Sportsfrog.com

Scott Skiles took the initial fall, axed, as you know by now, on Christmas Eve. But Steve Aschburner at si.com comes correct with the thesis that the deeper issues lie in the front office. Writes Aschburner:

“Skiles isn’t the one who made contract extension offers to Luol Deng and Ben Gordon that were just low enough for the players to turn down, yet just good enough for Deng and Gordon to be universally second-guessed, even by themselves. It was Paxson, not the head coach, who signed a limited and declining Ben Wallace to that $60 million contract, while failing to address the team’s more pressing need for an offensive presence in the low post.

Drafting LaMarcus Aldridge, only to trade him on draft night 2006 for Tyrus Thomas? Too clever by half, as it turns out. Dumping Skiles picks the scab off the Tyson Chandler move, too, since the latter didn’t like playing for the former but has done just fine for the Hornets. Don’t think the head coach did anything to fan the Kobe Bryant trade rumors that purportedly funkified the Bulls’ locker room for a spell, either.”

Correct. That would be incompetent GM Jim Paxson doing those things. After two years of flirting with relevance, the Bulls still have no low-post scoring threat and are woefully dependent on outside shooting. That flaw revealed itself quickly in the playoffs the last few years, and is revealing itself in the regular season this time around. And, apparently, Paxson’s request that other teams (like, say, the Grizzlies) help him out by dealing answers to that problem for the pennies on the dollar is as insane to NBA GMs as it is to fans.

Somewhere, Kevin McHale approves.