John Paxson Out After Trade Deadline?

February 13th, 2009 by Andrew Wamboldt

The Chicago Suntimes has confirmed that John Paxson will step down as the general manager of the Chicago Bulls following Thursday’s trade deadline.

John Paxson is out as GM of the Chicago Bulls starting next Friday.<br>Photo by annwoodall on Flickr

John Paxson may be out as GM of the Bulls after Thursday's trade deadline.(Photo by amwoodall on Flickr)

The story was originally broken by Peter Vescey in the New York Post early this morning. Below is the follow up report from the Suntimes that confirmed the resignation.

Bulls GM John Paxson will resign during the season, the Sun-Times has confirmed.

The New York Post’s Peter Vecsey broke the story this morning.

Vecsey says assistant general manager Gar Foreman could take over as GM for the remainder of the season, and that Doug Collins could be approached at some point and be offered the GM job and/or the head coaching job.

Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf recently absolved Paxson of all blame for this season’s struggles. Reinsdorf praised Paxson as a human being, although he did say he worried about his GM because Paxson takes his job so seriously.

Reinsdorf didn’t have anything good to say about rookie coach Vinny Del Negro, although the Bulls have played much better since Reinsdorf spoke out.

Vecsey also reported that the Bulls are considering trades involving Amare Stoudemire, Jermaine O’Neal, Zach Randolph and Chris Kamen.

This is some shocking news. If Paxson is able to complete a trade for Amare Stoudemire using the rumored package of Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, Thabo Sefolosha, Cedric Simmons, and a first round draft pick, Paxson would have to go down as a great general manager. He would be leaving the Bulls with Derrick Rose, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni, Amare Stoudemire, Joakim Noah, and Aaron Gray as his main group. That is a job well done in my book. Of course, the Amare part still has to happen for that to become true.

My original inclination upon hearing this news is that Paxson finally got fed up with Reinsdorf’s lack of commitment to winning. The seeds of Paxson’s end as Bulls GM were planted this past summer, when Reinsdorf kicked Paxson out of contract negotiations, and then refusing to give Ben Gordon a fair contract offer and then not allowing Gordon to accept the low offer when Gordon finally came around.

The two most likely scenarios that led to this abrupt resigning would be the following: John Paxson agreed to a trade for Amare Stoudemire, but like with Pau Gasol, Reinsdorf nixed the deal because of the luxury tax implications. Or, John Paxson agreed to a trade for Amare Stoudemire, the Bulls are set to go through with it, but Reinsdorf told Paxson about other limitations he now has, such as that Paxson will no longer be able to re-sign Ben Gordon this summer, because of the luxury tax implications.

This of course is all speculation. But logically, it would have taken something of that magnitude to force Paxson out in the middle of the season. One thing is for sure, the Bulls are now without a great scout of talent when it comes to the NBA draft.