Chicago Sports Review

1- He’s a scorer, averaging 15 points a game in his only season at the University of Memphis. That would have been third on the Bulls last season, but Rose’s 48% shooting from the field would have tied him with Luol Deng for the team lead.

2- He’s a passer, averaging five assists a game. Like any good player though, D-Rose stepped it up when his team needed it most, dropping nine assists in UM’s regional final win over Texas and eight in the national championship game versus Kansas.

3-He’s a defender, often times sticking the opposition’s most explosive player. People assume that because he hit the game-tying shot that Kansas guard Mario Chalmers had a great game in the final. But really he shot five for 13, had only two assists and three turnovers. And who was guarding him that night? Rose.

4-He gets to the free throw line, which is something that no other player on the Bulls roster can say with authority. In his one year of college he averaged five shots a game from the charity stripe, which would have placed him atop the Bulls stat sheet a year ago in that category.

5-He’s from Chicago, which automatically means he will be embraced by the United Center faithful and understands the pressure of playing basketball in this city.

6-He wants the ball with the clock running out and the game on the line, which is good, because it means then that Ben Gordon doesn’t have to have the ball with the clock running out and the game on the line.

7-He makes his teammates better, always a plus for a point guard. Add to that he is a combination of unselfish and determined to win, and Rose is the first Bulls player since MJ that demands his teammates respect.

8-He’s a true #1 guy, another thing the Bulls have lacked since MJ walked away in 1998. The Bulls may have been on national TV a lot the past few years, but I guarantee it wasn’t because ESPN and TNT wanted to highlight the play or Kirk Hinrich and Chris Duhon.

9-He’s a winner. In 2006, his Simeon Wolverines went 33-4 and won the state title. In ‘07, they went 33-2 and won it all again. And then this year, he led Memphis to a 38-2 record and was one free throw away from a national title. That puts his three-year mark at 104-8, two Illinois state championships and nearly an NCAA crown.

10-He’s got speed to burn, which will help the Bulls finally move into the modern NBA. No more Hinrich dribbling around the backcourt trying to set up Gordon for a fade-away with the shot clock running out or Duhon weaving under the basket hoping that Tyrus Thomas will be paying attention. The Bulls can now trust Rose to push the tempo and still have control of the game.

11-He likes the spotlight, which is good, because playing in Chicago he’ll be in it. I don’t know for certain, but I’m guessing that Memphis doesn’t have the media scrutiny towards its athletes that we here in the Windy City do.

12-He made this shot.

Do you know how difficult it is to bank in a shot from 20 feet away, falling backwards, with a hand in the face? Next time you are at the playground, just try it, even without the 6-10 defender jumping to swat the ball back at you or the pressure of a national title game on the line. Very impressive.

13-He’s the future of basketball. The NBA is starting to become a point guard dominated league, even if that was the weakest position on the floor for the world champion Celtics. Guys like Steve Nash, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams are proving how important floor generals are to a team success, and Rose is the next one in line in that mold.

14-He’s a student of the game, and has aspects of Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, and Tony Parker in his arsenal. How can that be a bad thing?

15-He’s got a star name: Derrick Rose. Kind of like Tom Brady in football and David Wright in baseball, there’s just something about a name that attracts the bright lights.

16-He’s got a star smile, which always helps, considering the average American thinks the NBA is full of tattoo-covered, foul mouthed thugs who don’t care about anything besides money. (Note to average America: This is not the case at all, please return to watching pro basketball.)

17- He elevates the status of the Chicago Public League, whose alums include Kevin Garnett (Farragut), Luther Head (Manley) and Quentin Richardson (Whitney Young).

18-He fills a need on the team, because Hinrich is not fit to be the starting point guard of an NBA team. I’m not sure if John Paxson will deal Capitan Kirk, let Gordon go in free agency, or finds some sorry GM that is willing to take Larry Hughes and his massive $13 million contract. Whatever happens, the fact that the Bulls have a new point guard means they are a better team.

19- He’s still three months away from his 20th birthday, meaning that it will be three or four seasons until D-Rose reaches his prime. And that means he’s going to keep getting better and better, which any Bulls fan should be ecstatic about.

