Chicago Sports Review

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.

Last week it was a sure thing, as likely as John Daley super-sizing his Big Mac or Devin Hester cruising right by a tackler. Now it’s over, with both sides saying that it just wasn’t meant to be.

It appears former Bulls coach Doug Collins will not become the next Bulls coach. After a week and a half of speculation, Collins and team owner Jerry Reinsdorf each said that it was best for both the coach and the team to go their separate ways. Collins said he didn’t want to hurt his friend Reinsdorf by making such a difficult choice, and the owner happily agreed.

So now the league’s youngest team and the owners of the number one pick in the June 26 draft is without a coach yet again. They went through two last season, Scott Skiles and Jim Boylan, and have missed out on two this spring, Mike D’Antoni and Collins. At such an important crossroad for the team it would seem important to have a guy in charge. So that is why I am here to make this important announcement:

I am offering up my services to Reinsdorf and General Manager John Paxson to be the next head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

Now before you hurt yourself laughing, let me explain my rationale. I know basketball, having nearly 15 years of experience of watching, reading and occasionally playing the game. I understand the way the league works, both from doing that same watching and reading but also by playing countless hours of NBA Live video games. And last but not least, my hiring would create about 1,000 times more buzz than a guy like Dwane Casey or Vinny Del Negro would in the barbershops, sports bars and neighborhood basketball courts of the Windy City.

Obviously I wouldn’t be able to do this alone, and I would work with Paxson to help get a smart group of assistants to assist me. It may take them a while for these assistants to comprehend that they are working for a 20-year old, but that shouldn’t be too much of a shock. Seven players on the Bulls roster are less than two and a half years older than I am, not to mention either Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley, the two rumored top picks, both of whom were born over a year after I was.

From what I have analyzed, coaching in the NBA is not extremely difficult. In football, the coach has a week to prepare a complex game plan, has 52 players to deal with, and three different units that all have to be playing perfectly for three hours in order to achieve victory. In soccer, a coach has only three substitutions to use and must make perfect switches to avoid wearing out the roster. And in baseball, a manager has so many games to work with and so many statistics to pour over that skippers tends to out-think themselves. But in hoops, there are only 12 players, only 82 games, and not much confusion when it comes to calling plays. Do you switch on pick-and-rolls or stay with your man? Is the point guard going to try set up shots for others or look for his own points? How deep will the bench be? Not really rocket science.

Yet it seems that many coaches have confusion on some of the simple aspects of the game. So to prove my worth, here’s what I would teach my team: Let LeBron James shoot jumpers, but foul him hard if he drives to the hoop. Never leave Michael Redd open behind the three-point line. If we are up three with less than 30 seconds left, foul the opponent before they get a shot off. When Amare Stodumire has a clear lane to the basket, get out of the way to avoid being on a poster. Give the ball to the man being guarded by J.R. Smith. Save at least two timeouts for the final minutes of the game. And never, I repeat NEVER even guard Ben Wallace when his team has the ball.

Of course getting the Bulls job is a long shot, mainly because I never played in the league. I never averaged nine points a game in my NBA career like Del Negro did, never brought down five rebounds a game like Chuck Person did and never played for ten franchises like Tyron Corbin did. Then again, the lack of playing experience shouldn’t really be a factor in my coaching skills. Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs and a four-time world champion, never stepped foot on an NBA court as a player. Neither did Jeff Van Gundy, one of the smartest coaches in the league over the past decade and current announcer of the NBA Finals, or his brother Stan, now the coach of the Orlando Magic

Plus, I am a lifelong fan of the Bulls, lived through the ultimate highs (six titles in eight years) and lows (Tim Floyd) of the franchise and even have “Sirius” by the Alan Parson Project as my cell phone ringtone. I plan on naming my first kid after Michael Jordan, regardless if it’s male or female. And to this day, I’d still probably trip John Starks if I saw him walking down the street.

So how about it John and Jerry? Won’t you give a kid a chance? With me on the bench, Derrick Rose running the point and 20,000 rabid fans at the United Center every night, we can’t lose. Heck, since I know money’s always been an issue, you can make me the lowest paid coach in the league. The move will get the casual fans talking while the diehards will be happy that one of their own will be in charge. I may not have the playing experience of some of the other candidates, but this job requires coaching defense, not playing it. I could get Ben Gordon to guard somebody, teach Tyrus Thomas to shoot a jumper and convince Kirk Hinrich that the best way to play point guard is to not turn the ball over. Hey, I know it’s a long shot. But compared to the sure things the Bulls had earlier this spring, I can’t be that bad of a choice.

