John Salmons Sounds A Little Bitter

I may be on a hiatus from being a Bulls fan these days, but that doesn't mean I've stopped paying attention to things that are going on with the team.  After all, if I took on a policy of ignoring Chicago teams that suck here at Foul Balls, this would quickly become a Chicago Blackhawks blog.

So we're one day away from the holiday known at the Berto Center as "Fire That Bastard Day" and Vinny Del Negro still has a job.  Whether he still will at this time next week, I don't know, though I'm thinking he will.  You know who might not still have his job on Saturday, though?

John Salmons.



During the Bulls loss in New York against the Knicks on Tuesday night you may have noticed some changes that Del Negro made to the lineup following a first half that closely resembled the second half of that epic Kings collapse.

Del Negro removed both Salmons and Brad Miller from his starting lineup in favor of Kirk Hinrich and Taj Gibson.  Which makes you wonder if both Hinrich and Gibson will replace both players in the starting lineup against he Hornets on Saturday.

Well, if that is the case, Salmons sure is taking it pretty well.

"I guess it was said today that I'm pretty much the reason we're losing," Salmons said. "I just have to stay with it and hopefully still help the team win. I haven't been playing up to my potential. It's something I have to deal with. We're losing, I haven't been playing well, I just got taken out of the lineup, so put two and two together."

Well that's the reason you were taken out of the lineup, John.  Rare is the occurrence this season when you have been able to put two and two together.  After coming to the Bulls late last season from the Kings with Brad Miller in a trade that sent the team's bulldog Andres Nocioni out west, Salmons provided a nice offensive spark the team had been needing.

He averaged 18.3 points a game while making 47% of his shots, and 42% of this three-point attempts.

This season?  Not so much.

Salmons is only averaging 13.4 points a game for the Bulls right now, while shooting 38% from the field and 31% from behind the arc.  When he got off to a slow start the common evaluation was that he just needed to find his shot and he'd be back to the threat he provided the team last season.

Well, after 27 games we're all still waiting and now the doubts of whether or not Salmons can get back to playing at that level are creeping in.

Still, I think he's taking it a bit too far when he says that he's being blamed for the team's struggles this year.  The truth is the entire team is to blame, along with the coaching staff, the organization, and mostly the fact that the Dwayne Wades and Lebron Jameses of the world can't become free agents until after the season.

Why if those selfish punks would have only signed contracts for one less year than the Bulls wouldn't have had to tank this season!