Bulls Mon Feb 16 2009

Rumors Run Rampant as Bulls Sit in Neutral

By Brian Lauvray

With Derrick Rose being about the only good thing going for the Bulls right now, it's as good a time as any to iron out some of the wrinkly rumors swirling around the Bulls, John Paxson and Amare Stoudemire.

Is it possible at all for the Bulls to ...gasp... lure Amare?

Short answer: YES!
Long answer: Let's wait and see. The trade deadline for the NBA is at 3:00 pm on Thursday and the Suns, Bulls, Amare, everybody else involved, surely would love to get this deal wrapped up before then. But Phoenix did just fire their head coach and there is a lot of talk coming out of the desert that with interim-head coach, Alvin Gentry, running the show, he might want to make Amare more of an offensive focal point as opposed to a third or fourth option.

As incredible as it seems to lure the one known as: STAT to the Second City, can anyone not be excited about the prospect of Derrick Rose alley-ooping it to Amare? We're talking about a tandem of big/small that would rival what New Orleans had with Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler last year, or that the Suns had when they still believed in the D'Antoni wisdom of "seven seconds or less." This trade possibility should be exciting for Chicago Bulls fans everywhere: the Bulls gain an incredible offensive force in Amare (I mean really, dude is everything Tyrus and Joakim were meant to be but aren't), plus the Bulls could try and shed Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden's heavy contracts to open up some cap room for a free agency chase this offseason or during the gold rush-to-be that is the free agent market of 2010.

Is John Paxson Just Depressed?

The season has not gone well at all for the Bulls, aside from Rose (he is a rookie, so really, he can't regress), the entire team seems to have regressed, consider: Luol Deng still not playing to his potential, Ben Gordon livin' the vida loca and throwing threes at will; while Andres Nocioni has apparently moved into some type of sub-United Center bunker and will not come out except to predict six more weeks of the Bulls sucking--hey our own groundhog!; and Vinny Del Negro emphatically not molding the young minds of Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas into the galaxy destroying, long-armed freaks that they should be, it's understandable for John Paxson to be getting a little crazy and maybe he wants a vacation. Anyway, I sorta feel for Pax he ran with the Skiles/Baby Bulls concept for a season too long and then mistakenly hired Vinny Del Negro on a whim after one-too-many shots of Patron Silver, while hanging out at VDN's, admittedly, very dope spot in St. Lucia. But John don't quit/resign/let punk Reinsdorf fire you: Stay strong, John Paxson. Fire VDN, hire a better coach with decent player relations and draft better moving forward. Oh! and try to shed Larry Hughes, Luol or Ben Gordon, please.