My Coach Vinny

By: Kolsky

I’m in danger of being labeled a Chicago Bulls “yes-man.”

I was okay with the Doug Collins hire – though I famously warned all of you that deals are not done until they’re done, and I want credit for that, dammit – and now I’m okay with the Bulls (officially) hiring Vinny Del Negro instead. In fact, I’m better than okay.

I downright like this. I like it better than Doug Collins. I like it much better than the thought of Flip Saunders, or Dwayne Casey, or any other former Minnesota Timberwolves head coach. I like it more than I would have liked Kurt Rambis – although, in all honesty, if he regrew that mullet and put his sport goggles back on he would have gotten my vote.

Sadly, he didn’t. And Vinny Del Negro has a sort of mullet already, so that gives him a jump start on Rambis and all the other candidates that John Paxson may or may not have interviewed for his team’s head coaching position. But enough about mullets…

This is about coaching. Simply put, nobody knows if Vinny Del Negro will be a good coach. Not John Paxson, not me, and sure as hell not Jay Marriotti, who – predictably – used the Del Negro hire as an excuse to pan Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf as a cheapskate looking to make a pocketbook-friendly hire.

But let me ask you all this – isn’t it possible that John Paxson just told the truth from the beginning of this process? From day one of the coaching search, Pax told anyone who would listen the following things:

(1) We will take our time with this search. We will not let potential coaches or other teams affect the pace at which we conduct our search, and we intend to be deliberate about it.
(2) We’re not just looking at former NBA head coaches. We intend to interview any number of candidates from any number of basketball avenues, and prior coaching experience is only one of many criteria.
(3) We’re looking for somebody who really turns us on. Someone who comes into the interview process with fresh ideas and a good perspective; somebody with a plan to turn this team around that makes sense to us and that we think will work.
(4) I expect I’ll know my man after one or two meetings with him.

As I understand the process, Pax met with Del Negro at the Orlando Pre-Draft Camp a couple weeks ago and was surprised by how much he liked the coaching vision of a front office guy with no coaching experience. So he set up an interview.

Well, the impression I’ve gotten is that Del Negro knocked the interview out of the park. He showed up prepared, with information on the roster and ideas about how to coach it. He knew how he wanted to present himself as a coach, and whatever his presentation was, it seems to have worked on Pax and Reinsdorf.

So why can’t this work? Why does it have to be a budget hire, instead of a deliberate and well-thought-out hire of an inexperienced person?

There’s no doubt Del Negro knows the game – he may have spent the majority of his career as a jump-shooter off the bench for a handful of NBA teams, but he is known throughout the business for having a great basketball mind and for having been a sort of coach on the floor during his playing days.

He’s also praised by everyone he’s worked with for being a people person – something that, for all his good qualities and straight-shooting, Scott Skiles would never have been accused of being. Steve Kerr, his now-former boss in Phoenix, has nothing but praise for Del Negro, and has even intimated that he might have hired Vinny as the Suns coach if he didn’t think the team needed a coach with experience.

The Suns, though, have a championship window that is closing fast. Kerr’s big ticket deal for Shaq needs to pay off soon – like, this year – or he’s going to be out of a job and it won’t much matter who he hired as coach. So he felt he needed that experience.

The Bulls are in an almost diametrically opposed situation. They have the youngest team in the league, and will add a 19-year-old to their roster in less than a month. Trades will be made before the end of the offseason, sure; but no matter what happens, the Bulls are going to be a youthful team (hopefully led by an exciting young point guard) with a championship window that hasn’t even been cracked yet.

When better to hire a young, green coach? Let him grow with his players – with whom all signs suggest he’ll be able to relate. Sure, he’ll do some learning on the job, but that doesn’t mean he can’t also get the job done.

Sure, there are reasons to be suspicious – D’Antoni seemed like a good fit before jilting the Bulls for the Knicks, and obviously people thought the Doug Collins deal was in place; certainly Del Negro could be seen as a third choice.

Then again, everyone involved says that D’Antoni was never as interested in the Bulls as he was in the Knicks, and there was never any sort of deal in place with Collins. Isn’t it just as possible that Paxson soured on Collins after meeting with Del Negro? After all, Vinny is much younger than Doug and probably a lot more in touch with the current NBA.

I’m not even saying that Del Negro is going to be a good NBA coach, because there’s no way to know. As he mentioned over and over again throughout his introductory presser, he doesn’t own a crystal ball – and neither do I. But I’m not going to condemn him before he starts.

When a coaching position comes open in the NBA, the calls of “fresh face” being to ring out. Every columnist in the city with the opening wants something new – no more NBA retreads, no more Rick Carlisles and Flip Saunderses.

But then the new face is unfamiliar – shocking, right? – these tired old sportswriters can’t handle it. These hired hacks want to tell you that there’s no way such an inexperienced coach can possibly turn a roster full of young’ns into winners when he’s never been a winner himself as a head coach.

Sorry fellas, I’m calling BS on that. He might fall flat on his face; anyone might. But there’s no reason to believe there’s a better chance of failure than success. And outside of his much-ballyhooed lack of experience, Vinny Del Negro looks to me like exactly what the Bulls need.

He wants them to play hard defense. He wants them to play up-tempo offense. He’s been hailed by people all over basketball as the most well-prepared guy they know in the business – in fact, he talked about handing out booklets to players over the summer so they can begin to familiarize themselves with his ideas before training camp.

He’s young and energetic, especially compared to NBA head coaches. By all accounts, his interpersonal skills are fantastic and he’s very much in touch with the youth of the NBA. He’s the type of guy who will be hard on his players, but can also sit down for a beer with them, or throw his arm around them when they need support.

His skills in player development are already well-developed, and he’s said to be great and helping young talent mature – a skill that could be useful to the youngest roster in the league. His playing and management career has put him next to some of the great coaches of his lifetime – Jim Valvano at N.C. State and Greg Popovich in San Antonio, to name a couple.

Basically, Vinny Del Negro has a ton of positives working for him, and only one negative – a lack of experience.

Every coach has to start somewhere, though.

Here’s to beginner’s luck.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Matt Kolsky (please feel free to call him Kolsky) is the contributing editor of the Chicago Sports Review and the editor-in-chief of Serious Sports News Network. You can hear Kolsky live on Chicago's kookiest and most fun sports radio show, The Morning Break, on Fridays (from 10-Noon on WSBC 1240 AM). As you can see, he's very busy, but you can also send him email via serioussportsnewsnetwork@gmail.com, and it's entirely possible that he'll respond.

Share This Article

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comment On This Article