An Open Letter to John Paxson

Dear Mr. Paxson,

I first must go on record that you have been an amazing man in the sport of basketball. You played for my beloved Irish years ago and after a short stop in San Antone you landed in Chicago and helped create one of the game's best backcourts in league history along with Michael Jordan. You were the definition of a team player sitting back and letting Mike be Mike while holding the rest of the team together. Leading them down the court. You took the shots when they needed to be taken, and brought your game to a whole new level in '91 against the Lakers. And who can forget that beautiful shot in Phoenix to clinch the Three-Peat. You sir are one of the greatest Bulls players of all time. But it did not stop there. You coached under Phillip after retiring but decided it was too time consuming so you moved on to the upper offices and made some of the best moves in Franchise history (the best move being Portland selecting Sam Bowie with the 2nd overall pick). You traded away age and experience to acquire draft picks. All of whom continue to astound and amaze. Bring in guys like Deng, Gordon, Hinrich, Thomas, Thabo, Nocioni, and beyond. You have created an amazing corps of young talented individuals who get better together each year and are approaching a serious opportunity at bring back the Larry O'Brien trophy to the Eastern Conference and more importantly, it's rightful home amongst 6 of its' brothers at the United Center.

With all of that said, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN DEBATING TRADING FOR KOBE. He is the quintessential me-first guy, look at how he is handling things in LA. He chased away Shaq, top 5 center of all-time and what happened a mere 2 years later? Shaq went right through the young Bulls in the playoffs and won a championship. Shaq did it with a younger Kobe (named Dywane) who was able to be the guy who worked with Shaq not against him. What did Kobe do that same season? Put up a career high 35.4 ppg and took his team right to the first round of the playoffs to get bounced by Phoenix and officially end the Lakers stretch of bringing fear on their opponents.

Why would you spend the last 4/5 years planning and plotting gaining draft picks and making smart moves. Even signing Scottie back in the 2003 season so he could end his career the way he was meant to. Wearing Red, Black, and White and being Scottie. You pulled off not one but two trades on draft days little over a year ago getting Thomas and Thabo, both have worked out nicely for Chicago. Hinrich has improved in almost every statistical category each year and Deng is about to have his breakout year and make the leap to All-Star. Ben Wallace will earn that paycheck this year (wearing the almighty headband) and having some post help in a more experienced Thomas and the Signing of yet another ultimate TEAM first guy Joe Smith who KG recently said is the best teammate he ever played with. This is the Bulls year to get out of the Eastern Conference and make a run in the Finals. By the end of an 82 game season added to the stifling tiring defense of these Bulls, none of those run & gun offenses of the West have a chance. Why would you completely disassemble what you've been building since you began in Chicago. You had a brilliant master plan going for you, and it was not to develop young talent and trade them for a declining ego-maniac, me first superstar.

Sincerely,

Dom

More after the jump...

A rare double dip

Apparently the self proclaimed “TheBearDown Blogs Biggest Fan” was unappreciative of my, as he put it “sincere and heartfelt” post because he wanted the cynicism that made me famous (in my own eyes) so first here is a list of new rules to live by and thrown in will be random thoughts of the past running list of rules in the world of sports:

1) When returning the opening kick off, go out at the 1, do not score a touchdown, your team will lose, don’t believe me” ask Devin Hester and Tedy Ginn Jr.
2) Whichever team one of us (This applies mostly to myself and his 4Realness) is rooting for in the post-season will lose
3) If your team hasn’t won a championship in over 50 years, it’s cursed (whether it be by Goat, Babe Ruth, or Rocky Colavito)
4) There is no “too far” when dressing to support your team, head-dress for tribe games in your living room – perfect, face-paint and bull-horns for Bulls games at the local pizza place – expected, Buckeye hat, buckeye beads, and a OSU jersey from about 25 years ago that’s 3…well now it’s 2 sizes too big – fantastic, suit and tie of team’s colors for Bears games – excellent.

