Chicago Bulls: Style of Play Does Not Match Personnel

I've been thinking a lot lately about what has gone wrong with the Chicago Bulls and why. Upon taking over, John Paxson made it very clear that he was going to build around players with winning backgrounds who will work hard and stay out of trouble. It was looked upon as an honorable thing to do, and everyone supported the idea from the start.

Although many believe that these players are too soft, I don't think this is the real problem for the Bulls. Paxson wants his teams to play tough perimeter defense and on offense execute in half court sets. This is where the flaw is: his players don't fit the style of play he wants. To play tough, active perimeter defense you need big, versatile guards that can defend on the perimeter. To execute in half court sets, you need either a big man that can score with his back to the basket or a wing player that can consistently score off the dribble. The Bulls have none of these things.

So as Chicago had varied success with this for three seasons, once the team tuned out Skiles and began to forget about the ideals they had stressed (toughness, high energy, execution), they began to fall apart. Although the players never fit the style Paxson and Skiles wanted to play, Skiles' superior coaching masked this problem. Once the players put Skiles aside and tried to play differently, it all came crashing down.

So now, either the Bulls need to change their style or vision of how they will play (keep the players) or keep these ideals and change the players to make it work.