see a problem, in spite of the information he had access to which we didn't, it doesn't speak well of him. And if he did see the problems, but still talked up the playoffs and added players that were only useful in the context of the team he "quietly" didn't like, then that's not exactly a ringing endorsement either.

Now, it can certainly be argued that Paxson could recover from this mistake, and clearly he's trying to. But I don't think it can be argued that he didn't miscalculate on a rather large scale to start with, and that makes it pretty fair in my mind to question what kind of judgement we see from here on out. Those other GMs might have started out with a dip in the win column, but they didn't start out with fundamental mis-readings of where their teams were at, and therein lies a major difference.


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## Dan Rosenbaum (Jun 3, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> And we thought the Bulls would be in the playoffs. The joke was on us. :laugh:
> 
> And that's leads to another point for me. A lot of folks look at last off-season and say it's ok that Pax got snookered like the rest of us so he doesn't bear a lot of blame. That he was just "giving what he had" a chance first.
> ...


This is a subtle yet strong argument that you have made a few times. And I have never seen anyone give an adequate response to it. We all know that coaches and GMs know more about the players than we do, so it all the more disturbing that they don't respond to this information before it is obvious to all of us.


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## such sweet thunder (May 30, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> 
> 
> And we thought the Bulls would be in the playoffs. The joke was on us. :laugh:
> ...


I agree with you, but one response to this argument is that none of the above teams lost their brightest young star to an auto accident. We will never know what JWill would have brought last year; and despite all his public struggles, maybe he contributed more to stabalizing the locker room than we have given credit. I had more faith in him breaking in out then any of our other young players and after he went down the rest of the off-season, and season for that matter, was just backpeddling.


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## Sánchez AF (Aug 10, 2003)

of course he's DPOY !!!


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> So yeah, Paxson is damned either way. If he didn't see a problem, in spite of the information he had access to which we didn't, it doesn't speak well of him. And if he did see the problems, but still talked up the playoffs and added players that were only useful in the context of the team he "quietly" didn't like, then that's not exactly a ringing endorsement either.


I have to disagree to a point. I suspect that Pax knew it was highly likely that mass changes would have to be made but didn't like the return that his assets had last summer.

The Hinrich pick was a sure sign that Pax was not happy with the status quo. The obvious pick based on team need and optimistic thinking was a SG or SF.

Now perhaps Pax hedged his bet and stuck with Cart a touch longer than he should have but he pulled the trigger very quickly.

As for the Rose deal, it is highly possible that Rose was worth even less last summer and Pax would have had to take back worse contracts than JVD and AD.

Granted, Pax's main error was a 2 year deal for Pippen. But in the scheme of things (i.e. the type of players that typically sign for the MLE) it's just a pimple in the grand scheme of things. For every Posey, Marshall and Billups, there are 2 or more major busts.

-----------------------------------------
Just as a scorecard: Pax has been on the job for 14 months and has a completely different coaching staff and only 3 hold over players.


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## Johnny Mac (May 6, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> And we thought the Bulls would be in the playoffs. The joke was on us. :laugh:
> 
> And that's leads to another point for me. A lot of folks look at last off-season and say it's ok that Pax got snookered like the rest of us so he doesn't bear a lot of blame. That he was just "giving what he had" a chance first.
> ...


Mike, I agree with you, but still, you're making my point for me. He has more information than us, so he is better equipped to decide whats best for the team at this point, no? 

If he should be fired, then thats the job of the owner, who has more information than us and chooses not to fire Paxson, no?


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>C.C.C.P</b>!
> 
> 
> I agree with you, but one response to this argument is that none of the above teams lost their brightest young star to an auto accident. We will never know what JWill would have brought last year; and despite all his public struggles, maybe he contributed more to stabalizing the locker room than we have given credit. I had more faith in him breaking in out then any of our other young players and after he went down the rest of the off-season, and season for that matter, was just backpeddling.


