By Rafael Uehara
Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski first reported a heated argument between Chicago Bulls’ Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson and Coach Vinny Del Negro about the amount of minutes played by hurt Center Joakin Noah. Noah has battled plantar fasciitis since the All Star Break and since plantar fasciitis is an injury that only heals after an extended period of rest time, Chicago has brought Noah back to the lineup in limited minutes and yet Noah has been a major factor on the team’s playoff push. Everybody has read the report by now and know the details of what happened and why it happened.
By now, everybody has also realized that Vinny Del Negro will be fired after the end of the season. According to ESPN’s Chris Broussard, the decision has been made ever since Chicago blew a 38 point lead midway through the 3rd quarter against the Kings at home in mid-December. Apparently, Del Negro just hasn’t been let go yet because no suitable replacement was found. In his second season with the Bulls, Del Negro is on pace to clinch his second playoff berth with the team that has shacked its roster for the second trade deadline in row.
Yes, Vinny Del Negro isn’t a very good coach yet but close the eyes for the results he has gotten so far, taking all the circumstances into consideration, is stupid. He was a main part of the reason why the Bulls lost a couple of those close playoff games against the Celtics last season because of his poor timeout management. That said, it’s impossible not to note that he has driven the rebuilding Bulls to the postseason twice in two years after moves in order to shrink salaries were made, after all the bad breaks and after all the inside pressure. Not to mention that his future is already sealed.
By not reacting to Paxson’s meltdown, Vinny was able to get out of this mess as the wronged one. Today, he became the Sandra Bullock of NBA. Don’t believe me? Check Charles Barkley’s soapbox moment, standing up for his buddy on TNT. Reminded me of everybody after Bullock’s Oscar speech. Del Negro wasn’t the Bulls’ first option to take that job and probably no matter how great of a job he had done, he wouldn’t be kept after the summer of 2010 anyway. Vinny made some mistakes with the Bulls and the Bulls definitely made some evaluating mistakes with Vinny, not having patience and not taking all the circumstances under consideration. Vinny won’t be back but differently from Terry Porter and Michael Curry, Vinny should be able to find a second job and move on from there.
Since the Bulls can only be the eighth seed and should play the Cleveland Cavaliers on the first round and also since the Cavs are so deep and complete, Chicago will be one and done, so a look ahead of the Bulls’ future is in order. Although their front office situation should be unclear now since Paxson goes to bed tonight as an idiot incapable of knowing limits, truth is the Bulls are on pace to build an All Star team and be a contender for years to come after next summer.
All the moves made on the past two years (trading for Brad Miller’s & Jerome James’ expiring contracts on last season’s trade deadline, not re-signing Ben Gordon back, transforming underachieving Tyrus Thomas and benchwarmer Aaron Gray on the expiring deals of Flip Murray, Devin Brown and being able to move John Salmons on this season’s trade deadline) should pay out on free agency where Chicago has about $18 million dollars to spend. Also keep in mind that the Bulls are already a playoff team right now and that the Bulls provide the best opportunity to win not only on the near future but also on the long run. Chicago already has core players Derek Rose, Luol Deng and Joakin Noah in place + overpaid bench contributor Kirk Hinrich and developmental pieces like this season’s draft picks Taj Gibson, who seems on the right track so far, and James Johnson, who at least seems to keep the right mentality so far. If LeBron wants to win now and beyond, multiple championships, he should go to Chicago. Michael Jordan’s legacy probably will scare him off though. No problem. The Bulls and the Clippers are probably the only couple of teams with major resources and expectations on this super free agency summer that don’t need to hit an indisputable home run in order to leave the period as the biggest winners. Sure, add James, Dwayne Wade or Chris Bosh would be great but maxing Joe Johnson and attempting to convince to David Lee not get max money from the Newark Nets should be, someway, an even better fit.
The Knicks and the Nets are putting all of their hopes on this free agency summer, so are the Bulls but thanks to Del Negro’s job, who in fairness had much better talent to work with in this two years than Mike D’Antoni or Lawrence Frank/Kiki Vandeweghe, Bulls’ fans didn’t suffer the worst impact of that, don’t have next summer as an obsession that COULD (or not) save the franchise and even had, will have playoff series to get warmed up. Whomever they sign, won’t come as a savior but the last missing piece in order to maybe kick off a new era. They also must find a nice fit as a coach which is important but shouldn’t be difficult with the amount of talent they are on pace to put together. Chicago put itself in a position to come back to the glory days.






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