It's passive-aggressive ....

Reinsdorf may have mellowed in the twilight of his life, but make no mistake, he viewed his ownership of the Bulls and the White Sox as business propositions, to an extreme degree.

There was an allusion to it in the showing last night, but it was clear that Reinsdorf's view was that once you signed the contract, there was no renegotiating.

Frankly, as a guy whose sports fandom preceded "modern" free agency, I'm not a huge fan of players "demanding" to renegotiate contracts that aren't even halfway to expiration.

But that's the way of the world, and it has been that way for a long time now. And if ever there was a case for rewarding a player in a bad contract, it was Pippen, given his performance, the team's performance and the resulting financial bonanza for the franchise/owner.

Nobody is in Jordan's league when it comes to being competitive, but for a kid who no doubt was the last guy picked in every sandlot baseball game growing up as a kid in Brooklyn, Reinsdorf is no slouch -- so much so, that he couldn't see past his desire to "win" the negotiation enough to do what was necessary to win even more championships.