Just 20 more games 'til Phil?

A mere week ago, -- and keep in mind this was after dropping a rather winnable game in Indiana -- the Bulls' playoff odds looked like this:

Unfortunately, after three straight home losses, now they're something like this:

And as much as I dislike Vinny Del Negro, this team in its current form just does not have the talent to win enough to get to the postseason. The trades of John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas gutted the Bulls' depth, to the point that they no longer have enough viable bodies to weather the storm of an injury to someone like Joakim Noah.

Not only that, but the deals also have propelled the Bucks and Bobcats solidly into the playoff picture. And if you don't think it's the ex-Bulls that are their teams' driving forces, think again Mark Schanowski.

Here is the Bobcats' roster, in order of productivity as calculated by 82games.com:

That's Tyrus Thomas on top there, FYI. Meanwhile, these are the Bucks' rankings:

Why that is John Salmons in the first position, in case there was any confusion. So how have the Bulls' acquisitions fared?

In giving two of the their closest competitors players who immediately became the most productive on their respective teams, Chicago received its 5th and 10th best players in return. Actually, since they traded away Nos. 2 and 4, I suppose they're actually #3 and #8, but what's a few middle-to-low-end slots between friends?

Alright, let's say you don't buy into 82games' valuations. Fair enough. Well how about Player Efficiency Rating? Since the trade, Tyrus' PER is 21.36 in 27.1 minutes per game; Salmons' is 19.96 in 36 mpg*. Meanwhile, Hakim Warrick has given the Bulls a 14.83 in 25.1 mpg, while Flip Murray is at 10.16 in 24.5 mpg. Factoring in the minutes played, the Bulls got back roughly half the value of what they gave up.

* To make matters worse, Salmons is playing so well that there's at least a decent chance he'll exercise his player option and leave on the table the $5+ million that the Bulls were so desperate to keep off their cap. The main reason Chicago had to include the extras to the Bucks (the ability to swap first-round picks, the pair of second rounders) was to indemnify them for the loss of next year's cap space. If Salmons does, in fact, opt out, it will mean not only did Chicago get inferior talent back, but they gave up all of those additional assets as compensation for something that never occurred.

And so with just 20 games remaining and the Bulls now unlikely to make the postseason, a thought occurred to me: Could that be exactly what the front office wanted?**

** At the very least this theory makes me feel far better than confronting the reality of the Bulls front office inadvertently improving their rivals so significantly that it cost them their playoff spot. To me, that kind of gross incompetence is much more disturbing than the questionable ethicality of intentionally throwing a season away.

Sure, there is significant downside to missing the playoffs: Jerry Reinsdorf would lose -- or, more accurately, not gain -- a significant amount of cash, the young core would miss out on the experience, and the perception of the team among prospective free agents might take a hit.

But let's focus on the first part for now, because I'm sure that's the one Reinsdorf would be most concerned with. I just can't envision a scenario where the Bulls would've hosted more than three home playoff games. I believe I once read somewhere that an NBA team adds about a million dollars to its bottom line per postseason home game, so that's $3 million. Maybe it's a bit more in a large market like Chicago, so lets up it to $5 million.

Though less than a quarter of the combined annual salary of Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich, that's still a lot of money. However, making the playoffs also would leave the Bulls with little pretense to ax Vinny Del Negro. After two playoff appearances in two years, it would have been very difficult for the Bulls to justify firing their novice head coach, and I think it's at least possible that the Bulls' master plan involves canning Del Negro and bringing in a desirable, big-name player's coach to help entice their priority-one target(s).

It's clear that this whole year has been about jockeying for free agents. And so while that $5 million would surely have bought Reinsdorf some snazzy new glasses, it would also have zero impact on any potential free-agent's willingness to sign, which in the long run would be worth far more money to the organization. So therefore it becomes solely a matter of creating the most appealing destination for someone like Dwyane Wade or LeBron James. Would they prefer to go somewhere with:

Back-to-back playoff appearances + Vinny Del Negro

--OR--

A near-playoff miss + a real head coach?

I suppose it depends largely on who that coach would be, so let's do some speculatin'. One obvious candidate would be Mike Krzyzewski, who has been linked to other NBA jobs in the past, but has always turned them down. But maybe the Bulls figure he wouldn't be able to resist the lure of his hometown and the opportunity to coach Derrick Rose and one of the stars (LeBron, Wade, Chris Bosh) he had on the 2008 Olympic team.

