Granted, for one night it was fun. The Bulls played hard on both ends of the court, Jamal Crawford was freed from his point guard prison to do what he does best (and he ended up with eight assists anyway–gasp!), Eddy Curry got more lobs thrown to him in one game than he’d seen all season and the Junkyard Dog staked a claim to be the most irrationally loved Bull since Cliff Levingston.

But remember the opponent was the Milwaukee Bucks. The same Milwaukee Bucks who start the great Daniel Santiago at center.

Who is Daniel Santiago? He’s only the ugliest player in the NBA.

Acutally, that’s probably not true, because Jerome Williams could well be the ugliest. But he’s the Junkyard Dog. He’s colorful. So, it diffuses the ugly a little bit.

Ew.

Man, that’s ugly.

But last night was not just the playing debuts of Antonio Davis and Jerome Williams, and the standing around debut of Chris Jeffries. It was the coaching debut of Scott Skiles.

I think I finally figured out what John Paxson was doing here. Who were the last two successful Bulls coaches? They were Doug COLLINS and PHIL Jackson.

Who does Scott Skiles look like?


PHIL COLLINS!

Genius.

And Phil Collins’ first game was a success. The Bulls played hard from beginning to end, even on defense. They ran some actual NBA sets on offense. It helped that TJ Ford kept shooting and that the Bucks were playing without Tim Thomas and that hygenically challenged Toni Kukoc only played four minutes, but still… They’ll take it.

Will Skiles turn the season around? Who knows? The Bulls will have to play eight games over .500 the rest of the way just to go 41-41, but if they could do that they’ll probably make the playoffs in the East.

What am I saying, if they go 41-41 in the East, they might be the second seed.

I kid, because I care.

The Sun-Times and the Daily Herald are both reporting today that the Cubs are close to adding LaTroy Hawkins to LaBullpen. That would be a very good thing. The Sun-Times also says that the Cubs are going to sign either Ricardo Ricon (once traded straight up for Brian Giles) or Gabe White (never sign anybody named Gabe) to fill the Mark Guthrie role in the bullpen.

The Mark Guthrie roll of course is to get people out until August, then…uh…stop getting people out.

Some people are going to make a tragic leap of logic and say that Jim Hendry actually hurt his chances of signing Luis Castillo (who, I think is now horribly overpaid by the Marlins–but whatever) when he traded for Derrek Lee. They will say that the Marlins could not have made the offer to Castillo that they did with Lee’s salary on the books.

That’s true. But Lee was going to get traded somewhere. The Orioles had a trade worked out with the Marlins but wanted to negotiate a long term deal with Lee. The Marlins got impatient, picked up the phone, offered him to the Cubs and within six hours, Hendry made the trade. If Hendry had said, “Hey, I want Castillo more, so I won’t trade for Lee and then maybe the Marlins won’t be able to afford him,” he likely would have gotten neither player. Lee would be an Oriole or a Diamondback or who knows.

But the Cubs choices appear to be down to the return of Mark Grudzielanek or signing the hated Fernando Vina. There isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between the two.

Vina’s St. Louis numbers the past three seasons have declined and they look a lot like the numbers Grudzielanek put up his last three years in Los Angeles. And while Vina suffered through an injury plagued 2003, so did Gruddy. Remember that Mark missed almost all of spring training with a sprained ankle, missed August with a broken hand and then hurt his shoulder in the playoffs and had to have surgery on it in the offseason.

What Hendry needs to decide, if indeed he’s stuck with choosing between these two, is if Gruddy can do it again in 2004. I think the sensible answer is no. If you get a decent rebound from Vina, you’re looking at likely the same numbers between the two, and then you include the fact that Vina’s lefthanded and more comfortable (though not much better) at leadoff than Gruddy and I’m afraid it looks to me like he’s going to be the Cubs second baseman this year.

Hey, it could be worse.

We could be starting Bo Hart there.

The Yankees are the ones screwing things up, of course. They are trying to sign Kenny Lofton to play center field for them, which would allow them to move Bernie Williams to DH, and then they could trade Nick Johnson and others to the Expos for Javier Vazquez.

This screws the Cubs two ways. First, the Cubs want to bring Lofton back as insurance for Moises Alou and Corey Patterson. Second, the Expos won’t be trading Jose Vidro (a prime target for the Cubs) if they can unload Vazquez’s salary.

Lofton’s a shrewd move for the Yankees. He can still play, though his defense has suffered in recent years. We saw, first with the White Sox in 2002 and with the Cubs last year that he has zero arm left. It’s comical to watch him throw the ball back to the infield. He can still run, though, and he can still outrun some of the balls he misjudges in center. Maybe we got spoiled with Corey’s defense (which is awesome), but Kenny always made me cringe when he had to go back on anything. But New York can basically have Kenny and Bernie share time in center if needed, so what’s not to like?

