| Tuesday, November 30
By Jeffrey Denberg
Special to ESPN.com |
|
TORONTO -- Before Michael Jordan came out of North Carolina a year early to be selected by Chicago with the third pick in 1984, the Bulls were a wretched basketball franchise, and they remained that way until Jordan blossomed into the greatest
player of our time.
What are the odds the Bulls will get another player like that? That is apparently what it will take to bring them out of their first-to-worst spiral.
|  | | Ah, if only the Bulls had Michael to lead them out of last place. |
Unless Jerry Reinsdorf can pull off a startling coup and sign Tim Duncan,
there is absolutely no reason to believe the Bulls will appreciably rise above
their present circumstance.
We are now in the second year of the post-Jordan era and there's been little improvement in the Bulls, who qualified for the top pick in the draft last June and have started out 1-12, a leg up on getting the next No. 1 pick.
Leave it to Phil Jackson to properly (and we believe gleefully) put the
plight of his old team and his old enemy, Jerry Krause, into perspective.
"It's a year where they're kind of planning to find a marketplace and
get one or two great players, and maybe get back to winning next year. It's
going to take high finance and a lot of salesmanship. But it's going to be
really tough to do, because there are so many franchises willing to go to all
ends to keep their players. They will sign and trade at last resort, but then
you're going to have to give up something very good. And when you're talent-poor already, how are you going to get there without adding the free agents that make a difference in a team? It's going to be very difficult for them."
Or as Suns vice president Cotton Fitzsimmons put it: "When you need a
win, the Bulls are like chicken soup."
Those close to the Bulls long felt that GM Krause resented Jordan
throughout the championship reign. Michael treated him disrespectfully and
was the only member of the roster who preceded Krause to the organization.
Krause sought to place a rival to Jordan on the roster and in the
hearts of Chicago fans when he courted and later signed Croatian forward Toni
Kukoc, a super talent who has not yet risen to true star status. Now, it
appears that Kukoc, beset with little injuries in his free-agency season, has
turned against his benefactor.
While skipping most of this season with assorted injuries that include
back spasms, Kukoc gave a cryptic interview to the Chicago Sun-Times. Asked if he trusted Jerry Krause, the forward replied, "That's a question I'm not going to answer to you." Asked if Krause had made any promises to him that were broken, Kukoc said, "Uh, I'm not going to tell you that one, either."
Shortly thereafter, Kukoc called the reporter and asked him to repeat
the questions.
To the first, his answer was, "Yes, I trust Jerry Krause. Why not? He's
never done anything wrong to me. He has always treated me and my family very nice." To the second, he responded, "No, Jerry Krause has not made any promises to me that he didn't keep. Everything that he has promised me, he has
done what he said he would do."
Around the league
While Miami appears to be the class of the East, there is this alarm:
With Tim Hardaway resting a sore right knee in tight victories over Atlanta
and Washington, Pat Riley benched his backup point guards Anthony Carter and Rex Walters and went with Voshon Lenard. If Hardaway misses extended time this season, Miami could be in trouble.
How bad was Indiana in its loss at Seattle? Chris Mullin escaped his
chains, played 24 minutes off the bench and scored 12 points. How rough was November for Indiana? Dale Davis is the team's most reliable scorer.
Paul Silas said he was uneasy when he had to tell Bobby Phills he was pulling him
from the starting lineup. But Phills gracefully accepted the change and then
went out and made his coach look like a genius with 27 points in the Hornets' rout of Orlando. Otherwise the Hornets' "big" lineup with Anthony Mason and Derrick Coleman at the wings is dreadfully unreliable. They trailed Cleveland by 19 on the road and lost by 17.
Cleveland is no gem of consistency,
either, losing by 23 to a Philadelphia team that misses Allen Iverson.
No one is crying louder than George Karl, who can't get Ray Allen to play
consistent defense. "It drives coaches crazy when you're good and bad. It's
actually easier to handle average. Good and bad drives you crazy. It's very
frustrating."
Sometimes, Allen makes a stunning defensive play. Sometimes, he's completely lost, on the wrong side of the floor while his man goes to the basket.
"Ray has all the athletic skills that would make him a very good defensive player," Karl said. "And he's the guy who drives me the craziest because he does have great defensive plays, and the next possession he doesn't even look like he knows where he is."
Don't make too much of the Nets' 39-point loss in Phoenix. They were only down 26 after three quarters. And don't make too much of Stephon Marbury's
5-for-19 shooting in that game. He scored 25 and the bottom line's what
counts, right? Ask his mom.
"You are a winner and the other guys on this team don't care," Mabel
Marbury told her son in front of the press room at the Meadowlands. "You are a winner. Remember that. These other guys aren't. It's not important to them."
Turning to the reporters, Mama Marbury said: "All you need is some help. Write that. This team is burning you out, and I don't want my son burned out. All he needs is some help," she said. "Write that. Write that."
Marbury, embarrassed, whined, "M-o-m...."
Forbes Magazine says the value of the average NBA team has risen 11 percent since last year, an impressive number given revenue lost to the lockout and sagging attendance this season. That's the value of a workable salary cap. No surprise, the Knicks stand on top with a value of $334 million, the Bulls second at $307 million. Among the 10 most valuable franchises, six are in the East.
Milwaukee is among the five least valuable, and the only one of the group that does not have a serious ownership problem. George Shinn, of course, is seen as an obstacle to progress in Charlotte and is selling almost half his team. Ownership in Denver and Vancouver is transient, the current owners struggling to dump their properties. Then there are the Clippers, who are cheaply held at $103 million because Donald Sterling will not part with them, adhering to his practice to not sell an appreciating asset. That's right, appreciating. By moving to the Staples Center as the third tenant, the value of the Clippers is expected to climb by 50 percent.
And this note for hockey fans: The average NBA team is valued at $188 million, the average NHL team at only $135.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |  |
NBA East: Western dominance obvious