The chairman has spoken. In an interview Monday night with the Chicago Tribune’s K.C. Johnson, Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t mince words in expressing his disapproval of Mike D’Antoni becoming the new head coach of the New York Knicks.

“I’m disappointed in him,” Reinsdorf said. “I don’t know what else we could’ve done. He chose to go to New York knowing there was a good chance we would make him an offer. If he had really wanted to be in Chicago, he would’ve waited. Instead, he misled us. It’s not the end of the world, but it is somewhat rude.”

In case you missed it (and Bulls fans can be excused for giving up on the NBA season sometime in January), as recently as Friday it appeared the Bulls were the most likely destination for the now ex-Suns head coach.

So what happened? How did the Bulls go from being the front runners in hiring a coach who has won 232 games in four seasons to losing out to a Knicks team that spent this past season not as a legitimate NBA team, but as a league-wide joke?

Perhaps the real question is why is anyone in Chicago surprised by this?

By now everyone should know the Kobe Bryant-to-Chicago rumors were just that, rumors. There was never anything there. But clearly the Kevin Garnett and Pau Gasol rumors had some substance, each player did get traded after all. And if the Bulls weren’t talking to Minnesota and Memphis about those players, they should have been.

But back to this situation. Why didn’t it get done? Reinsdorf said it had nothing to do with money:

“The second subject, I said if we need to get something done this weekend we shouldn’t even bother talking because it will take longer than that,” Reinsdorf said. “He said nothing had to be done over the weekend.

“I also said if this proceeds to where we want to make an offer, we don’t deal with coach’s agents. He said that’s not a problem and that money wasn’t the most important thing anyway. He said he wanted a job where he was going to be happiest. He said he didn’t want to coach the Knicks.”

And that, in a nutshell, is why this deal didn’t get done. It was widely reported the Knicks were going to make an offer to D’Antoni, yet Reinsdorf still didn’t feel the Bulls could come up with an offer over this past weekend.

In attempting to avoid a PR nightmare - fans questioning if the Bulls will ever be able to make a big move - Reinsdorf confirmed all Bulls fans worst fears.

The Bulls lost out to the Knicks because New York quickly made a decision. The coach who has won 232 games over four years isn’t coaching in Chicago because the Bulls needed more time to make him an offer while the Knicks - the league-wide joke - had no trouble coming up with a contract D’Antoni couldn’t refuse.

And though Reinsdorf won’t admit it, and D’Antoni will never say it, it was about money. D’Antoni came from a Phoenix franchise that gave away draft picks (that turned out to be Luol Deng and Rajon Rondo), let star players leave (Joe Johnson) and sold off valuable role players (Kurt Thomas) all because Robert Sarver didn’t want to pay the luxury tax.

So when D’Antoni is told by the Bulls it will take a while to make an offer he should be skeptical. This is the same Bulls team that this season owned the league’s ninth lowest payroll in a major market. In 2006-07 they boasted the league’s fifth lowest payroll.

You can blame D’Antoni for taking a Knicks job that is almost certainly an uphill battle. But you can’t blame him for not taking the Bulls job.

As for Reinsdorf’s allegations, maybe D’Antoni did mislead the Bulls. Maybe he even flat-out lied to them. But that’s not the point.

The perception of the Bulls remains that they are a second-class organization who continue to rely on the Ben Wallace’s and Jim Boylan’s of the world while others compete for the Kevin Garnett’s, Pau Gasol’s and Mike D’Antoni’s.

That may be fair, it may not. But make no mistake that is the perception. And instead of playing the woe-is-me card and blaming D’Antoni, maybe the chairman should do something to convince Bulls fans that perception is false. Of course, that’s not happening:

“I can’t worry about perception,” Reinsdorf said. “I have to worry about making the right decision. This is a very critical hire. If you make a mistake, you set yourself back. Tim Floyd didn’t work out, Bill Cartwright. Scott Skiles, we thought we had a good one, but he’s gone with two years left on his deal. We’ve been set back.”

At least I can agree with one thing Reinsdorf said. The Bulls have been set back.