The results are coming in...
As you probably know already, Lebron James has won rookie of the year, Hubie Brown won coach of the year, and "Crazy" Ron Artest won defensive player of the year. If you read my picks last week, you'll know I had Sloan as coach, but Hubie certainly isn't a bad choice. And I'm actually shocked that Lebron won despite hearing on TV all season how Carmelo was locking up the award. I guess the sportswriters around the league have more sense than ESPN's NBA fastbreak crew. (No, Steven A. Smith, stop yelling at me!)
There are some other awards being handed out though, and the Bulls actually swept a category. As you can imagine, it wasn't a good one. (hat tip to my Dad-my favorite reader- for the link).
Crummy coach of the year — Scott Skiles, Chicago.
He never showed his dark side in a promising first stint in Phoenix, but it popped out of him in Chicago, like the creature in "Alien."
Encouraged by General Manager John Paxson, who was exasperated with the Bulls' young players, Skiles got little out of them and skewered them in the press. It made for good copy but bad ambience.
Crummy executive of the year — Paxson, Chicago.
There was frantic competition for this year's Donny, the Donald T. Sterling Award, with Donald Sterling himself making his usual strong run after all eight of his free agents tried to leave last summer.
But no one could top Paxson, who flipped out at his young players and charted a new course, finishing with one-third of the roster made up of minor leaguers as he searched for scrappy, hungry players, like he and Skiles used to be.
The situation is so far gone, insiders say, that Paxson may trade Tyson Chandler for nothing more than a good player, like the Spurs' Malik Rose or the Grizzlies' Mike Miller, if he can get rid of a problem contract, like Eddie Robinson's too.
Ouch. I am a Skiles fan, and would like to see what he could do with a better team last year. And Paxson bringing in these 'hungry' players didn't look good on the court, but they were going nowhere with E-Rob and Fizer and the like, so why not take a look at some new talent? Besides, those two likely won't be on the team next year, but someone like Jannero Pargo may be. But that Chandler rumor scares me. And worse is that Chad Ford is saying the same thing. I'm gonna hold off on my Bulls' offseason plan until the lottery, because getting the 1st pick this year is a lot different than the 6th. And believe you me, I got plans.
Oh, I almost forgot. If you want to check out my playoff predictions stacked up against the rest of the basketball blogosphere, Knickerblogger has set up a playoff bracket pool. Its got quite an impressive cast of characters...I think I have the lowest stature among them, but then again I'm representing a team like the Bulls.