Chicago Sun Times: Bulls figure to be prepping for draft

[George O'Brien]

Bulls figure to be prepping for draft

February 23, 2004

BY ROMAN MODROWSKI Staff Reporter

Don't look now, but there's a very real chance when the Bulls find themselves on the clock at the June 24 draft, the best player on the board will be a high school senior.

Three prep stars -- Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston and Josh Smith -- are ranked among the top six prospects in what is considered a weak draft.

Some believe Jerry Krause set the Bulls back when he became the only general manager in NBA history to invest his team's future in two 18-year-olds out of high school. He traded Elton Brand essentially for No. 2 pick Tyson Chandler and then selected Eddy Curry at No. 4 in the 2001 draft. The Bulls (16-40) still are rebuilding three years later.

''We're going to have options on what we do,'' coach Scott Skiles said.

''We may pick somebody and do something with the pick. A lot will be decided after it's determined where we'll pick, and I didn't say the lottery.''

It's possible operations chief John Paxson will trade the pick with either Curry, Chandler or Jamal Crawford. Paxson wants to see what all three will do with their conditioning and commitment over the summer.

Skiles still is clinging to playoff hopes, but he is realistic enough to keep an eye on the top prospects.

''I have been watching college games,'' Skiles said. ''I like the college game.

''It is harder if you're watching so many pro games and so many tapes to watch the college game, but I like it. I like the same guys everybody likes at the top of the draft. The ones I haven't seen are the high school players. There's not a lot of tape on those guys.''

Skiles, who formerly coached and played in Europe, has maintained ties with his overseas contacts, so he has kept abreast of foreign talent.

''I coached in Europe, and I have a lot of people I talk to on almost a daily basis,'' he said. ''I have the list in front of me, and I feel I have a handle on it.

''I try to stay on top of it so nothing shocks me.''

Paxson's first draft pick was Kirk Hinrich, who played four years at Kansas and has emerged as one of the top rookies in the league. The selection reflected Paxson's desire to acquire players with big-time college experience. Paxson has been so happy with Hinrich that during recent trade talks the GM said he took Chandler, Curry and Hinrich off the board before he began to discuss deals.

Skiles looks forward to playing a role in the draft process.

''It's fun for me,'' he said. ''It's critical to our success that I can have a good opinion on someone when the time comes.

''That doesn't mean I want the total say-so. I'm going to rely on people who have seen them a lot more than me. But I better have a coherent opinion about somebody, because that's important. We've had a couple of meetings with the scouting staff recently, and we'll continue to do that as time goes on.''

 

[George O'Brien]

Chicago Tribune: Apparent thin draft doesn't bode well for Bulls' hopes

Apparent thin draft doesn't bode well for Bulls' hopes

K.C. Johnson on the Bulls

February 23, 2004, 8:45 AM CST


The Eastern Conference is the mess everyone thought it would be. Only five teams have winning records, and five games below .500 gets you the sixth seed now. Cleveland, at 12 games under, is just 2 1/2 games out of the last playoff spot.

So what about this: The Bulls trade Jamal Crawford and . . .

What? I can't do that anymore? The trading deadline has passed? Whose idea was that? Don't they know I have unused trade rumors and speculation? Yes, the NBA trading post is closed for the season, which leaves the Bulls to eye the next date on their calendar: the draft lottery in May.

You know the important dates for the Bulls:

• Opening day, when I pick them to make the playoffs.

• Christmas, when I change my prediction to "wait till next year."

• Mid-February, when everyone breathes a sigh of relief, until they realize they're still with a 28th-place team.

• And then the lottery and the draft.

It worked for the Bulls in 1984, '87 and last year. The latter was when they got Kirk Hinrich, who suddenly has become the building block for the future. But if the Bulls are counting on scoring again in the draft, they'll have to be lucky.

Last year's class, headed by LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony but with players like Hinrich and Dwyane Wade, who also should be All-Stars, may be the best of the last decade. It doesn't look as promising for June. NBA executives and scouts doubt the draft's depth and talent, and no sure No. 1 pick is apparent.

The Bulls have the second-poorest record in the NBA to Orlando. The problem is Washington and Atlanta are fading fast, and perhaps Phoenix as well. The key will be getting one of the top three picks. That's because expansion Charlotte gets the No. 4 pick, and no one is too excited about much after that.

The studs look to be Connecticut junior forward Emeka Okafor and 6-foot-10-inch Atlanta high schooler Dwight Howard, for whom the Hawks seem to be making a dash in gutting their team. If you're the Bulls, you certainly don't want another high schooler. Though the Bulls aren't saying what they'll do, it's clear by their trade for Antonio Davis and Jerome Williams they intend to build with knowledgeable veterans.

After those two, some of the names most often heard are high schoolers.

"I'll be shocked if any of them go to college," said Oak Hill Academy coach Steve Smith of Howard, fellow Atlantan Josh Smith and Peoria's Shaun Livingston, whose stock went down with a poor performance Saturday night against West Aurora.

