Key word: "exactly"

The Daily Herald's Mike McGraw has finally discovered the formula!

The formula to what, you ask? Why, the elusive Who And/Or What Is To Blame For The Chicago Bulls Problems In The First Half Of The 2007-2008 NBA Season formula, of course.

So many problems are affecting the underachieving Bulls at the all-star break, so Mike McGraw has broken down exactly how much blame should be assigned to each issue:

No contract extensions -- 26 percent

John Paxson will now receive just 26% of my Bulls-related hate mail, as opposed to the 31% I'd been sending him previously. My bad!

Back to grade school -- 22 percent
The Bulls were counting on contributions from four players in their first or second NBA seasons -- Tyrus Thomas, Thabo Sefolosha, Joakim Noah and Aaron Gray. None were ready to push the Bulls forward when the season began.

Make that 48% I guess. Unless I'm supposed to be blaming those players...? Now I'm more confused than ever.

Injured and out -- 20 percent
There weren't five games in the previous five seasons when the Bulls were missing three of their top five scorers. Then it happened five times in seven games recently. Top scorers Gordon and Deng were both out for 10 of the last 12 contests.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but I know I can't send hate mail to injuries. Let's make it 52% to Paxson and 4% each to Thomas, Sef, Noah, and Gray.

Art of War to Art of Noise -- 16 percent
We all knew the day was coming when the Bulls would tune out head coach and Sun Tzu fan Scott Skiles. That timetable accelerated quickly when the early season slump hit.

Well, it seems useless to send Skiles hate mail at this point. Make it another 8% for Paxson and 8% for Jim Boyland.

Big money, bad slumps -- 10 percent
The Bulls' two highest-paid players, Ben Wallace and Kirk Hinrich, were terrible at the start of the season. That didn't help pad the win column and must have frustrated teammates looking for the Bulls to open the wallet even wider.

4% each to Wallace and Hinrich and 2% more to Paxson for paying them so much. I'm gonna need a bigger address book!

Change up front -- 6 percent
Veteran forward Joe Smith is an upgrade on offense from P.J. Brown, but a step down defensively. As a result, Wallace has not been as effective on defense and his limited offense is more of a liability in higher-scoring game.

But wouldn't Smith's offense in lieu of Brown's D become an advantage in a high-scoring game? I don't follow. That's 6% to you, Mike McGraw.

So many words were used to express so little in the previous paragraphs, so made-up analyst Johnny Thunderhorn has broken down exactly why this post sucked so much:

Too many exclamation points -- 1 percent

When you abbreviate "defense" as "D," it should technically be in quotes -- 0.7 percent

It's about a stupid column from a second-rate paper about a topic that interests no one centered around made-up percentages that mean nothing -- 98.3 percent