That needed doing

Thank God the Bulls lost last night. The season's over, and the real focus of the year can begin. Simply stated, the team, as currently constituted, isn't capable of competing for a championship. So, as I alluded to on Monday, the focus of the season needed to have been positioning the team for a vital off season. The Reindorf-ian mandate to always compete meant that a Bill Simmons-esque tanking for a lottery pick was never an option, but big time Free Agency acquisitions are definitely possible. Along those lines, here is a list of 3 things the Bulls need to do in order to better position themselves for the future:

• #1) Fire Vinny Del Negro: This essentially can go without saying. He needs to go. After being the only thing between the team and an awesome 1st round upset of the Celtics last year, Vinny only compounded his coaching inadequacies this year. To quote Trib writer Steve Rosenbloom "Now the only question is whether the Bulls let Vinny Del Negro on the team plane." Everyone, including Vinny, knows this is going down, so now all the Bulls have to do is avoid firing him in an unprofessional manner. (Which, apparently, is tough for the organization to do)
  
• #2) Find that illusive interior scoring option: The story of the Bulls big-man search is a long and storied one. Not since the days of Elton Brand has there been a truly NBA-level offensive force residing in the "man-in-the-middle" post at the UC. Years of trying to acquire the likes of Kevin Garnett and Amare Stoudemire have achieved nothing. (Don't be confused: the new-age Bill Laimbeer, is awesome and all, but his scoring is on the Rodman-ish level.) Obviously big-man scoring is always at a premium, but at some point the Bulls have to actually have something to show for effort in the category, right?
  
• #3) Sign massive free agent: I'll say this now, LeBron isn't coming (The chants of "King James sucks!" at the UC this past week couldn't have helped). Chris Bosh would help with category 2 as well as satisfying this category, but I think it's time to bring native son Dwyane Wade home. The good thing is that GM Paxson has put the Bulls in the position to go after a star-quality scoring option through proper cap-space management. As long as it's not Joe Johnson, I'll probably be satisfied.