Interlude #1: (Now Navy Seal) Morgan, a good buddy of ours, had this to say a few years back, “you can’t spell Stud without STD, and you can’t spell Ridiculously Handsome without Gonorrhea”

5) Research on the game at hand and the other team, not just limited to stats and records. How much? At least twice as much time should be spent on this research than on actual time doing work or school work. And you can do this research at work or at school.
6) When none of your teams can get it done turn it into a city argument, your city is always better than someone else’s city. Of course this is easy for me since I rep the teams from Chicago which is the greatest city of all time. The architecture, the food, we got a beach, we get snow, best franchises in the history of sports, and very much responsible for the history of sports (charter member of the NFL and NHL, and professional baseball before the MLB existed.)
7) Invariably, when someone who writes for your home-town news paper thinks that your team isn’t perfect in everyway, they are wrong, but if they write glowing articles about your team that are undeserved, they are a homer. This will never change, sports fans are always right, and sports reporters are usually wrong, unless they agree with us.

Interlude #2: An actual online exchange between myself and 4Real while I was at the courthouse in Phoenix for Jury Duty (DUI Not Guilty in case you were wondering):

Dom: Kill me please, it's 7:45 AM and I’m in a courthouse in Phoenix stuck watching Good Morning Arizona (cheesy morning show) I’m running on 3 and a half hours of sleep and it's almost 100 degrees already

4Real: Umm well that sounds terrible, I on the other hand was up ‘til 5 in the morning drinking with Andy and writing songs for our boy band...I really need to stop drinking

8) Tailgating has nothing to do with where it is, and in fact trucks and SUVs do not need to be there, the only thing necessary for a tailgate is lots of beer, maybe some mixed drinks, some sort of noise on (TV or Radio), someone needs to be noticeably more drunk than everyone else, it needs to be leading up to an event (not even necessarily sports), and it needs to be outside. Possible alternatives to known tailgating

a. Before your buddies last final of his college career
. i. Hopefully he isn’t the one that is more drunk than everyone else
b. Before Graduation
c. Before a Christening
d. Before a Baptism
e. Before a wedding
f. Before a funeral
g. Before a work function
h. Before and after softball or bowling
i. Before getting on a flight to (Vegas, Bachelor party, Guy’s weekend, etc)
j. Before your baby is born

9) Referring to any one as a “young _______” or “next _______” in sports is over, and done with. No more “young Michael Jordan’s” there will never be another Jordan, as we saw with Harold “Baby Jordan” Minor, there is a LeBron James and a Kobe Bryant they are not the “young” or “next” Jordan. The only exception to this is Brian Urlacher referring to Brett Favre as an “Old Tony Romo”, classic on so many levels.
10) Screw the AP, the BCS, the USA Today, and the ESPN polls. Get rid of all of them and go to the Las Vegas oddsmakers poll. These guys don’t have fans to suck up to, no East Coast or West Coast Bias as with the other polls. Records don’t mean anything, it’s about how good the team is, and until we have a playoff system it’s the best thing out there. These guys aren’t placing their vote for their own team or division teams to beef up their points (coaches, BCS) these guys vote based on what they know about the teams which is significantly more than the guys at ESPN. The guys at ESPN make their money reporting about these teams, it doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong. The guys in Vegas make their money handicapping these teams and it makes a HUGE difference if they’re right or wrong.
a. Here’s their top 25 with the AP ranking to the right:
1. LSU (5)2. Oklahoma (4)3. Ohio State (1)4. Southern California (13)5. West Virginia (9)6. Florida (14)7. Oregon (7)8. California (10)9. Boston College (3)10. Arizona State (12)11. South Florida (2)12. South Carolina (6)13. Missouri (15t)14. texas (19)15. Virginia Tech (11)16. Michigan (24)17. Kentucky (8)18. Penn State (26)19. Auburn (18)20. Kansas (15t)21. Texas Tech (22)22. Tennessee (20)23. Brigham Young (39)24. Georgia (21)25. Hawaii (17)

That’s it for right now.
More after the jump...