Not only that, but had Williams remained healthy who knows what the composition of last year's roster might have been. In all likelihood, Crawford would have been dealt, perhaps along with players and the 7th pick allowing the Bulls to select Wade (a natural two guard) or Anthony (a natural small forward). Either player would have balanced and complimented Rose's skills and deficiencies much better than Crawford, who in many respects was too much like Rose offensively and defensively.

Williams/Wade/Rose, or Williams/Rose/Anthony...either combination would have been very effective, much more effective than Hinrich/Crawford/Rose. But once Williams was lost all of Paxson's draft day plans had to be severely modified.


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## TRUTHHURTS (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> I have to disagree to a point. I suspect that Pax knew it was highly likely that mass changes would have to be made but didn't like the return that his assets had last summer.
> ...



So Pax couldnt have gotten more than Harrington and F.Williams for jamal last summer :laugh: 

Rose couldnt have gotten us someone better than AD and Jyd LAST SUMMER :laugh: 


The Hinrich pick was a direct result of Jwills injury and Pax even said this himself .


Pax was happy to let things stay the way they were as long as the feeback was positive from the media and outsiders as soon as things turned negative from the media and outsiders THEN changes all of a sudden had to be made and the blame passed to the guy he took over for.

Pax was the one who started the ball rollling with comments on how he had to bring in some players to provide leadership although we already had Jalen and Donyell who were our top 2 scorers and Donyell our top rebounder .

How would H20 and Marbury sound in NY if Isiah spent the summer saying we are bring back Oak to prove some leadership to the team at a key position but he couldnt play anymore ?I doubt that would sit well with guys who have ben in the league 5+ years .

Most gm's when they take over attempt to get the best players on their side at least until they can be traded but Pax basically immediately alienated Jalen and BC basically slapped Donyell in the face by starting Baxter over Donyell although Donyell was our second leading scorer and top returning rebounder .

There is plenty of blame to go around and they are all somewhat responsible for what happened.I would probably be more lenient on Pax if he was a outsider but I always thought the main reason we hired pax was so the person taking over wouldnt have to learn about the team and its players at such a critical point in its development.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> I remember how MJ, Pippen, and even guys like BJ and Grant worked on their games and bodies each summer. Crawford is a sick joke in comparision.


jc gained 25 lbs of muscle and looks stronger now than in any time in a bulls uniform(i have seen the new knick comercials) which is a pretty good indication that he is still improving ....if crawford is a sick joke what is curry and chandler in comparison to jordan , pippen and grant who really haven't improved much at all since the day either were drafted over 3 years ago.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> jc gained 25 lbs of muscle and looks stronger now than in any time in a bulls uniform(i have seen the new knick comercials) which is a pretty good indication that he is still improving


:laugh: Well, if you saw a good looking Knicks commericial, who am I to argue.



> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> ....if crawford is a sick joke what is curry and chandler in comparison to jordan , pippen and grant who really haven't improved much at all since the day either were drafted over 3 years ago.


I don't hear anyone on these boards saying Curry has a good work ethic? Have you?

I guess we will have to agree to disagree about Chandler's work ethic compared to Crawford's for now. I am very sure I am backing the better horse in Chandler. Looks like Paxson agrees.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>TRUTHHURTS</b>!
> So Pax couldnt have gotten more than Harrington and F.Williams for jamal last summer :laugh:
> 
> Rose couldnt have gotten us someone better than AD and Jyd LAST SUMMER :laugh:


What do you think these studs would have returned?


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>TRUTHHURTS</b>!
> The Hinrich pick was a direct result of Jwills injury and Pax even said this himself .


Don't believe everything you read. Pax also said that Hinrich would going to be a backup. :laugh:


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>ViciousFlogging</b>!
> 
> 
> I still can't quite get over this convenient memory lapse. No one remembers, or maybe they choose to forget, just how pathetic that team looked when they opened the season. Losing by 25 to the Wiz at home. Barely beating an atrocious Atlanta squad. Getting run off the floor by the Bucks, who we should have beaten or at least competed with on paper. Getting hammered by the Wiz again a little later. That team looked like it should be on the rise. It looked good on paper. It finished the previous season playing decent ball. None of that translated over to the court for the 03-04 season.
> ...


and yes dumars hand was forced ....since the only thing that convinces people are links even though it was the biggest nba story of summer of 2000 and people should remember without this .also for you reading pleasure the way things transpired afterwards.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/pistons/0406/12/pistons-181610.htm


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> What do you think these studs would have returned?


i cant say what rose would have returned last season but its pretty certain pax could have gotten SAR for him this summer , who is better than davis and his contract is up sooner ...and it wouldn't cost the bulls donyell either .

impatience is a bad thing dont ya think?


