Paxson mismanaged team; can Boylan save the day?

Jim Boylan (right) takes over the struggling Bulls from Scott Skiles. AP

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Your first inclination is to second-guess Chicago Bulls general manager John Paxson for not naming himself as Scott Skiles' coaching successor.

Your second inclination, though, is to wonder if Paxson got it right, maybe even in spite of himself, by giving Jim Boylan a chance.

Say what you want about Isiah Thomas and Kevin McHale in their checkered (or worse) tenures running the New York Knicks and the Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively; at least when they fired the most respected coaches they ever employed, they had the mettle to take to the sidelines themselves.

Thomas stepped into the void left by Larry Brown -- OK, with no small amount of presumed arm-twisting by boss James Dolan -- prior to last season and put himself front-and-center for the abuse and tarnished legacy he has endured since. Stocking the Knicks roster with the overlapping and overpaid talent the way he did, then coaching them to a 41-68 record heading into Wednesday's game at Orlando, is like personally making sure that everyone at the midway has an armload of balls to throw, then climbing onto the dunk-tank perch.

The same was true with McHale nearly three years ago, when he fired Flip Saunders for turning one of the 2004 Western Conference finalists into a 25-26 bunch of underachievers. The Timberwolves' vice president of basketball operations squeezed a 19-12 finish out of them, yet still got a castor oil-like taste of what Saunders endured in a dismal 105-96 April loss to Atlanta (11-64 at the time) that effectively eliminated Minnesota from the playoffs.

McHale quickly retreated to the safety of the front office (in his case, impenetrable), while Thomas plods along apparently without parole. Paxson, however, didn't even entertain the notion of putting his money where his moves were, no matter that Chicago's most serious flaws have more to do with him and owner Jerry Reinsdorf than they did with Skiles.

Skiles isn't the one who made contract extension offers to Luol Deng and Ben Gordon that were just low enough for the players to turn down, yet just good enough for Deng and Gordon to be universally second-guessed, even by themselves. It was Paxson, not the head coach, who signed a limited and declining Ben Wallace to that $60 million contract, while failing to address the team's more pressing need for an offensive presence in the low post.

Drafting LaMarcus Aldridge, only to trade him on draft night 2006 for Tyrus Thomas? Too clever by half, as it turns out. Dumping Skiles picks the scab off the Tyson Chandler move, too, since the latter didn't like playing for the former but has done just fine for the Hornets. Don't think the head coach did anything to fan the Kobe Bryant trade rumors that purportedly funkified the Bulls' locker room for a spell, either.

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