Other names being heard, though not with much enthusiasm, are 7-5 Russian Pavel Podkolzine, who scouts say tends to play on the perimeter; Duke freshman Luol Deng, supposedly like Grant Hill but far from NBA standards; St. Joseph's guard Jameer Nelson; Serbia and Montenegro's 7-2 Kosta Perovic; Russian 7-footer Ivan Chiriaev; undersized Minnesota forward Kris Humphries; Stanford's Josh Childress; Connecticut's Ben Gordon; Syracuse's Hakim Warrick; and Arizona's Andre Iguodala.

So you package Eddy Curry and . . .

Subtraction by addition? Tim Thomas never has played very big, but he sure thinks he does. In the end, he may turn out to be one move too many for the Knicks, who look very vulnerable to zone defenses with Allan Houston resting his aching knees. The Jazz blew them out Friday and the Cavs won relatively easily Sunday as home fans booed, even chanting for Keith Van Horn. Perhaps that's because the Knicks have almost no perimeter shooting now. The Knicks are only one game ahead of fast-closing Miami, which is healthy now and 11-4 when its regulars have played together, and open a five-game trip Tuesday in Sacramento. They have the league's highest payroll and are facing a $40 million luxury-tax penalty this summer.

And there's Thomas, a disappointment in Milwaukee, who arrived in New York and astonishingly blasted just about everyone with the Bucks. Thomas said former coach George Karl was a "coward" for urging him to re-sign with the Bucks when he could have been a star with the Bulls, and added he would choke Ray Allen next time he saw him. Thomas said Allen, Sam Cassell and Glenn Robinson "were supposed to be the Big Three, but they didn't exactly turn into the Big Three when the big-time action came around, which is the playoffs. The years when we first got in the playoffs, those guys were lost. That's why I got paid. It was total chaos. Those guys were complaining over shots, complaining over minutes, complaining over airplane food."

Yes, it must have been fun in those Bucks huddles. Said Cassell: "Tim Thomas is about excuses. It's always somebody else's fault. They traded me, they traded Ray, they traded Big Dog, and Tim Thomas still wasn't the man on that team. Right now he's not a good basketball player."

Extraordinary Joe: One of the season's best stories is the Bucks' Joe Smith. He was coming off a career-low scoring average of 7.5 last season, and most had given up on him, though he was the No. 1 pick in the 1995 draft. He'd been traded five times. But with 15 points and 10 rebounds Saturday against the Clippers, Smith leads the surprising Bucks with 12 double-doubles and almost nine rebounds a game, erasing his reputation as a soft player. "Here is just totally different," said Smith, who is the so-called dirty-work player for the Bucks. "I know every night what is needed of me, what is expected of me. Everywhere I go, fans are showing their appreciation by telling me how many rebounds I got, telling me how hard I worked or about my hustle. Now I'm getting that smile back on the court."

High Q rating: Coming off a demolition of the Celtics' Paul Pierce just before the All-Star break, the Clippers' Quentin Richardson is quietly establishing himself as one of the elite free agents for next summer. Richardson, selected 18th in the 2000 draft after the Bulls took Marcus Fizer and Crawford, is averaging 18.2 points and 6.1 rebounds and is among the league leaders in shooting threes. He had a double-double Saturday in Milwaukee. It's a long way for the DePaul kid, who wasn't supposed to be able to shoot or have an NBA position.

Richardson also is in a movie with former teammate Darius Miles, co-starring in "The Youngest Guns," a documentary feature film chronicling their first three NBA seasons. But the son of a Chicago transit worker isn't going Hollywood. "I'm a basketball player first," Richardson said. "I would never say I wouldn't do anything, but I'm not looking for anything." Except a deal from the Clippers. "My preference is that I want to stay," he said. "I want to be around when we start to do well. But I don't have a lot of control over that, so we'll see what happens."

Bits: Not that it's his doing, but with the Nets' win Saturday, Hubert Davis has a 25-game winning streak going. The Pistons waived him just before their 13-game winning streak ended (he was on the injured list for all of it), and he joined the Nets for coach Lawrence Frank's 12-0 start. . . . Frank's players said the new Pat Riley delivered this motivational ditty last week when he walked into the locker room carrying a stool and told a story of how lion tamers used it. "He said when you hold up the chair, the lion focuses on the four legs," said center Jason Collins, who, being a Stanford guy, understood. "The lesson was, `Don't be the lion. Don't get distracted by the legs of the chair. Don't get distracted by what we did last week. Focus on one thing--tonight's opponent.'" . . . Asked about Frank, the new rage of the NBA, the Celtics' Ricky Davis said, "Who does he play for?" . . . The Knicks hired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has been thwarted in an attempt to get a coaching job, to do some scouting and advising. . . . No. 2 pick Darko Milicic didn't get to All-Star weekend, so he went to Miami's South Beach and cruised in a Bentley, which he rented for $1,000 a day. . . . And TNT's Kenny Smith was the one who came up with that "Half Man, Half Amazing" nickname for Vince Carter. With Carter out again, Smith amended it to "Half Man, Half a Season."