While Krzyzewski would be great as a marketing tool, there is another, more appealing name lingering out there on the horizon: Philip Douglas Jackson.

Alright, it's far-fetched, but what are you, the near-fetched police? Jackson is a free agent after this season, and there's been all sorts of rumbling in L.A. of discord in the organization affecting his return. And somewhat significantly from the Bulls' perspective, Jackson realizes that the environment has changed since he inked his $10+ million a year contract with L.A. Speaking about the Lakers, he recently said:

"People are cutting costs all around the league and coaches are obviously going to take a cut too, so they may not even want to hire me. They may want to save some money."

Also, as far as I know, the rift between Jackson and the Bulls was almost entirely between him and Jerry Krause, who's obviously no longer here. While he surely resented Reinsdorf for supporting Krause, Jackson's parting was no more acrimonious than the one he had with the Lakers following the 2004 Finals, and he returned to LA after just one year away. So there's been more than enough water under that bridge.

Admittedly, I have no idea what kind of relationship Jackson has with John Paxson, but given each's contributions to the Bulls' championship legacy, I can't believe that it wouldn't at least be one of mutual respect. And if Jackson can mend fences with Jerry Buss and Kobe Bryant and return to the Lakers, I see no reason why he couldn't do the same with Jerry Reinsdorf and the Bulls.

Can you imagine the impact that would have? If anything could lure LeBron James to Chicago, this would be it: Playing for a legend like Jackson, in the house that Michael built, trying to make Bulls fans forget MJ with several titles of his own. And I don't buy that James (or Dwyane Wade, or anyone else) wouldn't want to come here because of Jordan's enormous shadow. Bill Russell didn't prevent Larry Bird from becoming a legend, and the specter of Jerry West didn't hurt Magic Johnson, either.

Pipe dream or not, bringing Jackson back at almost any cost would be the best move the Bulls could make to position themselves for free agency, and I dare say would trump anything that a first-round playoff exit would accomplish.

God that would be awesome.

*****

Some lingering, more reality-based thoughts from Saturday's 122-116 loss to Dallas:

1. As mentioned above, the Bulls don't really have enough talent to win. Just as damning, however, is that the team's coaching staff simply isn't good enough to win with the middling talent at its disposal.

2. There was a lot of talk about defense after the 122-116 loss. Of course, it was all in generalities, as with Tyrus gone there was no one specific to scapegoat for the shortcomings:

"We scored 116 points, which is plenty," Del Negro said.  "Their penetration really hurt us.  We missed some of our rotations and gave them some easy baskets in the lane. ... Our weak side defense is not very good."

"We just had trouble stopping them," said Hinrich. "We did not play very good team defense and we lost because of it."

'''We just couldn't get a stop," Deng said. "If you want to win, that fourth quarter, you have to lock down. In the fourth, it's not about offense anymore. It's about getting stops.''

In other news, duh. Why, exactly, should this be at all surprising to anyone? As stated in my last post, in Salmons and Thomas the Bulls traded away their two best defenders, statistically speaking. Not that Vinny would have been smart enough to give either any significant minutes against the Mavs, but still.

The horribly ironic thing is, for all of the Bulls' organizational talk about the importance of defense, they practically gave away their two best players on that end, seemingly because they hadn't a clue just how valuable they were, in order to acquire two (allegedly) better offensive players. Criminy.

3. As you know from this post from last week, I love Jason Kidd. Kidd's line against the Bulls -- 6 points, 11 rebounds, 15 assists -- marked the fourth time this season that he has failed to get a triple-double because he came up short in points. He's now had a single-digit points, assists-rebounds double-double 24 times in his NBA career; since he came into the league in 1994, everyone else has combined for 25 such games.

And the primary reason Kidd didn't get career triple-double #105 on Saturday was obvious: He just doesn't care about individual stats. While we've seen other players intentionally miss shots on their own basket just to secure a 10th rebound to try and seal a triple-double, Kidd literally did nothing to selfishly pursue his. Sure, he shot just 33.3% for the game, but he only took six shots. After hitting a 3 to get to six points with 6:41 remaining in the third quarter, Kidd took only one more shot, a 3 at the 3rd-quarter buzzer. Just four points short of a triple-double, Kidd did not attempt a single field goal in the 4th quarter.

And that -- as much as the 10,781 assists (2nd-most all-time) -- is part of what makes Jason Kidd one of the most unselfish players in NBA history. And one of my all-time favorites.