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> 
> 
> i cant say what rose would have returned last season but its pretty certain pax could have gotten SAR for him this summer , who is better than davis and his contract is up sooner ...and it wouldn't cost the bulls donyell either .
> ...


IMHO, there is no way that the Hawks or Portland would have traded SAR for Rose at any point in time.

Feel free to ask the Portland board. They were hoping for Ray Allen with SAR.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>happygrinch</b>!
> 
> 
> and yes dumars hand was forced ....since the only thing that convinces people are links even though it was the biggest nba story of summer of 2000 and people should remember without this .also for you reading pleasure the way things transpired afterwards.
> ...


So this guy's interpretation of the events (notice there isn't a single quote in the article) trumps Grant Hill's direct statement about wanting to resign with the Pistons and "start and end my career with the same team." Ok, whatever suits your purposes. Grant Hill must have been liyng then because lord knows a Detroit beat writer would never embellish a story in favor of the Pistons' GM, especially nearly four years after the fact.


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## RP McMurphy (Jul 17, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> And that's leads to another point for me. A lot of folks look at last off-season and say it's ok that Pax got snookered like the rest of us so he doesn't bear a lot of blame. That he was just "giving what he had" a chance first.


If Paxson had blown up that team, none of us would know it was about to fail so miserably. Be honest, what do you think Bulls fans would be saying about Paxson right now, if last summer he had blown up a team that most Bulls fans felt was extremely promising? I think everyone would have been up in arms, and ticket sales would have suffered.

There's a limit to the moves a GM can make and expect to keep his job. Paxson gave the team a chance because he really didn't have a choice. But if you look at his moves, you can tell that he never really did have much faith in these players. He drafted Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon because he didn't believe in Jamal Crawford, and I think part of the reason he traded for Antonio Davis is because he eventually plans on dumping Eddy Curry.


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## Da Grinch (Aug 17, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Kismet</b>!
> 
> 
> So this guy's interpretation of the events (notice there isn't a single quote in the article) trumps Grant Hill's direct statement about wanting to resign with the Pistons and "start and end my career with the same team." Ok, whatever suits your purposes. Grant Hill must have been liyng then because lord knows a Detroit beat writer would never embellish a story in favor of the Pistons' GM, especially nearly four years after the fact.


for some odd reason you are in the belief that dumars choose not to resign hill and because he issued a kobesque " i want to end my career here " statement .a statement every player who want to be traded seems to make , that he wants to remain ...and his actions ultimately tell a different story. and since a 3 month old story after the fact cant persuade you how about one a day or so before he signed with the magic.

in this story you can read about all of the efforts the pistons and joe dumars ( who was hired with that being #1 on his to do list) made to resign him.

once again dumars had his hand forced, and made due , paxson destroyed a team for no good reason ....unless you believe that hill was lying about hiss quote in this article that it "was time to move on" and is still member of the pistons and the last 4 years are a mirage.

http://www.detnews.com/2000/pistons/0007/18/sports-87831.htm

"The Pistons had hoped they could keep him by promoting Dumars last month and by their ability to make Hill a larger offer than other teams could -- $115 million for eight years" 

does that sound like a team that didn't want him?


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>RP McMurphy</b>!
> 
> If Paxson had blown up that team, none of us would know it was about to fail so miserably. Be honest, what do you think Bulls fans would be saying about Paxson right now, if last summer he had blown up a team that most Bulls fans felt was extremely promising? I think everyone would have been up in arms, and ticket sales would have suffered.


