From Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times: “Bulls general manager John Paxson has made it clear to coach Vinny Del Negro that rookie point guard Derrick Rose should be on the court at the end of games. ‘I’ve talked to Vinny about this,’ Paxson said Saturday during the WMVP-AM (1000) broadcast of the Bulls’ 105-102 victory over Houston, in which Rose scored 16 of his team-high 22 points in the fourth quarter. ‘Our future is Derrick. That’s no secret. There are times that I feel — and Vinny knows this — that he should be on the floor at the end of games.'”
Finally! A voice of reason! Or common sense, anyway.
Paxson’s comments were likely a response to Vinny’s claim that benching Rose (in favor of Kirk Hinrich) was his to make as ”the decider.” Then, after the Bulls beat the Rockets — mostly ’cause Vinny didn’t bench Derrick in the fourth — Del Negro went on to say: “The thing with Derrick is people always tend to forget he’s a rookie. He does make mistakes. I have more confidence in Derrick than just about anybody. He’s been fantastic all year. You have to go with the peaks and valleys young players go through.”
Can you imagine if Paul Silas had benched LeBron James in several different fourth-quarter situations during the King’s rookie season…and then went on to defend it to the press? That would have gone over like taco filled with crawling insects. But then, Vinny’s a rookie, too. Which Pax was quick to point out: “We knew when we gave Vinny the job that he had never coached before, so he was going to make mistakes. And that’s the reason we gave him a very veteran staff, to help him organize practices and game situations. He has a very open mind about everything. Vinny’s a smart guy, and he has a lot of ideas. You can’t implement them all. … That will come as time goes on.”
I sure hope so. But the fact that the “veteran staff” didn’t step in (or did and were ignored) and the team’s GM had to step in and point out something so painfully obvious didn’t exactly boost my confidence — which was already shaky to begin with — in Vinny’s ability to guide this team into greatness. Or even pretty goodness. With each passing day, it gets harder and harder to envision Del Negro coaching this team next season.
Wow, this is incredibly awkward. I can already imagine Del Negro’s subtle “See? I was right!” comments to the press if a mistake by Rose loses the Bulls a game. And I can’t wait for more of his justifications the next time Rose’s heroics propel Chicago to another unlikely comeback. Should be fun.
I still don’t understand how Pax hired him. There’re many unemployed coaches that are 10 times better, right now.
Latin_D — Well, Vinny has repeatedly told us he’s a stubborn Italian…and he was right. It almost felt like after the first game in which he got blasted for benching Rose, he did it again a few times so that people would see who was in charge. And all that did was earn him a talking to from HIS boss. Way to go, Vinny.
There certainly are better coashes. I think Vinny was brought in as a placeholder because the coaches Reinsdorf really wanted (D’Antoni and Collins) said “No.” And he probably figured that either Vinny would far exceed expectations or else there would be plenty more coaches on the market this summer…since 10-12 get fired every season.
Vinny’s fate has been sealed in my opinion for a while. The guy is not an NBA head coach. I would love to see this team with Avery Johnson running the show…not that he is that great, but next to Vinny he looks like Red Auerbach. The season is 3/4 done and he still hasn’t esablished an identity of any type at all. I’m already thinking about available replacements in the offseason. I’m pretty sure behind the scenes this is a Reonsdorf cost savings hire…too bad we got what we paid for. I know he is on the hook for Skiles salary this year and that played a factor in not shelling out a ton of cash for a coach, but goddamn this is horrible.
I’m not a big Avery fan, myself, but I agree that he’s a far better coach than Del Negro. However, he’s also famous for his “tough love” approach – even when he was a player. This team hasn’t reacted favorably in the past to inflexible coaches…
Haha it’s funny reading the comments. I was praying they wouldn’t hire Avery because I really do not care for him at all, but in the past couple weeks I’ve found myself thinking he wouldn’t be THAT bad.
Can you think of ONE time this entire season when you could say that was a good play or even that was a bad play? I can’t. Do they have any plays, any structure… on offense or defense? What the heck do they do during practice? It’s frustrating to even watch this guy “coach”.