The NBA: Where John Paxson Being A Retarded GM Happens

This little satire of the Where Amazing Happens commercials was made for the Bulls over a year ago. I posted it a few months ago, but it still holds true to this day. As the deadline approaches, we'll see if we can add "Where Not Getting Amare Happens" to the list. Don't watch this if you a) like John Paxson; or b) being reminded of how shitty he has been pisses you off.

The Misconception About Why John Paxson Sucks

After reading this over at Top Ten Chicago Sports today, I realized that there is a common misconception about John Paxson. The fact that he is a shitty GM is not in question, but WHY he is a bad GM seems to be something people don't fully grasp.

Being a GM involves 4 basic tasks: (1) Acquiring players through the draft; (2) Acquiring players through free agency and trades; (3) Cap management; and (4) Hiring a competent coaching staff. With everyone furious at Paxson over the Bulls recent run of problems, people are just making sweeping generalizations that Pax sucks at all 4 of these things. I beg to differ.

Lets look at each factor that goes into being a GM and assess Paxson's success and/or failure. First is acquiring players through the draft. This is where the sticking point is. There is a sense that Paxson is a terrible drafter based on his most recent drafts. While Tyrus and Joakim have not lived up to expectation, overall Paxson has done a relatively good job. The mistake fans make in assessing drafts is just assessing how good the player is, and not the value he brought from whatever pick he was drafted at. For instance, Aaron Gray sucks. I mean he is at best a good back-up center in this league. He was a second rounder though! How many guys even get minutes in the NBA from the second round. You can count them on one hand. Gordon, Deng and Thabo were all very good picks. He isn't Kevin Pritchard by any means, but Pax has done well with the picks he had. Also he made the correct decision on Derrick Rose. Beasely doesn't suck, but Rose is better.

Acquiring players through free agency and trades is where Pax went all wrong, and this leaks into the third factor, cap management. The Bulls have made 2 notable trades since Pax came on board. Tyson Chandler for PJ Brown, and Ben Wallace for Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden. The Chandler move was bad, the Wallace move was good (I mean we basically traded one team cancer for another, but got Gooden out of it). The big mistake here is not the trades he made, but the ones he didn't. All the rumors aside about Garnett, Kobe, Pau, etc. coming to Chicago, Paxson's trigger-shy attitude has been costly. The one big free agent signing he did make was a complete disaster, Ben Wallace. It also pushed us up right up against the cap until 2010.

The last factor, coaching, is another area where Paxson did not do bad. Wait, hear me out. Skiles was able to take a young, raw, unmotivated team and turn them into winners. When the time came to take the next step, the players started tuning him out, so Pax got rid of him and tried to hire someone who could take the Bulls to that next level. He tried to hire Mike D'Antoni. But Reinsdorf didn't want to shell out the money so Pax was forced to settle for the much cheaper, and shittier, Vinny Del Negro. Vinny sucks, but that is not Pax's fault.

Anyways, the point of all this is to say that Pax is a decent GM when it comes to drafting and even selecting coaches. His faults lie in actually dealing with free agents and other GMs to bring in good talent and manage cap space. If you take anything from this post, let it be that Paxson is a shitty GM. If you want to look a little deeper though, don't be one of those people who says he doesn't know how to draft, because that is not the problem. You have until February 19th Pax, make something happen.

Yeah, Yeah, Derrick Rose Got Hurt But What I Really Want To Know Is Where I Can Get a Ben Wallace Bulls Jersey

In a Sun-Times boardroom, the following conversation takes place:

Sun-Times advertising executive: Ok guys, how can we lure people into our fan shop to buy Chicago sports merchandise?

Other advertising exec: We should probably prominently display some merchandise of popular players in Chicago right now, like Derrick Rose or Kyle Orton jerseys.

Sun-Times advertising executive: That sounds like a great idea. Ok get those nerds in IT to put the ad banner up above certain stories in the sports section of the websi---

Random Shitty Consultant: Wait wait! That will never work. Here's what you need to do. No one is going to want to buy current, relevant merchandise, you need to go old school!

Sun-Times advertising executive: What do you have in mind?

Random Shitty Consultant: Ben Wallace jerseys. Think about it, people have always loved Big Ben in Chicago, why not lure them in with the promise of 4 points and 8 rebounds a game and we will only charge them $15 million a year?

Sun-Times advertising executive: Brilliant!

While this conversation may be made up, I'm not sure exactly how else this could have been displayed on the Sun-Times website:


I wonder if they're selling David Wells or Ron Mercer jerseys. I bet those things just fly off the shelves.

Is Larry Hughes MASSIVE Contract Actually Good for Da Bulls?

Larry Hughes is owed approx. $26 million over the next two years. Yup, that's right, the guy who shoots 18% from the field is making more than anyone else on the team(Deng?).

But this contract may be a blessing in disguise. See, his contract is up in the "Summer of LeBron," the year when when King James and about a dozen or so other top notch free agents become available such as:Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Manu Ginobili, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Redd, just to name a few.

Not all of these guys are going be available but you get the point. Or maybe you don't. Well here it is: $13+ million a year coming off a team's books will be a major asset in just a couple short years. Whether or not Paxson realized this when he made the Ben Wallace deal is a discussion for another day. Either way it puts the Bulls in the position where they have another asset that they probably have no idea what to do with.

To my surprise teams are already trying to snatch this fantasy team destroyer from our grasps. The Daily Herald reported in a article on Thursday titled:"Bulls Discover Some Trade Interest In Hughes"(LOL Discover?!?)The Bulls need to thin out their backcourt, some trade possibilities could include Portland's Joe Przybilla, New York's Jared Jeffries, Dallas' Erick Dampier, or Denver's Kenyon Martin.

Personally, I would rather have every single one of these guys instead of Larry Hughes, but I would love the opportunity to actually get a big name free agent. Ben Wallace was a huge tease. Only time will tell what happens on this issue but it looks like another chance for Bulls management to crap the bed.