If Lofton does sign with New York, it means the Cubs are in need of a fourth outfielder. In a perfect world, they’d send Dave Kelton to Arizona now and make him take balls in center until his hands and feet bleed. But the Cubs will just trot out Tom Goodwin again. Guh.

Dave Bohnenkamp made an astute observation yesterday about how the rest of the National League just seems content to get worse so the Cubs can win the pennant next year. The Marlins kept Castillo and Lowell but will likely lose Pudge now. The Diamondbacks sent Schilling to Boston. Vlad Guerrero is likely headed to Baltimore. The Astros are worse, so are the Cardinals. The Brewers are fielding a AA team, and the Pirates traded eveybody to the Cubs. Oh, and the Cubs are better right now than they were when the season ended.

I can get used to this.

The Tribune has ignored this completely and the Sun Times hid it at the bottom of this article, but Bryan Robinson’s off field life is getting even weirder. Lake County sheriff’s police (who haven’t had a good bust since Rob Goldman left) searched Robinson’s home yesterday. He’s been accused of sexual assault—of another man. Desipio has learned that Robinson’s defense will be that he accidentally rear ended the man after he tripped over his dogs…and his pants fell down. I mean, who hasn’t that happened to? We can all understand that.

As suggested by Intrepid Reader and U of I student BC, I’ll open up a GameCast thread tonight for the Illinois-North Carolina game on ESPN. Unfortunately, I will be at a basketball game of my own at the time, so I will not be able to join in until late on in the game. But don’t let that spoil the fun. Jake has indicated that he’ll be by at halftime to join in the festivities.

Groucho likes what he saw last night. Somewhat.

Rick Morrissey simplifies it. Too much.

KC Johnson says that the Bulls are still getting to know each other.

Tyson Chandler’s back needs some rest. Don’t we all.

There is obviously a conspiracy. The Bulls are working on another trade with the Raptors. This time it’s for a point guard. This time it’s for a guy who cannot be traded until December 15. And yet, it’s still not Milt Palacio.

David Huh says the Bears still might save Dick Jauron’s job. I still think he’ll get Frank Soliched.

Notre Dame didn’t show up until halfway through the first half. And that was just too darn late.

Two dumbassed things about this new Comcast sports channel. First, why are the Blackhawks on it? They’ll just screw things up. Second, Comcast might not make it available to DirecTV. Morans.

Roy Williams, contrary to what he told Bonnie Bernstein at the Final Four, apparently does give a s@#$ about Carolina.

Shaq says he once beat down Scott Skiles.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to get way too excited about a win over the Bucks. But I liked this opening.

When was the last time we saw such energy? Heard such roars? Had so much fun? When was the last time the Bulls raced up and down the court without rocks in their sneakers, no longer encumbered by the triangle offense? When was the last time we saw basketball as it’s meant to be played, not as it was shoved down a city’s throat by old-schoolers and a deposed Jerry Krause?

That would have been Halloween night when they beat the Hawks and you thought they had turned the corner, Jay.

Here’s Mike Kiley’s take on the LaTroy Hawkins deal.

Marc Spears is in the Scott Skiles fan club.

The Yankees are talking about trading for Kevin Brown. Hey, another good player out of the NL! Go for it.

The Yanks are after Kenny, too.

The Orioles are banking on Vladimir.

Dan Evans is after Carlos Beltran. Nah, I think Carlos should stay in the AL.

The new Mariners’ regime has realized that Jeff Cirillo sucks.

Peter Vecsey likes Scott Skiles. I think Scott once tried to punch Peter in a Seattle toy store.

Looks like Matt Morris sharpened up his crayons and penned a letter to the editor about his pal, Tino.

My favorite part, “The reason we didn’t win wasn’t because of Tino, as he always added motivation and thoughtful insight in any players’ meeting we had, often taking younger players like myself under his wing to try to make us better.”

No, the reason you didn’t win is because nobody could pitch and because while Tino added motivation and thoughtful insight, he didn’t add hits. And Matt, you’re going to be 30 next year. You’re not a young player.

Siegfried is hoping to have Roy home and under the mistletoe by Christmas.

Johnnie Cochran has offered this rhyming advice to Michael Jackson’s legal team. If the kid dies, then it was all lies.

An American soldier in Iraq will be discharged because he told his Iraqui bride and the judge who married them the whereabouts of his squad. Who does he think he is, Geraldo Rivera?

FHM ranks the 100 hottest women.

Geena Lee Nolin’s sex tape is next up. This one sounds like a dud. She complains about her new breast implants hurting and her apendectomy scar. Whatever happened to good old fashioned amateur porn like Tonya Harding jumping on Jeff Gillooly like he was fresh meat in the lion’s cage?

San Diego police arrested Joey Lauren Adams on suspicion of drunk driving and confirmation of having a grating voice.

The world’s greatest newspaper says that Syria is serious about needing some more barbecue sauce.