John Paxson joined Chuck Swirsky for an interview on Bulls.com, to discuss the upcoming season.

Paxson is hoping for the team to have a real spirited and intense training camp. There are a lot of question marks over who will be the starters and who will be coming off the bench in their rotation. He sees this as an exciting time for the franchise with a new coach, the first pick in the draft, and a team full of prideful players who want to get back to winning after a 33 win season.

Paxson wants to push the pace more so than in the past, yet he also doesn’t want to give up the integrity of the defensive end of the floor. He feels that you need to defend and rebound in order to run the ball. They are going to throw Derrick Rose into the fire right away and let him get his feet wet while learning on the job. he wants to see the group get back to the way they played a couple of years ago in terms of passion and competitiveness. He thinks that if they achieve this early on, everything else will take care of itself.

The team also needs to find some leadership. Paxson thinks that the guys who have been here a long time need to step into these roles and hold their teammates accountable. He thinks that there is a misconception that leaders have to be vocal. Paxson thinks that leaders have to approach the game a certain way and be professional in everything that they do. Paxson thinks that leaders in the NBA make themselves responsible for winning and losing.

Paxson is finding the Ben Gordon situation very frustrating, since they went through the same exact thing last year. He said that there haven’t been any real negotiations because the sides have been so far apart financially. He feels that the offer that they put on the table is really, really fair. The offer the Bulls are making Ben is how much the market dictates his value as. The offer is not a reflection of what they think of as Ben as a person or a player. Paxson says that he has a lot of respect for Ben, as Ben has always been a professional, carrying himself the right way, and has already worked really hard on his game. Paxson expects Gordon to end up on the qualifying offer. He thinks that the team will have to sit down with Gordon to try to eliminate those bad feelings that can develop during this sort of thing, so they can make this work going forward.

The Drew Gooden trade is what Paxson labels as a move that will be sort of like a new acquisition for this year. He wants to see Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha in some type of significant role so they can see what they have in both players.

You can listen to this interview at Bulls.com