Not surprisingly, I disagree. I mean look... there were plenty of folks who wanted Rose and Crawford gone, and there were still questions about Curry back then. Would some folks have been up in arms? Of course... but they'd have been less up in arms a month into the season than they were. And right now, folks would be saying he's not too bad, because it would appear he dumped... say... Eddy Curry before he had a fat soppy season that dramatically reduced his trade value. 

Plus, we could have gotten more for those guys than we could later, or now, so it's likely there would be some excitement and ticket sales from that.

More to the point, Pax, like every GM, had a honeymoon period and he had a chance to make moves. His move was essentially to annoint the team he had as good. He could have been honest, said this team wasn't where it appeared to be, and not sold the hype.

Yeah, some people would complain, but also take note of how many folks- and there are more than a few, are still accepting and giving the benefit of doubt to Paxson on any number of moves the same folks (expressly in some cases) said were non-starters.

OK, I'm kind of rambling, so let's summarize:
1) Lots of folks are giving the guy the benefit of the doubt even now... they would have given it then.
2) Lots of folks, although a minority, suggested major changes did need to be made. It wasn't unanimous that we were flawless by any stretch
3) Time would have proven Paxson right had he made a bigger move. Yes, we wouldn't have the "benefit" of seeing the Bulls flail around, but we'd see the Bulls with a better player or two, and we'd see the guys we traded away not doing a whole lot.



> There's a limit to the moves a GM can make and expect to keep his job. Paxson gave the team a chance because he really didn't have a choice.


In practice, such limits appear to be put in place over time. I'd argue that GMs have the MOST ability to make changes early in their tenure. I mean, if Reinsdorf and crew thought everything was good, they wouldn't have forced out Krause and installed Paxson in the first place. Installing a new GM isn't exactly a mandate for "keeping the status quo".



> But if you look at his moves, you can tell that he never really did have much faith in these players. He drafted Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon because he didn't believe in Jamal Crawford, and I think part of the reason he traded for Antonio Davis is because he eventually plans on dumping Eddy Curry.


To my mind, the "No Excuses" mantra and playoff predictions... spoken not just as boilerplate but as realistic objectives, don't speak of a guy who didn't have much faith in his players. At least, if he didn't, it's rather strange that he went to the lengths he did to sell expectations.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>C.C.C.P</b>!
> 
> 
> I agree with you, but one response to this argument is that none of the above teams lost their brightest young star to an auto accident. We will never know what JWill would have brought last year; and despite all his public struggles, maybe he contributed more to stabalizing the locker room than we have given credit. I had more faith in him breaking in out then any of our other young players and after he went down the rest of the off-season, and season for that matter, was just backpeddling.


Well, of course losing him was a blow, but it did happen before the draft and before free agency. In practice, that gave the Bulls all the major events in the off-season to make changes to the rest of the team- and it's the rest of the team... Curry, Crawford, and Rose... that Pax needed to make a decision on.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> I have to disagree to a point. I suspect that Pax knew it was highly likely that mass changes would have to be made but didn't like the return that his assets had last summer.
> ...


I dunno... I mean, did Jamal or Curry have more or less trade value coming off their stat-tacular end to the 02-03 season than they do now? 

And I'm not sure that the Hinrich pick was so sure a sign of anything. After losing Jay, and having Jamal play his best ball last year at SG, and Rose capable of playing the 2 or 3, it didn't seem like a stretch to me at all.



> Now perhaps Pax hedged his bet and stuck with Cart a touch longer than he should have but he pulled the trigger very quickly.
> 
> As for the Rose deal, it is highly possible that Rose was worth even less last summer and Pax would have had to take back worse contracts than JVD and AD.


I suppose it's possible, but I think he wasn't seriously looking to make a deal either... because if he was, a younger SG/SF would have been even more of a need as part of the long-run plan.



> Granted, Pax's main error was a 2 year deal for Pippen. But in the scheme of things (i.e. the type of players that typically sign for the MLE) it's just a pimple in the grand scheme of things. For every Posey, Marshall and Billups, there are 2 or more major busts.


I mean, even at the time, signing Pippen only made much sense in the context of having Rose, Marshall, Crawford, etc. in the fold. Guys we knew were going to take up significant minutes, so having a guy who wouldn't be playing big minutes was not just fine, it was a necessity.

