The Bernstein Brief: Bulls Must Explain Themselves
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Late Wednesday morning, Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman will sit in front of reporters and tell us what that was and what this all is.
A team that spent an entire season trying to figure itself out amid various and disconnected performances just treated its home fans to a memorable punk-out, declining to pretend to care about Game 6 of a playoff series. The Bulls were jeered off the floor last Friday, deservedly and appropriately.
It was a team constructed in mostly haphazard fashion, a slapdash collection of names that saw some combination of five strewn around the floor since October with no apparent sense of larger purpose at any given point. Rotations came and went, plays were run or not, veterans took turns shooting and young players languished while only getting worse. The moribund conference allowed this playoff appearance that neither proved nor accomplished anything.
If there's finally some kind of reconstruction to be done, we're well past the time to get on with it and removed from any previous leverage in deal-making. If the plan is to keep this team together like a shambling zombie, welcoming back what's left of Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and an older-than-his-years Jimmy Butler, we need to know why and to what assumed end.
Already, rumors fly about more voices to be heard in decision-making and a possible resumption of more day-to-day responsibility by Paxson, who has become the modern equivalent of Bob Pulford -- just always there and ambiguously influential.
He has yet another chance to tell us why the Bulls should matter to us and in what direction they may actually care to go.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Bernstein and Goff Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
