Reinsdorf calls Bulls' season a 'disaster'

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf strongly criticized the team - calling their performance this season a "disaster" and refusing to place any blame on general manager John Paxson - during an appearance Friday on the "Monsters In The Morning" show with Mike North and Dan Jiggetts on Comcast SportsNet.

Under first-time coach Vinny Del Negro, the Bulls possess a 19-27 record heading into Friday night's game at Sacramento. They were just 11/2 games behind Milwaukee, though, for eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

Here's a transcript of the conversation, starting with Reinsdorf being asked to grade the Bulls' performance:

Jerry Reinsdorf: "You want the grade up 'til today? What's the lowest grade you can give? This has been a disaster. It's embarrassing. But it will get better."

Mike North: "With the same people?"

Jerry Reinsdorf: "Well, we'll see. John Paxson is not going to let this situation continue."

Dan Jiggetts: "How comfortable are you with John at the helm?"

Jerry Reinsdorf: "When you have a team that's not performing, it's an organization failure. You win and you lose as an organization. But if there's one person that is not responsible for what's going on right now, it's John Paxson. I have tremendous confidence in John Paxson. He's really one of the best people that I know. He's a great general manager and a great judge of talent. I just worry that he not be too hard on himself. He takes all of this very, very seriously."

Mike North: "To say that he's not at all responsible - he brought in the players. So are the players not being coached up?"

Jerry Reinsdorf: "I have a lot of thoughts about that but they're not thoughts that I really can say publicly. All I know is what we have right now is not good and we have to get it better. They are playing hard in the last half-dozen or so games. We had some games where-"

Mike North: "You knew they were mailing it in."

Jerry Reinsdorf: "They were mailing it in and I felt like standing up and booing along with everybody else. They're not mailing it in anymore."

Jerry Reinsdorf: "We have a great player in Derrick Rose. When I first got involved with the Bulls, we had one great player (Michael Jordan) when we won our first championship, he was the only player left from the original team. We will build around Derrick Rose. Every player that's added to this team will be a player who can feed off him.

"This is not going to take changing 11 players. We do have some pretty good players on this club. Obviously what we lack is an inside presence. That's the biggest thing we are missing and somehow we have to find it."

It's not clear whether Del Negro knew about Reinsdorf's comments before talking to reporters following Friday's shootaround at the Sacramento Kings practice facility.

But Del Negro didn't seem the least bit defensive about the quotes from his owner and stressed that he had a good working relationship with Reinsdorf.

"That's just Jerry trying to motivate and trying to get guys going," Del Negro said. "Jerry wants to win, just like every owner and every coach. It's not easy.

"Jerry is a great owner. He lets you go do your job. We'll talk once in a while. We'll text once in awhile. He just wants to win, like everybody."

When Reinsdorf states that the season has been a disaster, it sounds like he believes the Bulls should be doing much better than they are.

Without question, there have been three or four games that the Bulls had no business losing. But few, if any, people expected this team to finish above .500 this season.

They've put considerable faith in the future of rookie point guard Derrick Rose. He was bound to experience some growing pains during his first time through the NBA and he has. In the meantime, the Bulls lost guard Kirk Hinrich for 31 games, forward Luol Deng for 11 and power forward Drew Gooden, the team's only experienced big man, will miss his 17th game on Friday at Sacramento.

"Managing expectations is the hardest thing in this business," Del Negro said. "They didn't win 60 games last year. They didn't have a rookie point guard. They didn't have the injuries we've had. You can't compare years. You can't compare teams.

"Managing expectations and developing are very easy to talk about, but they're hard to do and they take time. Some people are more patient than others."