In the days before the NBA Draft lottery, Bulls general manager John Paxson looked at the chart of probabilities and concluded that his team had little chance of moving up higher than ninth. Laid out on a single page, the numbers were sobering.
|
|
| Paxson is in an enviable position holding the top pick in the NBA Draft. (Getty Images) |
Those numbers were why Paxson opted not to attend the lottery proceedings Tuesday night in Secaucus, N.J. -- and why he wasn't even watching on television.
"I was home in my bedroom doing some stuff and my family was watching downstairs," Paxson said. "My sons, when the ninth pick came up and it wasn't us, screamed and then they dragged me downstairs.
"I was kind of shocked."
Paxson, though, still wasn't getting his hopes up during the commercial break before the top three selections were revealed.
"I figured we'd get the third pick," he said with a smirk because there are two standout players in this draft. "With those things, I've learned if you get your hopes up, it's wasted energy."
Well, not this time.
Despite the long odds, the Bulls were the big winners and now get to choose between Memphis point guard Derrick Rose and Kansas State power forward Michael Beasley.
"It's great fortune," Paxson said. "I had nothing to do with it; we had nothing to do with it. We got lucky, and that's the bottom line."
Now it's his job to use that good fortune to help get the Bulls back on track after their disappointing 33-49 record this season. They still don't have a coach and several players might be traded over the summer, but adding either Rose or Beasley would be a big boost to their makeover plans.
"I think both of those kids are really, really talented and definitely could have an impact on the game early on," Paxson said.
Paxson stopped short of labeling either the franchise player the Bulls have been searching for since the Michael Jordan era ended a decade ago.
