Imagine Bulls GM Jerry Krause squabbling with Chinese officials over the availability of 7-6 center Yao Ming.  This is the best reason, writes Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times, that the Bulls should steer clear of the Chinese big man who many consider to be one of the top two draft picks in this June?s draft.

?If anything, my fortune cookie tells me the sucker who drafts Yao will have no idea when he's coming, if he's coming or, once he does come, how long he's staying,? writes Mariotti.

?Unlike lesser products Wang Zhizhi and Menk Bateer, who gained quick approval and play in the league, Yao needs permission from three government agencies to play. He'll also be forced to turn over at least half his pretax earnings from all American sources, including endorsements, to Chinese agencies and sports authorities throughout his NBA career. The remaining half would be divided between Yao, the Sharks, his coaches and his registered agent, who, according to Sharks management, cannot be an American.?

?And if he refuses in any way? Oh, he'll be fined obscene amounts, thrown off China's national team and basically be disowned.?

The Bulls should just leave the red tape to another organization and take the safe option (Jason Williams) or the smart trade (a package of Yao and others to Dallas for Michael Finley) concluded Mariotti.

Last season the Chicago Bulls decided to scrap their rebuilding plans and trade their leader Elton Brand to the Los Angeles Clippers for high schooler Tyson Chandler, drafted second overall.  The idea was to stamp a more exciting brand of basketball into the city, keeping the fans interested while the team slowly moves back towards respectability.  As the NBA?s youngest team got even younger, taking fellow high schooler Eddy Curry with their own pick, the Clippers and Atlanta Hawks took a different approach to the draft by trading their high lottery picks for players who became All-Stars this season, Brand and Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

This season the Bulls again have a high lottery pick, finishing the season tied for the last place in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors.  There are many players who could help the Bulls when they draft ? Jason Williams, Yao Ming, Dejuan Wagner, and Drew Gooden included ? but do they actually want another young player with so many on their roster?  With Jalen Rose now on board and demanding more veterans Sam Smith hints that the Bulls might follow the path caved by the Hawks and the Clippers and trade their pick for a seasoned veteran.  How does Cavalier Andre Miller sound?

Some close to Miller believe the Cleveland Cavaliers are trying to run down Miller?s value in an effort to re-sign the NBA?s assists leader at a cheaper rate.  Smith says there was talk during the season suggesting that the Cavaliers should be better if Miller was so good, and that he lacked leadership skills.

Eligible for an extension this off season, Miller will become a restricted free agent after the 2002-03 season.

Cleveland will have their opportunity to sign Miller to an extension between July and October this year, with Miller?s agent Lon Babby telling Cleveland reporters that his client would seek a maximum contract in the $100 million range.  This could be the very reason, writes Smith, that the Cavaliers could be pushing to deal Miller.

General manager Jim Paxson said in a radio interview "There's not a real sense of urgency" in re-signing Miller.

If push becomes shove the Cavs may look to get some young an inexpensive talent for Miller, and this is where the Bulls  come in.  How does the Bulls high draft pick and, say, Marcus Fizer sound?

It?s well known that the Chicago Bulls need a point guard. Speculation is that Jerry Krause may be looking to trade the draft choice for an established point guard.

Andre Miller is among the league best point guard and leads the NBA in assists. Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune reports that Cleveland may have trouble to sign an extension and may be willing to trade for a young and inexpensive player. The Chicago Bulls have what they may want: a top draft choice.

Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald suggested that based on past actions by Jerry Krause, the Bulls will hang on their young players. As requested by Rose, Krause may bring some low-priced defensive minded veterans but most likely he will keep the youngsters.
As Chandler and Curry will have plenty of playing time these following seasons, they will have a rapid improvement in their first few seasons. Take a look on how New Jersey, Detroit and Boston moved up this season. This is what will likely happen to the Bulls.
To achieve this goal the Bulls will have to play defense and keep Best if they don?t select Jason Willians. The draft pick should bring a shooter to the team. In the free agency, the Bulls must go after a veteran center and backup small forward. And the most important step is to build chemistry. Keep the team together.

The Chicago Bulls were rarely in sync during the 2001-02 season and Chandler doesn?t know how he will deal with his frustrations this summer cause of the losses. : "The thing that's going to stick with me all summer is the losing. It's something I don't want to go through throughout my career. It's simple: I'm not going to allow that to happen, and I know the players around me aren't." said Chandler.
In the same way, Jalen Rose is not happy with loses and suggested that the team can score against most teams. He is inquiring for defensive minded veterans.
With goals by Chandler and comments by Rose, K.C. Johnson, of the Chicago Tribune, suggests that Chandler and rose have the same goal: the off-season.
Krause met with the coaching and scouting staffs past Friday to discuss plans for the off-season. The speculation is that if the Bulls have pick 1 or 2 it will be used on either Ming or Jason Williams. After Krause?s comments, the speculation is that the team will trade the pick if they can?t select either player. "I've never said I wouldn't trade draft choices," Krause said. "What I've said is I wouldn't trade a draft choice until I knew who was on the board."

Jalen Rose is familiar with the surroundings of playoff basketball, having played 55 post season games across the last four consecutive years with the Indiana Pacers.  But Rose, now with the Chicago Bulls, will find himself in an unfamiliar position this year, swapping his sneakers for a microphone after signing on with Turner Sports to provide pregame and halftime analysis for a still-to-be-decided day of first-round NBA playoff games.