20- He was by far the best player available in the draft. Michael Beasley will be a solid player, but as a 6-7 power forward he will never be a top-10 player in the league. O.J. Mayo is nice, but he lacks the explosiveness that Rose does. And Russell Westbrook will never be even half the player D-Rose will be. So really, there was no choice for Paxson.

21-He has played in big games, shown in reason number nine. But it’s an unusually rare quality in the NBA, and it can only help Rose if the Bulls make the playoffs. Players tend to get overwhelmed in their first ever game with something on the line, but considering that occurred for the newest Bull over four years ago, I’m guessing he is pretty comfortable right now.

22-He’s got maturity, something that previous Bulls first round picks Tyrus ‘only does the dunk contest for money’ Thomas and Joakim ‘marijuana and cognac’ Noah are greatly lacking.

23-He’s from Chicago. Oh, did I mention that already? Well then Derrick Rose probably understands why there are 23 items on this list then.

Let me begin with a caveat – Doug Collins is not (yet) the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

Sure, I’m a realist. I know these stories saying that “the deal is in place” don’t come from nowhere; I’m prepared to accept that Bulls GM John Paxson and the excitable Mr. Collins have an agreement in principle, and that in all likelihood Collins is just a couple of phone conversations away from putting pen to paper on a new Bulls contract.

But it hasn’t happened yet. And I’ve seen enough – see “Bill Parcells agrees to deal with Atlanta” for a recent example – to know that nothing is a done deal until it’s… well, until the deal is DONE. Not proposed, not “in place,” done!

That said, get used to it Bulls fans, because this is likely what’s happening; and though there are certainly scenarios where it falls through, I promise it won’t be because you’re writing angry letters to the Berto Center. So instead, let’s see who’s coming to dinner – or, rather, who’s coming to be dined on by this team full of vulturous malcontents.

There are plenty of reasons to hate this hire. (1) Doug Collins has never won a Conference Finals, much less an NBA Finals. (2) Doug Collins is old – perhaps too old to relate to the youngest team in the NBA (which is about to get younger). (3) Doug Collins wore out his welcome with the 1988-89 Bulls in much the same badgersome fashion that Scott Skiles wore out his with the 2007-08 Bulls – yelling and screaming, demanding too much. (4) Doug Collins has never lasted more than three seasons as any team’s head coach. (5) Doug Collins has not coached a team to a winning record since the 1996-97 Detroit Pistons.

Those are five relatively significant concerns (and that’s just off the top of my head… clearly I haven’t put much thought into this article :). In short, it’s not hard to see why Paxson’s apparent decision to bring back a guy that coached him here 20 years ago is being lambasted in every corner of the world – from ESPN’s Gene Wojo-whatever-his-name-is to your buddy Jimbo down at [insert corner tavern here].

I’m well aware of – and, in some cases, nervous about – Collins’ shortcomings. But I’m not so sure this isn’t a sneaky-good hire by Paxson.

Let’s take our aforementioned criticisms one by one, for starters…

(1) If we start eliminating coaches who have never won Conference Finals, it’s gonna be a short list of potential candidates. Not everyone steps into a championship-ready situation in their first head coaching job and then gets to pick and choose the best jobs in the nation forevermore (Phil Jackson). Larry Brown – considered a giant of the coaching industry – was on his sixth NBA coaching job, in his 18^th season as an NBA coach, before he won a Conference Finals. And it took a seventh job before he won a Championship, in his 21^st season. Collins has only three jobs and seven-and-a-half years on of coaching on his resume, so let’s not close the door on his winning ability.

(2) Doug Collins isn’t as old as you think. Specifically, he’s 56. Current head coaches older than Collins include: Greg Popovich, Larry Brown, Mike D’Antoni, Phil Jackson, Rick Adelman, Don Nelson and George Karl. That’s a pretty distinguished list, and it doesn’t include a handful of guys that are only a year or three younger. 56 is pretty average for an NBA head coach – and if Don Nelson can relate to a team full of perceived thugs in Golden State, I’m confident Collins can make adjustments to the youth of America today. Which brings us to…

(3) Skiles was a young coach, and he couldn’t relate, so let’s toss out the idea that age has anything to do with relating. Yes, Doug Collins has been criticized for riding players too hard, for being too demanding – it’s possible this is why his stays in Chicago and Detroit didn’t last long or end particularly well. But he’s very different from Scott Skiles in that he’s a people person; a likeable guy. Skiles, for all that fans and media may have enjoyed his candor, was anything but – he was a poor communicator, and it that was his downfall, much more so than his lofty expectations and demanding demeanor. Collins will demand the players’ best, but he will also talk to players. Plus, Ben Wallace was the ringleader of the revolt against a demanding coach, and he’s long gone (thank God!)

