Reality check: Bulls just plain awful

If you believe Jerry Reinsdorf -- always a dubious proposition when the Bulls chairman starts spinning -- Scott Skiles was the smart one.

Reinsdorf told WGN-TV's Rich King over the weekend that Skiles was the one who initiated his departure as head coach.

"I think the team needs a new voice," Reinsdorf revealed Skiles suggested to him.

So the Bulls fired him on Christmas Eve. Which makes you wonder why, if Skiles all but quit, the Bulls consented to pay him for the rest of his contract.

Anyway, the parting was fortuitous for Skiles. It's difficult, and frankly quite frightening, to imagine how so demanding a coach might have responded to Sunday's 88-77 loss to the Phoenix Suns.

Take a bite out of the scorer's table? Out of Tyrus Thomas' neck? Out of a reporter's soul?

Instead, one way or the other, Skiles got out while the getting was good.

"Scott would never quit," Bulls interim coach Jim Boylan insisted prior to the Phoenix game. "He's a dedicated professional."

Ah, but then Boylan added that Skiles "is a realist. He sees what's going on around him."

Reality at the United Center is awful these days. The Bulls are awful, they're playing awfully, and the results are awfully awful.

The Suns didn't play well, are at the end of a road trip, and still couldn't find a way to lose to the overmatched Bulls.

Leading scorers Ben Gordon and Luol Deng are out with injuries. Joe Smith played but was restricted. Chris Duhon played but afterward sounded like he might not again for a while.

Of course, the Bulls weren't playing very well when healthy.

"I'm not sure what I might do," Boylan said when asked about possible lineup changes.

Skiles was out of answers. Boylan appears to be out of answers. Not even hoping against hope worked Sunday.

Boylan was hoping a local nooner -- an 11 a.m. start Phoenix time -- would have a debilitating impact upon the Suns.

"It's an odd time for a game," Boylan said. "That changes things a little bit. There are things that to the average person might not be relevant, but you know to a team they're relevant."

The Suns couldn't have played with less zip. Yet during the fourth quarter they hit the snooze button and sleepwalked to victory.

Nobody had enough fingers and toes to count how many times somebody associated with the Bulls used the word "tough" after the game.

It's "a tough situation." It's "very tough." All the injuries "make it tough."

The Suns certainly didn't care that the Bulls actually played with intensity that at worst has been missing this season and at best has been inconsistent.

"You can call this the No Pity League," Bulls veteran forward Joe Smith said of the NBA.

That's only partially true. On a night-to-night basis, no opponent will feel sorry for the Bulls. On a seasonlong basis, the Eastern Conference sends out get-well cards to the infirm.

Despite a 17-26 record, the eighth and final postseason berth is in sight.

If Boylan gets these Bulls into the playoffs, he should be Coach of the Year.

More likely, as Skiles leaves basketball rehab sometime in April, Boylan will be entering.

Then auditions will be held to find the Bulls' next new voice.

mimrem@dailyherald.com