With coach Scott Skiles recently and gently revealing that Nocioni could miss the remainder of the regular season with plantar fasciitis in his right foot, the Bulls continue to face questions that have dogged them all season.

In addition to the usual questions about the team's lack of height, on Tuesday the question was is this perimeter-based team running out of gas?

"This is our team," guard Chris Duhon said. "It's based around the perimeter guys. We have to look at ourselves and realize we have to do more if we want to become the team that we need to be."

The Bulls have experienced enough success and clawed back into enough desperate games to denounce all three-guard lineups. But their lack of size puts even more pressure on a team that must play at a high energy level nightly to be consistently successful.

As general manager John Paxson and Skiles continue to contemplate adding size to the roster in the form of a 10-day contract, reality dictates that any project currently toiling in the NBDL would add only so much.

If the Bulls did add somebody, guard Andre Barrett might stick around as a practice player. That would mean another player, possibly center Martynas Andriuskevicius, would have to be waived.

Antonio Davis waved off a question about whether he was retired when he visited the Bulls' practice last Saturday. It is said that Davis is enjoying retirement. But his skills?leadership and rugged rebounding?appear to be what the Bulls are lacking.