"You have GOT to be kidding me," Skiles said after his 3-10 team's practice. "Well, color me red-faced. This is terribly embarrassing ... please excuse me," Skiles added before quickly gathering his players at center court to tell them of their misunderstanding of the schedule.
Skiles admitted that he was "a little surprised" that the pre-season, which actually ended in late October, was still going on. Turns out he was terribly misinformed.
"Our info had the regular season starting in early December," Skiles said after breaking the news to his stunned players. "I simply don't know what to say. Our bad."
The Bulls, who won on Tuesday in what they believed to be the exhibition season finale, lost 10 of their first 13 games by playing uninspired, careless basketball -- both hallmarks of pre-season play.
"I swear to you on a stack of bibles that I thought the regular season started next week," guard Kirk Hinrich said after Skiles dropped the bombshell. "Sh*t, if I had known that, I would have gotten my jump shot around a long time ago!"
Kirk Hinrich drives against the Pistons earlier this month in what he believed to be a meaningless exhibition game
Bulls GM John Paxson took complete responsibility for the gaffe, calling it a "stain" on the Bulls franchise.
"The buck stops with me," Paxson said. "I must have grabbed November with October when I flipped my calendar," he added, trying to explain away the mixup. Paxson said that, from now on, he would use one of those big desktop calendars where you have to rip the month off, saying it would be less likely for him to skip a month with such a calendar.
The Bulls have been booed at home by their fans this season, all of whom assumed their basketball team knew the regular season was well underway.
"They were dull, listless, and pretty much pathetic," said fan Darrell Pittman of Elgin, Illinois. "But they've been like that a lot in seasons past. I guess I just took it for granted that they knew the season started.
"Geez, that's pretty f***ing stupid, don't you think?"
Skiles, after learning of his team's tardiness in beginning regular season play, tried to make up for lost time by asking Ben Wallace twice to leave practice if he didn't want to be there, suspending Ben Gordon for a game two weeks ago, and jousting with a Chicago reporter about a loss on November 12.
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