Matt,

In keeping with the Bulls New Marketing Plan, I received my 11 game package today and the tickets  did not have a single Bull player on them.

There were 4 pictures of fans cheering (probably from 2007), 3 pictures of the scoreboard during pregame introductions, 2 long shots of the court with a game in progress, 1 picture of VDN, and 1 of Benny fondling some young boy.

I guess that means the Bulls are confident they will not be trading Benny.  I suspect it also means they expect to make major personnel changes before the season is out.

Someone has to pull Matt in off the ledge, so I'll take a shot at what the Bulls plan is.

When Paxson and Boylan got together they decided:

1.)Thomas & Sefolosha had both lost confidence as a result of Skiles lineup manipulation and the teams horrid start.  That confidence had to be rebuilt but first the team needed to get back to winning games and to do that they would, if necessary, play the regulars more, and let Thomas & Sefolosha sit.
2.)The team had quit on Skiles and was better than their recent performance. The next 20 games gave them an excellent opportunity to get back to 500. They could expect to go perhaps as good as 15-5.  This team is not going to win important games if the team does not get consistent performances from Wallace, Deng, Hinrich & Gordon, and here was an opportunity to get on a run get the swagger back, and get the disapppointment of the early season behind them.  

3.) Bring Gordon off the bench. This would allow for two things to happen, 1) solidify the defense at the start of the game and 2) hopefully, jump start Hinrich's game.

4.)Use Noah as backup for Wallace & Smith to help with rebounding and interior defense. He's not a polished offensive player but he does know how to play in the half court. The Bull's see Noah as Wallace's ultimate replacement or if they get a scoring post player as a defensive PF/C to team with him.

5.)Once they start winning games they can develop  Thomas & Sefolosha's games.  Look for Boylan to try to increase Sefolosha's court time first by taking  minutes from Duhon & Hinrich. They need to develop him as a third guard to allow them to trade Duhon and/or Gordon. If that doesn't work he could be included in a February trade.

The hope is that before the trade deadline the following will have taken place. The team is playing better basketball.  The experiment with Gordon is working well and Smith, Nocioni, Duhon, Thomas & Sefolosha have re-established their trade value.

At that point the Bulls will make a trade perhaps a major trade. If it's a major trade, then either Nocioni, Hinrich, Wallace and/or Smith's contract's will have to be part of the deal to equalize salaries. Ideally the trade(s) would bring both a big guard and a legitimate post player.  

As for Tyrus, I don't see him being traded, unless   the deal is too good to pass up. He is still a potential star and Paxson is willing to wait for his potential to be reached. Admittedly this scenario means that Thomas will be sitting on the bench a lot for the next couple of weeks but I suspect that management is telling him to have patience and that they still have big plans for him.    

For the last several years my season ticket partner and I have discussed taking a Bulls roadtrip, but never got it worked out. This season looks good for a trip to Seattle & Portland in February.

Question:
Do the Bulls help season ticket holders with procurring tickets to Bulls away games?

Observation:
I love Chicago but you definitely pay a premium for living in a big sports city.
We have the 11 game plan which last year put us in Section 313 (SE Corner) Row 2. 11 Games $550.

Comparable seats in Seattle are $35/game. They offer a 12 ticket weekend package for $420.

Comparable seats in Portland are $21/game They offer a quarter season package (10 games) $210.
Front Row Center Court Upper level $43/game (10 Games $430.

They obviously are having trouble selling seats in Seattle because you can buy a 12 game package for seats virtually anywhere in the arena. Seats 9th Row Center court were $150 (12 games) $1,800.

I see where TrueHoop has brought up the subject of the NBA lottery and the accusation that teams are tanking to improve their position in the lottery. Since others are offering suggestions, now is a good time to brush off my proposal for how to turn the NBA lottery drawing into a must see  TV show.

First, the problem:  How do you not reward teams for dumping games and yet still insure that the teams with the worst records have the best chance of getting the earlier draft picks.   One way would be to set some arbitrary point in the season, (say after 65 games) and say the teams position in the lottery will be based on their record at that point in the season.  Now there would be no incentive to tank games the last month of the season because your position in the lottery has already been determined. Now if your going to tank games you have to do it earlier in the season, which is far less likely to happen. That would work but I'm sure someone would find something to find fault with.  Regardless of that my proposal works whatever method is used to establish the initial lottery order.

My proposal  gives everyone a shot at moving up in the lottery while still maintaining the strong likelihood that the worst teams would get the earlier picks.

The lottery would be run as follows. The 10th through 14th placed teams would put into the first draw with the 14th team getting the most balls and the 10th getting the least. The statisticians could work out the percentages to determine whatever probability they wanted but for purposes of  this example lets say 14th gets 40 balls, 13th gets 25 balls, 12th gets 20 balls, 11th gets 10 balls and 10th gets 5 balls.  You churn up the balls and out pops the winner (actually loser) and that team gets the 14th pick in the draft.  Now you repeat the process with the 9th place team added in place of the team that got the 14th pick.

