All without addressing the worst offender: the person or persons that stole Kirk Hinrich's game. Cross-court hip passes replace decent passes that arrive at their destination with their luggage intact. Shots only occasionally head in the direction of the rim and not imitate the T-Shirt Gun. Puzzlement about his latest foul or double dribble have overwhelmed a very frustrated young man, but there does not seem to be any help for him as the year comes to a close.

Instead, all the outside observer can see is Minutes Bingo. No one seems to be calling the right numbers there, either.

There is a slim chance Paxson has demanded his new coach show off the veterans in the New Year in hopes of dumping contracts by the NBA trade deadline. If there is no major action by Paxson by the deadline, though, the organization must face an unsettling truth: the Tim Floyd era was in vain.

The slow and dramatic build from flirting with 8 wins in a season to Eastern Conference favorites will have been thwarted by throwing out the Baby Camby (Tyson Chandler) with the Tremendous Amount of Languid Bathwater (Eddy 'One Heartbeat, One Cheeseburger' Curry) and a series of draft picks that the organization apparently has given up for passengers in Jay Williams' sidecar to obscurity. Bulls fans lured into the seductive trap that was the Five-Year Rebuilding Plan will find themselves shipwrecked on the rocks with only Ben Wallace's increasingly earthbound Afro to keep them warm and dry until 2011.

If that happens, the Bulls may fail to sell the United Center out regularly as the patient expectations of Bulls fans are finally crushed. Then John Paxson will have nowhere to turn but his friends at TNT for a 'tweener gig while he waits for the NBA-mandated Paxson Family front-office position to open up. Much like the team bus, Paxson will always find a safe place to park himself.