Jackson: "I certainly don't want to come back here."

 

I was reading "The Last Season" by Phil Jackson (interesting book BTW), and this converstion during the 1997-1998 season between Phil and Jerry sprang out at me. When the Bulls won their last championship during this season, I was only 8 years old at the time. So not surprisingly, I was oblivious to any problems going on within the team.

So my question is, to anyone who knows, what led to this chilly relationship between the two?

I was just recently watching game 2 of the playoffs against the Celtics and it made me realize that the Bulls are really going to miss that shooting ability this season, and we've already witnessed that so far. Gordon made shot after shot against the Celtics in that game. He provided instant offense whether he came off the bench or he was in the starting line up and he was the clutch shooter for this team. He didn't play good defense, and he took questionable shots at times, but so what? He more than made up for it with his shooting touch. Salmons has been playing average at best, and there just seems to me a lack of chemistry on this team; a team that fought hard but eventually lost to the superior and experienced Celtics in a epic series. That team seems to be long gone now. Now I see a team that just doesn't give a shit on the court. Nobody is really putting forth any effort, and really, how much of that can be put on VDN's shoulders? If he gets fired either by Christmas or at the end of this season, will that help. I sure hope so...

Now that I've read that fanpost of Bulls management never planning on resigning him, it just makes me even more angry/sad. Nobody has yet to step up to fill Gordon's shoes. Rose? He's been playing well as of late, but he seems to be the only one. Management must be delusional to think that Rose can do this all by himself, and so far it's looking he's gonna have to do just that. Placing myself into garpaxforman's shoes, I guess the main reason they didn't resign him was because they thought they didn't need him, what with the upcoming free agent class. But at this rate, is anybody gonna want to come here and play? And let's go back to Rose: His rookie year he was used to playing with Gordon. His second year he has to get used to playing with Salmons at the 2. And next year, assuming we get another SG, he has to get used to another player on this roster. We're wasting crucial years in his development people! Is there any stability on this roster?

 

Now I know I sound like a negative nancy now; that I'm so pissed the way the team is playing that I'm writing this out of anger, and part of that is true. But a bigger part of me is just being realistic. Even before this season I knew things wouldn't be great, but I at least thought we could make the playoffs again. But at this rate, we'll be lucky to win 20+ games. So my question is, is anybody else missing BG right about now?

As you could probably tell, I'm not a Pistons fan, I'm a Bulls fan. I was on the "They should resign Gordon" side and we all know how that turned out. He might not have been particularly great at defense, and he his shot selection wasn't all that great, but I liked him ever since we drafted him. He provided instant offense coming off of the bench, and he was good for at least 20 points a night. But alas, he's not a Bull anymore. Anyway, my question is from Bulls fan to a Piston fan(s), how are you guys liking Gordon so far?

 So I was just looking at the Bulls past rosters over the last couple of years and I noticed something. To my surprise, that we were either 1st or 2nd in the league for attendance for a number of years Sure, I knew that Chicago loved thier sports but second in the league? That's pretty darn good! Hell, are team wasn't even that loaded with talent but we brought in the fans.

To give you a good look at what I'm talking about, I will now post the win/loss record along with the attendance of each year begining from the post Jordan era: (Taken from www.basketball-reference.com)

     Year                      Win-Loss record                            Attendance

1998-1999                       13-37                                                1/29

1999-2000                       17-65                                                9/29

2000-2001                       15-67                                               19/29

2001-2002                       21-61                                                9/29

2002-2003                       30-52                                                5/29

2003-2004                       23-59                                                3/29

2004-2005                       47-35                                                2/29

2005-2006                       43-39                                                2/30

2006-2007                       49-33                                                1/30

2007-2008                       33-49                                                2/30

2008-2009                       41-41                                                2/30

2009-2010                       7-11                                                  21/30

 

Begining from 2003-2004 season (Hinrich as a rookie) we began seeing the surge in attendance. During the Scott Skiles era, we were averaging 2nd-3rd in the league for attendance. Let's just think about that for a second shall we? We didn't have any superstars on our team, yet we did good with what we got. Hey, even our win loss record improved with Skiles as coach. We even started making the playoffs once we drafted Gordon, Duhon, Deng and Nocioni. We were a pretty good team. Hell, we even made it past the first round in the 2006-2007 season against the Heat, but eventually lost to the Pistons in the semifinals. We never did any better than that and alas he was fired in 2007. Our win record started to go down once again. Then we had that epic seven game series against the Celtics which by many, was called one of the best playoff series in NBA history. Woah, not bad!

 

                        

                                         Pictured above: Reason for surging Bulls attendance                                                                                                                                                                                      

Flash forward to this season: Gordon is gone, and apparently so is Rose by the looks of things. The whole reason I write this article is the point out my last entry in the 2009-2010 column. . Take a look again in case you missed it. We are currently 21 out of 30 for league attendance! To put that number in prospective, even when we were a terrible team with a record of 15-67, we still had more people coming then to see these Bulls.

 

 

                                    

 

But should it be any surprise? We're losing game after game and not even puting forth an effort anymore! Now I know some of you are saying, "But D-Wade, it's still early in the season, surely our record and attendance will improve?!" No kids, I'm afraid not. Do any of us here honestly expect more people to see the Bulls play with games like the one yesterday? If we can't compete with the worst defensive team in the league, how do we expect to compete at all? The answer, according to Bulls managment, is "not this year".

 It appears as if we are like the New York Knicks looking forward to next season rather then play this season. Scratch that, even the Knicks are playing better basketball then we are? So my question is what's the deal? What the hell is going on with this team? Can we salvage what we do have? Will firing VDN really help us that much this year? What if we don't land a superstar free agent at the 2, a scorer we so desperately need this upcomming offseason? These are the answers my friends that we will be looking for in the next couple of weeks. As of now? 2000-2001 Chicago Bulls here we come!

                                      

                                                 "Pssh, you guys haven't been good since I made this shot!"  

Poll

Will the Bulls finished over .500 this season?

36%

Yes

22 votes

63%

No

39 votes

61 votes | Poll has closed