(4) Let’s not make too much of the three-season thing. In Washington, Michael Jordan brought Collins in as his own sort of personal coach; so when Mike left, Collins was done there. Not because he did a bad job, but because he never would have been there in the first place if not for MJ. In Detroit, he led a decent team to a decent record and a disappointing playoff loss in his second year, then followed that up with a slow first half the following season. As so often happens in those situations, the guillotine fell on the head of the coach, despite a team that featured Grant Hill supported by… approximately nobody. And with the Bulls, he took over a 30-52 team – albeit with a maturing and improving Michael Jordan – and turned them into 50-win team in a couple of years. He also advanced further in the playoffs in each year of his tenure, before being canned in favor of the Zen Master after his team’s first Eastern Conference Finals loss. Who’s to say the Bulls wouldn’t have progressed further in 1989-90 if Collins had been kept around?

(5) Ok, this is true. But look who he’s been coaching since then… It starts with the 1997-98 Pistons, featuring Grant Hill – and I’ll give you five bucks if you can name their second leading scorer [tick, tock… tick, tock… tick, tock] Give up? Bison Dele (R.I.P.) Sure, they also had Jerry Stackhouse gunning 3-pointers at a 20% success rate and Joe Dumars limping up and down the floor to dish out a measly 3.5 assists per game, but can you really expect much better than a 21-24 first half when your front line is Dele and Jerome “Junkyard Dog” Williams? I think not. And in Washington, for two years, he coached a too-old Michael Jordan, a too-young Rip Hamilton and a bunch of damn losers to a 37-45 record; then an even more decrepit bunch with Stackhouse acquired for Hamilton. This time around, the big men included Kwame Brown, Christian Laettner and Jahidi White. All I’m saying is, teams full of losers usually end up with losing records, and Doug Collins has never been anybody’s GM.

But all this jibber-jabber may eschew the most interesting and potential-filled part of this surprising hire.

Doug Collins was the guy who took a skinny, athletic kid without a whole lot of game and turned him into a tough, bruising, beast of a power forward. He also took a skilled wing player without a true position and began to mold him into one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history. Those guys were Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen, respectively – but couldn’t he have a similar effect on guys like Tyrus Thomas and Luol Deng?

John Paxson was there, on the team, when Collins kicked Grant’s skinny ass into the weight room. He watched Collins work with those two talented youngsters, and he saw what they became when the Bulls were winning Championships just a few years later. If he thinks Doug Collins is the right man for the job, I have to believe it’s because of what he saw at that time.

Paxson knows how Skiles lost this team, and he knows how Collins lost his job 20 years ago. So he must know that Collins is better suited to handle this bunch – whether because his years spent in the broadcast booth have mellowed him out, or simply because he’s a better match for the personnel.

With the first pick in the draft, this Bulls group is a team that should be able to compete in the Eastern Conference in the upcoming season, and if a man who knows the team and their new coach as well as anyone sees a good fit, I can accept that he knows what he’s talking about.

Or I can at least reserve judgment until Collins coaches his first few games for this team, or presides over his first locker room revolt. That’s assuming, of course, that he does in fact get hired. Which, as we know, is not yet a certainty.

So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

When was the last time you went on YouTube and watched some old Michael Jordan highlights? Can you remember the smile on your face when John Paxson’s three beat the Suns in the 1993 Finals? Do you still consider Phil Jackson a Bull, or has his time with the Lakers adjusted your thinking?

It has been ten years since the Bulls last brought a world championship back to the city of Chicago. Ten years since the last rally in Grant Park, ten years since the last banner in the United Center rafters, ten years since the last champagne bath and confetti shower. Those great teams, the six NBA titles, the 72 regular season wins in one year, the two best all-around players of the ’90s (as well as the best coach and best rebounder), are now all a distant memory. The Bulls now are a joke, the leagues biggest disappointment and once again looking for a coach to replace Jackson.

