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Chicago Bulls GM Jerry Krause angrily paces the cinderblock hallway just outside the visitors' locker room at the First Union Center. Krause is so hot you could cook stir-fry on his forehead. His black eyebrows are bridged together in a V formation, his asphalt-dark scowl only half hidden by those signature Jerry jowls. Here's guessing now is not the best time to ask how Year Five of the ol' rebuilding plan is coming along.

Moments later Bulls coach Bill Cartwright emerges from a dressing room and delivers another in a continuing series of stoic postgame "Why We Suck" speeches, this one coming minutes after his team has gotten blown out in OT by the 76ers. A night earlier it was Detroit. Before that, five consecutive losses. The Bulls' final regular-season game on April 15 can't come fast enough.

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