Chicago Bulls: Biggest Trainwreck in NBA?

By Trashtalk Superstar

Much has been made of the Miami Heat's nightmare 2007/'08 season. Not yet two years removed from winning the 2006 NBA World Championship, Miami has been so bad this year that they've dumped Antoine Walker and Shaquille O'Neal (who were catalysts on the 2006 Championship team) and have entered into a rebuilding phase.

But aside from Miami, the title of "Biggest Trainwreck in the NBA" probably belongs to Chicago.

After suffering through seven years of post Michael Jordan futility, the Chicago Bulls replaced longtime General Manager Jerry Krause with John Paxson (who had been a key player on Chicago's first three Championship teams and had been doing color commentary on the team's radio broadcasts).

Paxson immediately made drastic changes to Chicago's roster. In order to improve the the team's attitude, he got rid of nearly all of its core players. He replaced talented, but lazy players with gritty, hard nosed lunch pail types. And he hired Scott Skiles -- a notoriously tough coach who had a history of clashing with star players -- as head coach.

And it worked.

A year and a half after taking over what had become the worst franchise in the NBA, John Paxson's hustling and scrapping Chicago Bulls shocked the sports world by making it to the playoffs in 2005.

What's more, Chicago went on to become one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference.

They made it back to the playoffs in 2006. And in 2007, Chicago swept the defending World Champion Miami Heat out of the first round of the playoffs.

But everything unraveled for Chicago this year. Veteran Ben Wallace was signed as a free agent in 2006 to give the team a defensive and rebounding presence in the paint. The former NBA All Star and member of the 2004 World Champion Detroit Pistons was also expected to provide leadership and to set a positive example for Chicago's young players with his much celebrated worth ethic.

However, instead of setting a positive tone for his young teammates, Wallace proved to be a malcontent who consistently undermined Skiles and, ultimately, spearheaded a player mutiny.

Chicago fired Skiles one day before Christmas, 2007. But Wallace also undermined Skiles' replacement, Interim Coach Jim Boylan.

So, in order to rid his team of a cancerous influence, John Paxson shipped Ben Wallace and his $60 million dollar contract to Cleveland just before the 2008 trading deadline.

But it was too little, too late for Chicago.

In his year and a half stay in Chicago, Ben Wallace managed to all but destroy the chemistry and positive attitude of a team that had been built around hard working, "character" guys.

As K.C. Johnson reports in today's Chicago Tribune, the 2007/'08 Chicago NBA basketball club is an entity on which "personal agendas often reign supreme and the me-first behavior of entitlement both on and off the court has played a major factor in the team's underachieving ways."

In fact, in just the last five days:

1.) Underachieving second year forward Tyrus Thomas decided to skip Wednesday's practice without informing the team of his decision.

Thomas wasn't late to practice -- he missed practice. And he wasn't sick. Nor did he miss practice because he accidentally overslept, or had an auto accident, a flat tire, got a speeding ticket, got stuck in traffic, or had any other questionable, but legitimate reason for missing practice.

He didn't even miss practice because he was hung over.

He just decided not to show up.

And he decided not to inform the team that he would be missing practice.

Even more surprisingly, Thomas offered no apology for his decision. Instead, he stood defiantly behind it.

2.) According to the Tribune's Johnson, as seldom used, saggy bodied, slooooooooow footed, eighth string rookie center (my characterizations, not Johnson's) Aaron Gray approached the bench after being replaced by Drew Gooden following a short second-quarter appearance on Tuesday:

"the rookie center, according to several witnesses, snapped at interim coach Jim Boylan.

"That's what I get for working hard?" Gray said.


A shocked Boylan snapped back and Gray, a second-round pick, played only the final 1:21 of a blowout victory over Memphis the rest of the night."

Talk about having a sense of entitlement. Hey Aaron, here's what "working hard" gets you: an opportunity to earn playing time.

And in the event that you do actually earn playing time, it's just assumed that you will work hard when you're out there. After all, that's your job.

If you play well, and give the team positive production, it's likely that you'll earn more playing time.

But nobody gets a gold star for working hard (especially not when you're a second round draft pick who barely survived getting cut in training camp). Working hard is what's expected of you.

You'll get to play when the coaching staff thinks that you can help the team win.

3.) Backup point guard and Duke alumnus Chris Duhon missed Sunday's shoot-around in Detroit because he overslept after having attended Saturday night's Duke home loss to North Carolina. With his team still in the running for a playoff berth, Duhon spent the night before an important road game against conference rival Detroit on the campus of his alma matter, half way across the country, in Durham, N.C.

Duhon did charter a plane back to Detroit, but he must have arrived very late, as he overslept and missed the team's bus to Sunday morning's shoot-around.

4.) TNT Broadcaster, and former NBA and Chicago coach, Doug Collins criticized Chicago's "shoot first" mentality during Thursday night's broadcast of Chicago's home win over LeBron James and Cleveland.

Chicago is a mess. John Paxson's plan was to build his team around overachieving, defensive minded "high character" players. And although his plan initially worked (Chicago was a moribund franchise when Paxson took over in 2003, but made three straight playoff appearances from 2005 - 2007), Chicago's current roster is full of malcontents and head cases.

And they're losing malcontents and head cases.

After having built Chicago into a scrappy, young, up and coming contender in the Eastern Conference, John Paxson is now faced with making decisions that will define his tenure as Chicago's General Manager. Paxson must decide whether to try salvage the core of this team and attempt to improve its fortunes by making off season moves, or whether to "blow the whole thing up" and rebuild the team from top to bottom.

But, no matter what he decides, John Paxson is definitely on the clock.