In contrast, if we'd been looking to move out Rose, the prudent thing to do would have been to look for a guy who could play more. While that may have caused some heartburn in the short-run, it would have been obvious what Pax was doing to most folks, I think, and even more obvious when he found an acceptable deal and finally pulled the trigger.



> -----------------------------------------
> Just as a scorecard: Pax has been on the job for 14 months and has a completely different coaching staff and only 3 hold over players.


Yep... he certainly changed his mind and began making changes. We'll see if he's making the _right_ changes... which is an entirely different dimension of things than simply making changes


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Johnny Mac</b>!
> 
> 
> Mike, I agree with you, but still, you're making my point for me. He has more information than us, so he is better equipped to decide whats best for the team at this point, no?
> ...


Well... if that's the case, is there any reason to have this message board?

I see what you're saying, but I think the basic point I was trying to make is that, yes, Pax had more info than us, but that doesn't mean he necessarily made the right decisions. Sometimes the people with more info get bogged down on immaterial details. Sometimes it provides undue confusion when you can't sort it all out. Sometimes more info simply isn't necessary to rendering the "right" decision. 

Just having less information doesn't mean you have no right to question, and having more information doesn't necessarily mean you'll make a better decision. I mean, we assume in most cases that with more information we make "better" decisions, but reality is much more complex.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!I suppose it's possible, but I think he wasn't seriously looking to make a deal [with Rose] either... because if he was, a younger SG/SF would have been even more of a need as part of the long-run plan.


Correct me if I am wrong, but in your mind the signing of Pippen is the clearest indication that Pax was just fine with the Status Quo.

If Rose was basically untradeable last summer, Pippen makes sense IMHO. Pip might have helped changed the tone on club. Remember both Pax and Pippen saying that Rose would now sacrifice some scoring for some all-round effort. 

So score one for Pax knowing that he needed better effort defensively and to play the right way.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but in your mind the signing of Pippen is the clearest indication that Pax was just fine with the Status Quo.


Well, that and all the other stuff I pointed out. 




> If Rose was basically untradeable last summer,


I'm still having some trouble figuring out how Rose was more tradeable a month into the season, when most teams had commited to decisions they made in the summer and had less cap room, and when he had gone from the best player on an improving team to a guy with a broken hand who had been benched and was feuding with the coach and GM on a team that was falling apart at the seams.

Of course we don't know for sure, but this strikes me as highly unlikely. I see lots of things that would tend to _decrease_ Rose's trade value, and not a single factor that would tend to increase it.



> Pippen makes sense IMHO. Pip might have helped changed the tone on club. Remember both Pax and Pippen saying that Rose would now sacrifice some scoring for some all-round effort.
> 
> So score one for Pax knowing that he needed better effort defensively and to play the right way.


Heh.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> I'm still having some trouble figuring out how Rose was more tradeable a month into the season, when most teams had commited to decisions they made in the summer and had less cap room, and when he had gone from the best player on an improving team to a guy with a broken hand who had been benched and was feuding with the coach and GM on a team that was falling apart at the seams.


Rose had negative trade value last summer and when he was traded for AD. Still does. The Raptors could not give him away in the expansion draft.

I don't think anyone wanted Rose last summer. The best trade rumors for him since he landed as a Bull were for Alan Houston or Eddie Jones. AD's contract is the best out of all 4 players.

So IMHO the AD deal was probably the best that was ever an option for Pax. And he never would have gotten a better deal.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Rose had negative trade value last summer and when he was traded for AD. Still does. The Raptors could not give him away in the expansion draft.
> ...