Since the last championship in June of 1998, the Bulls have made the post-season only three times, advancing past the first round only once. Not a single Bull has played in the All-Star game since Jordan in ‘98. And once again, the most exciting day of the off-season for Bulls fans is the NBA Draft lottery. Ten years since the last title. I guess the old saying is true: Time flies when your team really stinks.

So who is at fault for this decade of deprivation? There are the players, the coaches, management, even the ownership. Or how about all of the above. It really has been a group effort in turning the Bulls from the greatest basketball team the planet had ever scene to nothing more than an after-thought.

It started in ‘98, after the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz in the Finals to win their sixth and final title. Scottie Pippen said he would return to the team only if Jordan came back. Jordan said he would only return if Jackson came back. And Jackson said he would return only if he got a huge raise. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Jerry Krause didn’t like the sound of a raise, so they let Jackson go. That led to Pippen being traded to the Houston Rockets for a pile of scraps. (More accurately it was forward Roy Rogers, released before he ever played a game in a Bulls uniform, and a second round pick, which became center Jake Voskul. Yes, Jerry Krause is an idiot.) And Jordan made a big announcement, stating he was finally hanging up his Nike sneakers so he could spend time with his family and drive carpool. (Since then MJ has come back to basketball once, purchased parts of two NBA teams and most likely driven his kids to school zero times.)

So out went the most successful playoff coach in league history and two of the sports all-time greats and in came coach Tim Floyd, whose career highlights at the time included three consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament’s second round at Iowa State. Other key players from the second three-peat also left, with forward Dennis Rodman going to the Lakers, center Luc Longley signing the Suns, and reserve guard Steve Kerr becoming a key contributor on two championship teams in San Antonio. The players who started the most games for the 1999 Bulls isn’t exactly a who’s who of NBA All-Stars: Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper, Dickey Simpkins, Brent Barry and Mark Bryant. A year after going 62-20 and winning title number six, the Bulls went 13-37 in the lockout shortened ‘99 season.

The shinning light at the end of that disastrous season was that the Bulls got the top pick in the ‘99 draft. Filled with one of the deepest pools of talent of any of the drafts in recent memory - nine future All-Stars were picked in the class of ‘99 - the Bulls actually had two of the top 16 selections thanks to a trade with Phoenix. And in maybe the biggest shock in team history, Krause actually picked two of those nine future All-Stars. With the first pick in the draft, the Bulls selected Duke power forward Elton Brand and with pick 16, they acquired St. John’s small forward Ron Artest.

Brand and Artest each had solid seasons in ‘99-2000, with Brand even taking home co-Rookie of the Year Award. But the team struggled again, finishing 17-65. That led to two more lottery picks, as Krause took Iowa State forward Marcus Fizer and Michigan shooter Jamal Crawford in the summer of 2000. Floyd now had a strong, young nucleus to work with, as well as some nice veteran players in Ron Mercer and Brad Miller. But the ‘00-01 season was even worse than the year before, as the team ended the season 15-67.

For most organizations, three consecutive seasons where the team won less than a quarter of the games they played would signify that some sort of a change needs to be made at the top. Either the person picking the players, the general manager, should leave or the person in charge of motivating and teaching the players, the head coach, should be on the first train out of town. Apparently that’s not how Reinsdorf and the Bulls do it. Both Krause and Floyd kept their jobs in the summer of 2001. But some changes were made. Two years into the re-building process, the duo felt that it wasn’t going the right direction, so they traded the teams’ best player, Brand, in exchange for straight out of high school big man Tyson Chandler. Teamed with fellow prep-to-pro center Eddy Curry, the team now had no go-to players and two long-term projects.

Finally, 25 games into the ‘01-02 season, Tim Floyd was fired. I’m not sure if it was his career 49-190 record (winning percentage: 21%) or the fact that the Bulls never escaped the basement of the Central Division in his nearly three full seasons on the bench, but whatever it was, it ended the worst stretch of professional basketball the city has ever seen. Assistant Bill Berry was the interim coach for two games (0-2) before Krause hired former Bulls center Bill Cartwright to take over full time. If anybody could teach the two baby big men toughness, it would be the guy who dominated Patrick Ewing in the playoffs back-to-back seasons during the first three-peat.

