Expert: Trade talks for Kobe upsets Bulls' chemistry - NBA

Trade talks for Kobe upsets Bulls' chemistry

Off to slow start, Chicago also plagued by contract conundrum
Danny Moloshok / AP
When Kobe Bryant said he no longer wanted to be a member of the Lakers last spring, the Chicago Bulls inquired about his availability. The ensuing trade talks, which went nowhere, upset a delicate chemistry the Bulls front office had worked so hard to create, writes msnbc.com contributor Sam Smith.

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Sam Smith contributor

Sam SmithSo when was it when the Chicago Bulls were the next hot thing to hit the NBA?

Oh, right, two weeks ago.

It doesn’t take long in sports to go from happenin’ to what happened.

And so that’s the story of the Bulls this season, picked by many �" OK, some �"to reach the NBA Finals and now, instead, they are just a reach.

The Bulls opened the season 1-5, which is not unusual in the NBA even for good teams. The Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks each started poorly last season and won more than 60 games.

But it’s how the Bulls have gone about it, getting blown out at home last Saturday by the Toronto Raptors while perhaps the most loyal fan base in the NBA chanted “Kobe, Kobe” for much of the final period.

An aside here. One of the most overlooked stories in the NBA in the last decade has been the amazing staying power of Bulls fans. It usually doesn’t last long in the NBA when a team loses, witness this season major attendance declines in places like Sacramento, Indianapolis and Philadelphia with lessened prospects for the teams.

It never happened in Chicago despite the historic collapse after the Michael Jordan years when the Bulls were regularly losing 60 to 65 games per season. The Bulls never fell out of the top 10 in league attendance and with a recovery in recent years have been first or second every season with the league’s second-largest arena to Detroit.

Yes, Kobe Bryant.

That’s generally one of the conventional wisdom reasons for the Bulls’ difficulties.

Bryant, as any follower of the NBA knows, declared himself a former Laker last spring and through his various media mouthpieces mentioned the Bulls as his preferred destination. Given that Bryant is generally regarded as the best talent, if also not the best player, in the NBA, the Bulls were obviously intrigued.

So they called the Lakers and inquired, as most teams in the NBA did.

Special feature•NBA games you shouldn't missThe Lakers basically said give us your poor, your hungry, your huddled masses and your four best players.

Check please!

The talks never really went anywhere or even to the point of the Bulls making an offer or the Lakers actually saying what they’d accept. But in the predictable media frenzy with the possibility of such a high-level star being traded, just about every member of the Bulls rotation was mentioned in some concocted trade.

This was said to upset the players’ delicate equilibrium and caused them to lose focus on playing. Sort of the notion that if the team isn’t going to be loyal to me, the heck with them.

Then there’s the contract conundrum.

It’s inevitable when you build through the draft, as the Bulls primarily have. You promote your players and then they come up for contract extensions at roughly the same time. So you’re saying how great they are, and then you don’t offer them at least what they believe is the commensurate compensation.

The Bulls reportedly offered Ben Gordon $50 mil. for five years and Luol Deng $57.5 mil. for five years. It’s not the so called “max” deal that most players seek once they average in double figures, so Gordon and Deng rejected the offers. How dare you offer us just eight-figure annual salaries? Don’t you know we’ve never been All Stars and are not likely to be this season? The nerve.

Neither has played particularly well since, so there’s that supposed distraction.

Then there’s the coach’s voice. You start losing, must be time to change the coach. After all, he’s not getting any rebounds or shooting well enough.

Then there’s the fossilization of Ben Wallace, who now actually makes creaking sounds like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

Well, actually he doesn’t, but he’s played somewhat like that with a bad ankle suffered in the last preseason game. Wallace declined the preseason offer to become a team captain. Sounds somewhat like he’s playing it out on his last contract.

There’s the slower-than-hoped-for development of second-year players Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha and also a sprained ankle late in camp for rookie Joakim Noah, which caused him to miss the first three games.

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Both Deng and Sefolosha played for their countries in world games this summer, and Kirk Hinrich got married, both events which can be tiring.

When the shots don’t fall, you can find plenty of reasons.

Also, Deng’s name came up prominently in the Bryant talks as a player the Bulls didn’t want to part with. The reaction around the NBA was shock. For Kobe Bryant. So opponents have taken some notice and Richard Jefferson and Andre Iguodala, players whom the Bulls almost traded for and drafted, respectively, took notice and played Deng more physically than before. You can’t hide anymore when your team won’t trade you for Kobe Bryant even if your name is Luol.

The Bulls will snap out of it because they are a good team. Not great, that’s the problem.

They had a nice plan and have done a terrific job returning to competitiveness, but didn’t get lucky. So they don’t get to be the San Antonio Spurs.

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  Discuss: Sound off on NBA message boards

When you luck into David Robinson and then Tim Duncan in the lottery, you can start calling yourself the model franchise. Coach Gregg Popovich knows better and gives the credit where it is due, to Duncan and good fortune. Others who have left the organization haven’t been so gracious. Nor so successful with the so called Spurs model.

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