You're right on target. On his own, Rose was untradable. Marshall was the inducement (bribe) to get the deal done with Toronto. And Toronto was the only team expressing any kind of interest in Rose.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

what happens is...New GM gets hired...he makes his own team. Always

lets get over the fact that Pax pushed the reset button. Thats what he was hired to do. The fact that he waited to see Krauses team flop first, was either a mistake, or a credit to the fact that he's not one of those arrogant people who thinks he has all the answers (and he probably thought all along how flawed the team was, but gave it a shot)
Nobody is perfect (but maybe Jerry West lol). right off the bat, its tough to get your program in place sometimes. The Bulls were an especially tricky situation. Reinsdorf obviously wanted all this to happen 
IMO, Pax is a smart guy who's doing a good job on balance. And he'll continue to improve, because he's a good GM. Not mistake free.

but bottom line, get over the fact that he blew it up. Thats his job. Thats every new GMs job


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Rose had negative trade value last summer and when he was traded for AD. Still does. The Raptors could not give him away in the expansion draft.
> ...


So, imagine they pull the same trade, but much earlier in the off-season. Scottie Pippen wouldn't have been their prime target in free agency. Hassell wouldn't seem as quite as expendible. Hell, the dumping of Rose and the presence of AD and JYD over the second half of the summer may have sent a message to everyone else (eg Curry) to work harder.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> 
> 
> So, imagine they pull the same trade, but much earlier in the off-season.


Except that the AD trade may not have been available eariler in the season. Maybe the Rapters needed to see that Bosh could play right away.


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## Kismet (Mar 1, 2003)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Except that the AD trade may not have been available eariler in the season. Maybe the Rapters needed to see that Bosh could play right away.


Another good point. Too many people underestimate the difficulties and complexities involved in consumating a trade, much less accept the fact that in every case it takes two to tango.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> Except that the AD trade may not have been available eariler in the season. Maybe the Rapters needed to see that Bosh could play right away.


Again... I'm still having some trouble figuring out how Rose was more tradeable a month into the season, when most teams had commited to decisions they made in the summer and had less cap room, and when he had gone from the best player on an improving team to a guy with a broken hand who had been benched and was feuding with the coach and GM on a team that was falling apart at the seams.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> 
> 
> Again... I'm still having some trouble figuring out how Rose was more tradeable a month into the season, when most teams had commited to decisions they made in the summer and had less cap room, and when he had gone from the best player on an improving team to a guy with a broken hand who had been benched and was feuding with the coach and GM on a team that was falling apart at the seams.


I guess we have to agree to disagree. 

However, assuming I am correct and the AD trade was Paxson's best option to get rid of Rose and wasn't available until the season had started, then it does screws up your theory, right?

EDIT: Part of Mike DC's theory: _And if he did see the problems, but still talked up the playoffs and added players that were only useful in the context of the team he "quietly" didn't like, then that's not exactly a ringing endorsement either._


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>johnston797</b>!
> 
> 
> I guess we have to agree to disagree.
> ...


Not really, because, as I've pointed out twice now with no substantive response, I see many reasons why it would have been harder to trade Rose later rather than sooner, and no reason to think it would have been easier. I don't assume you're correct, and as you point out in the italicized quote above goes well beyond simply dealing with Rose.

Further, I don't buy your argument that Pippen was a coherent part of the plan if the plan was to get rid of Rose at the first opportunity. And I don't buy that Rose was the only major problem out of the gate. And I don't see how talking them up as a playoff team made a whole lot of sense if he didn't like them and knew they were slacking all summer.


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## johnston797 (May 29, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> Not really, because, as I've pointed out twice now with no substantive response, I see many reasons why it would have been harder to trade Rose later rather than sooner, and no reason to think it would have been easier.


Rose was well known around the league. I doubt any GMs changed their opinion on him from June to Dec of last year. Did your opinion of him change? Mine didn't.




> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> I don't assume you're correct


I think you misunderstood the previous post. For one minute, assume Rose was untradeable last summer, how does this change things?



> Originally posted by <b>Mikedc</b>!
> Further, I don't buy your argument that Pippen was a coherent part of the plan if the plan was to get rid of Rose at the first opportunity.


Again, if Rose was untradable last summer, Pippen makes sense for the reasons I pointed out in my earlier post.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

I simply don't agree with the conclusions you reached. Like you said, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.


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## ScottMay (Jun 15, 2002)

Why hasn't anyone posted this? 