That ‘01-02 season was also noteworthy for the big deal that Krause pulled at the trade deadline. The team was struggling again, on its way to 21-61 record and the number two pick in the draft. Apparently the GM felt the only thing the team was missing was a giant contract to fill up the salary cap, making it impossible to sign an elite free agent. So he traded the teams best defender, Artest, best post player, Miller, as well as Mercer to the Indiana Pacers for swingman Jalen Rose (and his $12 million/year contract) and reserves Travis Best, Kevin Ollie and Norm Richardson. Along with Duke point guard Jay Williams, who the Bulls took in the ‘02 draft, rebuilding plan number two now seemed ready to contend for a playoff spot.

Yet for some strange reason, the nucleus of Rose, Crawford, Curry, Chandler, Williams and free agent Donyell Marshall didn’t produce many wins. Even with Cartwright’s guidance, the team still played no defense and refused to share the ball. Seven guys on the ‘02-03 team (those six plus Fizer) averaged over nine points a game, but not one player averaged more than five assists. The team finished 30-52 and on April 7, 2003, Krause stepped down as the Bulls GM, citing health reasons. The man who had won Executive of the Year twice and was the brains behind the six title trophy’s walked away with most fans remembering how he alienated Jackson, Jordan and Pippen in ‘98 and failed to turn the Bulls back into contenders.

The man assigned to replace Krause was none other than John Paxson, another key member of the Bulls’ first three-peat; the team now had the championship center as coach and the point guard as general manager. Paxson’s first move would be a memorable one. The team went into the ‘03 off-season thinking that all they needed was a glue guy, a player who could do the little things to get wins. Then, a week before the draft, the team and its point guard were struck a big blow. Jay Williams, who had played decent in his rookie season but had shown flashes of brilliance, crashed his motorcycle into a street post. The crash severed a nerve in Williams’ leg, fractured his pelvis and tore up his knee. A week later, the team drafted Kansas point guard Kirk Hinrich, pretty much giving up any hope that Williams would recover.

With a rookie point guard running the show again, the Bulls struggled in ‘03-04. Cartwright was fired 14 games in, and after two contests under longtime assistant Pete Myers, Paxson hired Scott Skiles to be head coach. The GM also traded Rose to Toronto in December, and once again, thanks to a trade with the Suns, had two of the top seven picks in the ‘04 draft. With those picks, the team selected UConn shooting guard Ben Gordon and Duke small forward Luol Deng. The Gordon selection paved the way for Crawford’s trade out of town, as he was dealt to the Knicks.

Finally, with rebuilding plan number three underway, the Bulls finally had a group worthy of the playoffs. The team started ‘04-05 1-10, but finished strong with a record of 47-35, making the post-season for the first time since the glory days. Gordon won the NBA Sixth Man Award and even though the team lost in round one to Washington, the future was looking good. And even after Curry was traded to the Knicks in the summer of 2005 because of his refusal to take a heart exam, the team looked like contenders for the Eastern Conference Title. Another slow start hurt their playoff seeding, pitting them in round one against the Miami Heat, the team that would eventually go on to win the NBA Title. The Bulls put up a good fight but once again couldn’t get into the second round.

2006-07 was to be the year. Really. Paxson traded Chandler, and in his place signed Ben Wallace, the four-time Defensive Player of the Year. Gordon and Deng looked ready to break out from good players to stars and glue guys Andres Noccioni and PJ Brown did all the intangibles needed to win basketball games. The Bulls went 55-27, swept the Heat in round one of the playoffs, but fell short in the Eastern semi-finals, losing to Detroit four games to two.

Then everything fell apart…again. Predicted by some to make the Finals, the Bulls struggled all season to get easy shots, play team defense and beat bad teams. Skiles was fired in December, replaced by assistant Jim Boylan. The team did no better under him, even after Wallace was dealt at the trade deadline. Young players Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah, both acquired in the Curry trade, flashed potential skills but never put it all together. And Hinrich, Deng, and Gordon all digressed back to average players. The day after the season ended, Boylan was given the pink slip.

That brings us to now. Ten years since the last title, the Bulls are looking for head coach number seven (Floyd, Berry, Cartwright, Myers, Skiles, Boylan and TBA). Rebuilding plan number three (Brand/Artest, Curry/Chandler/Williams, and Hinrich/Gordon/Deng) looks like another loser as fans wonder when the team will contend again. At least, when Bulls fans want to see good basketball, there’s still memories to rely on.