?I'm going to watch every playoff game but it's going to be hard," Rose said.  "I'll tell you this: Sitting out is going to make me hungrier for the future."

This is precisely the words Bulls GM Jerry Krause wanted to hear, and when Rose vowed he would be spending much of his off season in Chicago working out at the Berto Center with Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry Krause?s eyes must have almost fell out of his head.

"Just like having the ball in my hands at the end of a game, this summer is my opportunity to go out and prove to the team why they brought me here," Rose said. "I'm going to be [in Chicago] a ton. I'll be [at the Berto Center] just as much as Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry are."

As the Golden State Warriors battle the Chicago Bulls for the worst record in the NBA and the right to more pingpong ball combinations in the draft lottery, there is a sweet song blowing in from the East.

It's the sound of a net rippling. Again and again. Chinese center Yao Ming is supposed to be one of the first two players picked in this summer's draft -- along with Duke's Jason Williams -- and his feat last Wednesday has to be raising eyebrows throughout the NBA.

How do you define the word success?  Some define it by the number of games won, the amount of money earned, the passing of a certain level or the completion of particular goals.  The Los Angeles Lakers are a successful team.  So too are the Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and the New Jersey Nets.  But would you call the Chicago Bulls season in 2001-02 successful?  Jerry Krause did.

You heard us correctly. Jerry Krause, the General Manager of the Chicago Bulls, considers this current season to be a successful one for his Bulls.  The team has won twenty games out of eighty played, 25% of their games played, and became the sixth team in NBA history that has lost 60+ games three years running since the NBA went to an 82 game season in 1967 according to a report by K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.  The last time this happened was five years ago by the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies.

So on what basis could this season be considered a success?  Krause simply puts it all down to the experience gained by high school duo Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry, both of whom seem miles ahead of fellow high schoolers Kwame Brown and DeSagana Diop due to the way they have been handled.

"Definitely," general manager Jerry Krause said. "I think they've been brought along very well. They've had the right amount of exposure. We talked about gradually doing it, and it's been gradually done. I'm very satisfied.

"And yet we know we have to do a big job this summer. We can't be slap-happy about what we have now. We have to get better. They know what they have to do too."

While Krause may be a little biased in his opinion, being the one who built this empire and also has the power to change its direction, he has a supporter in Pistons coach Rick Carlisle.

"They're doing things the right way," Carlisle said. "They've played the young kids a lot, and they're only going to get better."

Chandler has 1,337 minutes of experience while Curry has 1,091 minutes, the duo playing well enough half way through the year to start as a tandem at power forward and center.  In comparison Kwame Brown, the first overall pick of the 2001 NBA Draf by the Washington Wizards, has played 770 minutes and DeSagana Diop of the Cavaliers has played a total of 110 minutes.  Brown was held back as the Wizards made a push for the playoffs with superstar Michael Jordan, and now that they have not made that push Brown?s development may have been slowed for no reason.  Diop, however, was simply too raw to get any kind of minutes with the lottery-bound Cleveland Cavaliers and is certainly a project.

"If Michael [Jordan] didn't get hurt, they might've been in the playoffs," coach Bill Cartwright said of Brown and the Wizards. "Now it's an issue because they're not going to be in the playoffs and [Brown] didn't get a lot of minutes this year. He's a good player, but we're ahead of where he is right now."

"I'm more polished now," Curry said. "When I first came in, I really tried to force things. Now I let the game come to me and I try to rebound more. I'm not nearly as good a rebounder as I need to be, but I think I've made improvement."

So now the Bulls have their young nucleus set, a nucleus that grew and improved as the season got longer, and the key pieces are set.  Jalen Rose, the Bulls general for the second half of the season, hit the nail on the head on Saturday when he said the Bulls needed veteran help. It is expected that this will be Krause?s focus this off season, especially with the departure of Charles Oakley, the Bulls oldest and most expierieced player.

"I like what we're doing," coach Bill Cartwright said. "Besides our rookies, we have a good base of young players. But now it's a situation where we're looking to add older guys to them."

So Charles Oakley?s second tenure in Chicago is officially at a close, the Bulls yesterday playing the 17 year veteran on the injured list for the remaining three games while activating AJ Guyton.

While he didn?t have a good year on the court, averaging just 3.8 points and 6.0 rebounds in 57 games, he did fare well with the teenage rookies and teammates alike which was a major reason for his acquisition in the off season.

"I stayed myself," Oakley. "There were things said during the course of the season that management didn't like. But I think I was just speaking the truth.

"In my 17 years, this is my worst year of all. I hate to go out like this. That's why I have to reinstate myself somewhere next year with a different attitude.

"I don't need a lot of money. It's a spring sale, everything reduced. A lot of teams need a guy who can play defense 10 or 12 minutes a night, rebound, someone who can be a professional at all times, a veteran."

What are they putting in the water down there in Chicago?  After going through a streak when they couldn?t buy a win, something inside the Chicago Bulls finally snapped.  The team is starting to piece it all together late in the season, and even though they have nothing to play for except future development they have not given up.  The result?  They have won their last three games; Boston at home, the Pistons in Detroit and New York in the big apple, the former two still playing for positioning in this season?s playoffs.

Much of the results can be placed on youngsters Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry, both of whom have been huge as of late.

"We're digging deep within," said Chandler, who K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reports has four double-doubles in his last six games. "The best part is our young nucleus has been in at the end of games. The veterans are putting trust in us.?

?Their hard work is paying off," coach Bill Cartwright said.