Rozner: Baffling Bulls are bungling again

The contrast was almost laughable, if it weren't so unfortunate.

The fireworks went off in broad daylight Monday morning, seen by the basketball world and digested before a single hot dog was attacked, before a solitary hamburger burned in anger.

One of the greatest players in the world, Kevin Durant, was creating the best team in basketball, the Golden State Warriors, to form a squad incapable of coughing up a 3-1 series lead to LeBron James.

There's that. And then there's the Bulls, who seem to have absolutely no plan and no idea what they're doing.

Rajon Rondo playing for Fred Hoiberg … what could possibly go wrong?

For the love of Ennis Whatley and all that's holy, this is a guy who couldn't play for Doc Rivers, one of the most respected coaches of all time, while Hoiberg didn't make Christmas of his first season in the NBA before getting humiliated by Jimmy Butler.

And it's not like Rondo has had problems with one coach. He's disrespected every coach he's ever played for, going back to high school and including Tubby Smith at Kentucky, not to mention highly respected NBA coaches such as Rivers, Rick Carlisle and George Karl.

He's had problems with numerous teammates, and despite his gaudy assist numbers, units often function more effectively when Rondo is not on the floor.

So the Bulls traded Derrick Rose because he couldn't coexist in the same backcourt as Butler, and now they've brought in a guy in Rondo who can't coexist with anyone.

GM Gar Forman also claimed after the Rose trade that the Bulls were trying to get younger and more athletic.

Well, Rose is 27 and Rondo is 30, and though Rose's troubles staying on the court are well-documented, Rondo has averaged 52 starts for the last five years.

Thus, you now have a point guard who doesn't respond well to coaching playing for a coach whose legs were cut out from under him by the team's star last season.

The team's star also insists on having every play run through him, so now there's three players in Rondo, Butler and Denzel Valentine who all need the ball, and only one of these three is likely to be in Chicago in a couple of years.

But as the Bulls try to rebuild around young players — or so they say — Valentine will undoubtedly have his growth stunted by a couple of veterans who devour shot clocks in a single gulp.

Yeah, if you're having trouble figuring this out, you're hardly alone.

The Bulls will say Rondo is a basketball genius, who sees passing lanes and options few others in the game can see, and they'll be right about that. There's no denying his pure talent.

Rondo had 51 games with at least 10 assists last year, while the Bulls as a team had a total of 10 players with 10-assist games.

But Rondo has been on four teams in two years because he does not work and play well with others, believing teammates are wrong to run what coaches want run, believing coaches are simply wrong.

Now, he may form a backcourt with a player in Butler who had the same problems last season, playing for a coach who could not command the respect of the locker room, and without a strong locker room presence like Joakim Noah to keep the players in line behind the coach.

That's just some of what's wrong here.

Of course, the much bigger picture is a muddled, fuzzy mess of contradictory statements from management about the process moving forward, and the question of how this gets the Bulls closer to winning an NBA title goes unanswered for another year.

Meanwhile, the Warriors reached back-to-back NBA Finals and just added the best free agent to hit the market since LeBron James returned to Cleveland.

On a perfect summer day, Warriors fans saw brilliant fireworks while the sun blazed above them.

Without a cloud in the sky, Bulls fans could only see a storm gathering in the distance.

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's “Hit and Run” show at WSCR 670-AM.