In an article from two days ago, written by the Pacers' beat writer as opposed to a columnist, it sure doesn't sound like Indiana regrets having Artest on its roster:



> Bird acknowledged distractions related to Artest, but he said the fifth-year pro wasn't alone in struggling to handle the pressure of a playoff run.
> 
> "There's a lot of things that went on, not just Ronnie," Bird said. "You have to stay focused. These guys have never been that far, other than Reggie (Miller) and a few others. We had our problems with Ronnie, but every year it seems he's getting better.
> 
> "Ronnie's a great guy. If we can calm him down a little bit, he'll be fine. He gets frustrated, but everybody does. The only thing keeping him from being one of the top five players in the game is himself."


http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/181194-1940-179.html

And yes, to answer the original question, I still wish Ron Artest was a Bull.


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

I agree with Mike. The Rose trade was horrible. Why were we in a rush to deal him? Hell, I would rather keep him than trade him for AD & JYD, especially giving up Marshall...

Besides, the Bulls traded 2 future all stars to GET Rose, so he obviously had some value to someone a very short time ago. Krause was reluctant to do that deal for Rose and was forced into itby management. Still, I can't imagine that our best bet was to trade Rose while he had a broken hand and was performing as poorly as I have seen him (which is part of the reason we started the season so poorly). What was the rush? In any case, it was a stupid trade and I don't even think it SHOULD have been made. Yes, making trades in the NBA is complex. Yes, the Bulls PROBABLY should have been looking to deal Rose. Yes, Rose wasn't great. Still, a SMART gm doesn't make trades like that from a position of weakness. Rose hadn't publicly demanded a trade, though I understand that he did privately ask for one, there was no major impetus to pull off a stupid trade but Pax went ahead and did it anyways.

The Crawford sign & trade was stupid too. WHy not simply resign him and trade him later if you didn't think he fit your team? I am sure that in the end we will all see that keeping him would have been the wiser move. But, resiging him and trading him later was also a better option.


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## fleetwood macbull (Jan 23, 2004)

> Originally posted by <b>ScottMay</b>!
> Why hasn't anyone posted this?
> 
> In an article from two days ago, written by the Pacers' beat writer as opposed to a columnist, it sure doesn't sound like Indiana regrets having Artest on its roster:
> ...


i want him on a hypothetical Bulls team too. Not this young Bulls team...a hypothetical Bulls team. all he does is kick butt on the court lately. He did have a meltdown that came after he made some progress. He is still capable of staying on the right track, like Bird said.

This mental illness hype is just too much. He's strange and mercurial. Thats not the worst thing. He's not some drug infested, cancerous loser who can't be someones teamate. If the ego gets in the way...then he's got to find the right team.
At the moment, he's just winning ballgames mostly, notwithstanding a bad incident


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

What I read betwen the lines of Bird's comments is that handling Ron is a full-time job, but he thinks its worth it.

And I think he's right in his assessment -- on the Pacers.

I remain convinced that Ron would not have thrived in the same way as he has on the veteran Pacers if he was struggling on a rebuilding team like the Bulls. He would not have had the success he has had on the court, and he more than likely would have snapped by now. Heck he might have snapped himself right out of the NBA.

All respect to Artest, but moving him off the Bulls was a necessary move, and the best move at the time for both the Bulls and Artest.


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## ScottMay (Jun 15, 2002)

> Originally posted by <b>TomBoerwinkle#1</b>!
> What I read betwen the lines of Bird's comments is that handling Ron is a full-time job, but he thinks its worth it.
> 
> And I think he's right in his assessment -- on the Pacers.
> ...


I don't disagree that Ron was frustrated here, and maybe at the end of his proverbial rope, but what's the worst thing that could have happened if he did snap? Odds are Ron would have only hurt himself, not somehow brought the franchise to its knees or ruined our "young and impressionables."

And for me it's twisting the knife to realize that Rose was probably a worse influence on our team's chemistry than Artest ever would have been.


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## jollyoscars (Jul 5, 2003)

artest is BAD TO THE BONE!


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## SoCalfan21 (Jul 19, 2004)

i still like him but i really dont want him back


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