Philosopher coach Scott Skiles never looks at life through a lens of self-doubt.

Why bother? There are plenty of people around to tell him what's wrong with his team.

No team, not even Miami, has been a bigger disappointment in the first month of the season than Chicago. Sure, the Bulls always seem to start slow. They are 6-52 on their annual extended road trip in November since Michael Jordan moved to the next stage of his iconic status.

But this start has a different feel than recent seasons. At 3-10 entering Saturday, the Bulls are strangely listless as the losses mount on their way to a Monday meeting with the Mavericks.

Some blame Kobe Bryant and argue the rumors of a trade for the LA Lakers star unsettled Chicago's key players. Others point to the Bulls' failure to sign Luol Deng, Ben Gordon and Chris Duhon to extensions before the season.

Chemistry is fragile. But if that's all it takes to knock a young, rising power off stride, those players don't have the temperament or mental toughness needed to succeed at an elite level.

"All of us haven't played the way we can play," Deng told reporters this past week. "We've got to get better as a whole.

"It's not an individual thing. It's not physical, it's a mental thing."

I'd argue it's an offense thing.

The Bulls don't have any.

Chicago is the league's lowest-scoring team, with an average of 86.7 points per game. The Bulls are the only team to shoot less than 40 percent from the field and the only team to shoot less than 30 percent from 3-point range.

The Bulls missed seven consecutive shots and committed three turnovers in a seven-minute stretch of the fourth quarter in a loss to Toronto. They didn't make a basket in the final 4:10 of a loss to New York. And yes, that's the same Knicks team that turned around five days later and lost to Boston by 45 points.

"We're getting good shots," Gordon said. "We're just not making them."

There is a little more to what's happening than missing shots.

Defenses double-team Gordon off the pick-and-roll and force him to give up the ball or take a bad shot. We all know he doesn't like to pass, so that means more bad shots.

Opponents back off Deng and give him less space to slash to the basket, which is when he's at his best. Kirk Hinrich, meanwhile, is shooting a career-low 34.6 percent from the field. He had an inexcusable turnover on a 2-on-none fastbreak against Atlanta.

The Bulls have a limited half-court offense in the best of times. But Chicago is athletic enough to force the issue and score in transition.

That's why Skiles criticized Tyrus Thomas recently for failing to run the court. If Chicago doesn't get an easy bucket, it doesn't get one at all these days.

Chicago still competes on the defensive end, a strong indicator that Skiles hasn't lost this team, as critics maintain. But if the Bulls don't begin to win soon, the effort on that end of the court is bound to diminish.

The Bulls can still pull out of this, but they sure don't have the look of a team that can compete for the Eastern Conference title.

"I don't know exactly where we're at right now," Hinrich conceded.

Neither does anyone else.

Jermaine O'Neal has been among the best big men for the better part of this decade.

It's time to drop him from the conversation.

O'Neal hasn't scored 20 points in a game this season and is shooting a career-low 38.9 percent from the field. His 7.4 rebounding average is his lowest since he wasted away on Portland's bench eight years ago.

The Indiana forward is bothered by a sore left knee and has missed 73 games to injury over the last three-plus seasons. The Pacers are actually better this season without O'Neal (5-1) than they are with him (3-8).

Here's the irony. The Pacers have rebuffed trade requests for O'Neal in recent years because they felt he was essential to their success. Now it's doubtful any team would want to assume the $64.1 million he's owed over the length of his contract.