Again the balls are assigned in order of the records with the worst record getting 40 balls and the best team (this time the 9th place team) getting 5 balls.  Using this method the teams with best records have almost no chance of getting the top picks but everyone with the obvious exception of the teams with the best and worst records  has a chance to move up or down in the draft.

As an example using the percentages, I have assigned the 14th placed team, right now that's Golden State would have a 40% probability of getting the 14 th pick in the draft, a 24% probability of getting the 13th pick, a 14.4% probability of getting the 12th pick, an 8.6% probability of getting the 11th pick, a 5.2% chance of getting the 10th pick. They would have about a 10% chance of still being alive after 5 drawings and about a 1 % chance of still being alive after the 10th drawing.  My education in statistical probability goes back to the age of the slide rule so I'm a little shaky about extrapolating beyond this point  but the beauty of the draw is that regardless of how many drawings your team has survived  you  still have at least a 60% chance of still having your team alive after the next draw, until we get to the top 4 picks.  

Memphis, the team with the worst record would not be in the drawing until we got down to the draw for the 5th spot in the draft and they would only have a 5% chance of getting that pick.  

Doing this the lottery drawing would be must watch TV for every NBA fan and the NBA could turn it into a one hour extravaganza.

This year with the Knick's pick lets say we end up with the 9th worst record.  We could end up anywhere from the 13th pick to the 1st pick with about an 80% probability that it would be the 7th through 11th pick.  

While everyone else is predicting the next NBA Champ, I choose to wallow in the muck of the NBA's lower depths divining the candidates for next June's NBA lottery. I probably just don't want to give up the pleasure I derived predicting the Bulls draft pick for the coming year. Thank god for Isiah Thomas, giving us a dog in this race.  Submit your own list and if we have a good response I'll keep a record and we'll get Matt to award a prize to the best prediction.

Here are my bottom 10 picks from worst to mediocre.

1. Portland (26-56)Perhaps not the the leagues worst team, but they only get to play the East's also rans twice instead of 4 times. The're very young and the front office is probably spending more time looking at Ohio State's, Texas' and Florida's basketball schedule than there own.
2. Atlanta (27-55) Here is a team without a plan, but there probably too good to pass Portland. What Dukee or Tarheel can they draft this coming Summer?
3. Toronto (32 -50)They might surprise but I think that they are looking at this season as an opportunity to develop their youngsters and earn another high draft choice. Why is Sam Mitchell still coaching that team?
4. Philadelphia (34-48) They get all their points from 2 guys , (Iverson & Webber)who are likely to miss at least 30 game between them. They look terrible on defense and Mo Cheeks has to be the early favorite to be the first coach fired.
5. Charlotte (35-47) They have talent but it's still young. Maybe next year they challenge for a playoff spot.
6. Seattle (35-47) Not good enough to compete in the West. Swift at Center, Dixon at guard, Yeck. I'm probably overrating them at this spot.
7. New York (36-46) They have no incentive to dump games in March & April like the rest, so I'm giving them three more games then they are probably worth. Of course they could completely blowup and give us a top 3 pick again.
8. Memphis (37-45) The're not as bad as some like to think and Gasol will be back by mid season.
9. Milwaukee (38-44) I expect them to take a step back this season. Look for Charlie Vilaneuva to have a down year.
10. Golden State (38-44) There's a lot of personnel conflicts on this team but I'm betting on Nelson to get them more wins than they deserve. They will score a lot more points but this is a very weak and soft defense.              

In the past I've said that the Bulls couldn't trade both their #1 picks because they traded away their 05 pick for Deng. I found out I'm wrong.

The rule actually states that a team can not trade away future #1 picks in consecutive years. Since the Bulls 05 pick is no longer a future pick they can trade away both picks they have this year.

They could also trade away their #1 pick (#16) and their 07 pick if they chose, because they still would have a #1 pick in 06. The rule only requires  that you retain a #1 pick in one of the next 2 drafts.    

It's always great to read the NY press when the're beating up on the Knicks players and GM. Now they've decided to turn there guns on Larry Brown. To be honest, Peter Vecsey been on Brown since before the season started but now he has the beat writers joining in.

Marc Berman of the NY Post slams Brown with an article titled " Now Larry's one of the Stooges"

Here's a couple of lines from the article.

During the Wizards' rout, a heckler yelled at new Knick Steve Francis, "Hey Stevie, Where are you going next?" Francis turned to the fan and quipped, "To the bank." It took only three days for Francis to feel the emptiness of a lost season.

The players don't seem to care about winning anymore. Two Knicks -- without mentioning names -- munched down on Chicken McNuggets and McDonald's fries an hour before tip-off Saturday night in Washington.
  (My moneys on Eddie and Jamal)

Here's the URL
http://www.nypost.com/sports/knicks/62487.htm