They didn’t put up any sort of fight at all!
First the Cavs (led by LeBron) got away with dancing like fools, completely disrespecting the entire team (except for Joakim Noah, who should be lauded for initially putting up a fight, even though he immediately retracted once LeBron approached him and refused to say anything bad about LeBron in post-game interviews); then you’ve got the Raptors disrespecting the Bulls as well.. Why didn’t anyone say anything about Jarrett Jack tying his shoes during the game? Where is the freaking heart of the bulls organization? Where is the competitive fire the bulls have or used to have? I am completely disappointed with the lack of passion and intensity of this bulls team. It looks like they’ve given up completely and have accepted being a second or third-tier squad that will get it handed to them every night. It is flat-out depressing to watch. Somebody needs to step up and demand greater intensity and a sense of pride.

But who’ll do that? D Rose? (too young) L Deng? (too passive) Captain Kirk? (injured.. and also a bench player)

Could someone please do something to have the team grow some freaking balls and a sense of pride to at least show up to compete every night?

Maybe it’s Del Negro… At least Skiles had the baby bulls playing hard every night (that is, until the bulls tuned him out…).

Here’s the real problem: without resigning Gordon in the offseason, we have no real shot at a max-contract free agent next summer (no Wade, Lebron or Bosh). Why? Because the salary cap is shrinking to about 52 million dollars this summer. We have about 41 million committed next year unless Salmons opts out of his contract (and with the way he’s playing that doesn’t seem likely). So, we’ll have about 11 million to throw at a free agent (a max contract is about 16 million). Anyone ready for the David Lee era?

The only way for us to get a top-tier superstar this summer would be through a sign-and-trade — so that we could shed some salary and give the player the maximum deal (he gets more in a sign-and-trade). To do that you need assets. I’m assuming we’re unwilling to trade our two biggest assets (Noah and Rose) and the rest of the team is pretty much either garbage or insanely overpaid (see Deng and Hinrich for examples of overpaid role players). Gordon would have been our biggest asset in a trade and we let him walk to a division rival for nothing.

So, the organization told us two lies this summer. First, Gar said in a press conference that resigning Gordon was “our #1 priority.” We find out later that they didn’t even offer him a contract. Second, we were then told by Reinsdorf in an interview that the decision to let Gordon go was made during last season when we traded for Salmons. What?! Leaving the GM hanging out to dry like that? We were told that was the only way we’d have a shot at a free agent in 2010. Well, now it looks like our only shot was by KEEPING Gordon. Lies, lies and more lies. JR will be happy to ride Rose and NOah through their rookie deals until they’re up for an extension and then he’ll lowball them and claim “they weren’t team players” when they take an offer from a team willing to pay them what they’re worth.

Anyone remember what he said when the White Sox won the championship? “I’d trade all 6 Bulls championships for this.” Look it up, our owner said that. Unacceptable. The Bulls are his business, his money-maker, his cash-cow, profit-machine; whatever you want to call it. The White Sox are his TEAM. He doesn’t care about winning, and so long as the Bulls are making money he’s not going to sell the team (which is what we fans need to happen if we ever want a true contender again). We’re not going to luck into the greatest player of all time ever again; it’s just not going to happen. I’d settle for lucking into a competent owner who rewards his loyal customers.

How about you, LAbullsfan? You say, “Bring in energetic defensive minded, team chemistry unselfish players.” Oh yeah? Like who? The problem with D-Rose is that he’s already too unselfish. We need someone who can be selfish and create his own shots. Not AI selfish, but selfish enough to be willing to take over a game. Even if we wanted a bunch of defensive minded, team chemistry players, who would you bring in? There isn’t anyone out there we can get.

Typical Chicago sports fans. The teams aren’t that great, but instead of looking at things logically, you want to blow up the team just for the sake of doing it. No idea who you want to get or what you want to do; you just want to start making moves for the hell of it.

This is why you people don’t run NBA teams.

The problem with the bulls is that they have too many role players and no leaders or all-stars. Deng, Salmons, Noah, Rose…all those guys are great role players but not one of them is going to take over a game for you. And I’m sorry folks, Ben Gordon wasn’t either. He was good off the bench, but he needed talent around him to take the pressure off him.

So here’s what we do. We suffer through this season as best we can and make our play for 1 or 2 all-stars next summer when they’re available. What we don’t want to do is start randomly making trades, selling our players for pennies on the dollar mid-season, and then try and build our way out next summer. If we do that, we’ll end up with 1 good player and nothing around him.

In the meantime, stop panicking like you haven’t seen the Bulls suck before. They are nowhere near as bad as they were under Floyd.

On Defense: Teams have adjusted to our defensive scheme and are attacking us without mercy. Our interior D and backside rotations are not solid because we lack size and extremely slow. Joakim can’t do it all by himself and his frustrations are becomming more evident. We need Tyrus back like yesterday. Miller just doesn’t have the legs to keep up with younger guys at this stage in his career. Taj has played well, but as a rookie won’t get the benefit of many calls. Besides, he could stand to add about 15lbs of muscle. Collectively, the Bulls aren’t playing to their strength on D’. We need to utilize the half – 3/4 press more when the game is close. Salmons is our best perimeter defender right now with Kirk out and he is hardly setting the tone on D. Ideally, pressing up more will help us get more transition scores and would at the very least give other teams less time to set up their offesne and pick us apart.

On offense: We need better shooters. Period. With Gordon gone, Rose just doesn’t have the same lanes to penetrate. Additionally, I think its obvious Deng and Salmons on the court at the same time is not a good fit. Neither slash to the hole enough, both take too many mid-range jump shots. Upon Hinrich’s return, VDN need to bench Salmons for Hinrich. This may help Rose by allowing him to play off the ball more. Right now he’s a turnover waiting to happen.

Intangibles: Lastly, I agree that this team needs more attitude and fire. Short of Joakim and Tyrus when healthy, we have none. Players need to have more pride in themselves, otherwise opposing teams will continue to whip our butts in disrespectful fashion i.e. Lebron and Jarrett Jack on consecutive nights. If the Bulls aren’t going to committ to getting Aaron Gray’s butt in shape – let’s at least utilize his 6 fouls in garbage time for guys who want to get they highlight fix on ESPN against the Bulls.