Another Bulls Drama Will Happen, and No Real Change Will Happen — Again
After making the past week seem like a month, peace finally seems to have found itself in the Bulls organization ahead of Thursday’s meeting with the Orlando Magic in Mexico City. Everyone needs it after the Bulls suffered their worst loss in franchise history to the Boston Celtics, saw the players threaten a mutiny before gathering for a meeting instead of a practice the next day and were made fun of by the freaking Sacramento Kings after their latest loss. The solution was the formation of a leadership committee to ensure better communication between Jim Boylen and the players. At least that’s what it seems on the surface.
But anyone who follows the Bulls closely should know how this inevitably plays out. We’ll see nothing about organizational turmoil, perhaps for a month or a year. In between, we’ll see roster and coaching changes, maybe even the hire of someone once connected to the organization to work in the front office. Finally, something will boil over, we’ll get pieces about how much the Bulls are in disarray such as this brilliant bit of writing from Ricky O’Donnell, and not a damn part of the Bulls’ top brass will change.
Yep, John Paxson and Gar Forman are here to stay, and despite the ever-growing #FireGarPax coalition, no end to their employment appears to be in sight. The undying loyalty of Jerry Reinsdorf and few signs that Michael Reinsdorf is much different won’t allow any real change. So what do we do? Wait for the next drama to unfold.
It’s never their fault. It’s the stars’ fault and the coaches’ faults for challenging the status quo and hurting their feelings. It’s the sponsors’ and fans’ faults for threatening to pull their support unless an aging superstar and/or Chicago native is signed for big bucks. No, everyone from GarPax on up is absolutely perfect, and they won’t have to fire themselves as long as they’re in the black, which won’t change because they and everyone else continue to ride the dynasty wave 20 years after Michael Jordan played his last game as a Bull.
So we wait for emotions to come out of the woodwork once again because someone did something someone else didn’t like. Fingers will be pointed, and everyone will play it down to the media, even though everyone knows there’s an obvious discord. It will stay in the news for a week at most before the next Bears game or one of the baseball teams signs a highly prized free agent. Finally, the Bulls will be able to get back to business, but not before paying lip service to everyone else so they’ll be chastened and continue to spend money on them, even though they know that doing so won’t cause real change.
Worst of all, the Bulls are getting away with it because they know they can. The fans know it, too, but they continue to blindly hand the money over because a Bulls experience at the United Center is like no other, and no one wants to miss out. Ownership and the front office might be continuing to live off the dynasty, but so are the fans. As long as people’s memories of the 90s remain strong, this mindset won’t change.
We’re all fools, but we continue to pay for tickets and merchandise. We continue to tune into games. All the time, the Reinsdorfs and the rest of the board of directors only have to sit back and watch the dollars pour in, knowing they can tune out any noise because it probably won’t affect their bottom line to a significant degree. Shame on them, and shame on us all.
Perhaps one day, we’ll look back on this time in Bulls history and laugh at how foolish everyone on this two-way street was. By then, new ideas will have been brought in, resulting in the Bulls finally hoisting their seventh championship trophy. The present period will be forgiven because the Bulls finally saw that what they did wasn’t working, but creating one drama after another that hindered progress. Too bad that future hasn’t arrived yet and may not arrive for some time.
