Reinsdorf to Negotiate Directly With Deng. How Could This Possibly Go Wrong?

ESPN.com's Marc Stein has a wide-ranging column on the state of the free agent market. One of his smaller but more interesting nuggets concerns Bull restricted free agent Luol Deng.

Not totally sure yet how to interpret this one, but sources say that Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is personally handling contract negotiations with Deng and his new agent (Jason Levien) after Reinsdorf informed Bulls GM John Paxson that he wanted to directly negotiate with the Deng camp along with Bulls director of player personnel Gar Forman.

I hardly need to remind Bulls fans that practically every painful twist in the ridiculous coaching search can be attributed to Reinsdorf's tinkering. The missing-out on Mike D'Antoni reportedly because a lack of urgency in Chicago. The Doug Collins saga (which turned out for the best, but ...) blew up because of a lack of consistent message from the front office. By the time Vinny Del Negro signed, Paxson seemed to be rushing things precisely to avoid Reinsdorf.

It might be a blanket statement to accuse Reinsdorf of responsibility for these matters, but I assure you we'll have trouble finding a Bulls fan to speak up in support of this new development in the ongoing courting of Deng.