OK, the impression I get is that the players and especially Ben Wallace, probably led the coup on Skiles. And an unhappy (read, any) role played by Ben Wallace. You've got this column from KC in the trib: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>A team source said Reinsdorf and Paxson met with Ben Wallace and his agent, Arn Tellem, who is close with the chairman, shortly after the Bulls concluded their annual extended November trip to gauge the team's mood regarding Skiles.</div> I also read (and I can't find a link now), that Wallace pulled the team over and gave them a talking to after they got the news of Skiles being fired. I'm no rocket scientist or anything, but I think the new coach is going to have a hell of a time being more than a figurehead on this team. He's got Wallace, who appears to have an ear of the big boss man making demands of his role. And despite his apparent power, Wallace is old, not that good, and close to untradeable. And at the same time, I'm pretty sure Paxson would like to see some of his "key young players" be developed. You know, Noah, Thomas, and that big second round pick that's played more than both of them lately. Who's the new coach going to be beholden to? One does get the impression Skiles concluded this team isn't going anywhere and it showed. One also gets the impression he might be right, although I think Smith's totally right that the players he gave the most leeway to are the guys who most let him down.
This comment<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>no one player got Skiles fired, although it was instructive when Ben Wallace was asked Monday how he would characterize his relationship with Skiles. Wallace laughed. "How would I characterize my personal relationship with any coach?" he said. Wallace is said to have told Paxson last week, "He quit on us, so we've quit on him." Thus apparently the reason for the timing.</div>
You know, if we're going to make Ben Wallace part of this team, then Rick Carlisle and Larry Brown, two of his former coaches, may be the best options. I want a big name coach. No Boylan or Myers for the rest of the year. No guy like Lenny Wilkens who will doom us to mediocrity. Larry Brown might be the guy. We are supposed to be built in the Pistons model, so maybe he can make it work. Carlisle sure made things work in a number of places too, so I wouldn't be against him. Same with Van Gundy.
It seems like the team hates Wallace. Interesting that Paxson would ask Wallace what the team's mood for Skiles was. Obviously, guys like Duhon, Gordon, Hinrich weren't overly thrilled by the move based on their comments. Michael Wilbon said that the team was asking (that would probably mean Gordon, Deng, Duhon, and Hinrich) Scott Skiles to play Aaron Gray more. It sounds like the core hates Wallace, and Paxson is starting to get mad at the core for hating him.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Dec 25 2007, 08:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>"How would I characterize my personal relationship with any coach?" he said. Wallace is said to have told Paxson last week, "He quit on us, so we've quit on him."</div> You gotta love having players that only bring 0% effort. Wallace is getting paid by the owner, not Skiles. The least he could do is earn his paycheck and show up when he's on the clock, regardless of who his coach is. Wallace is supposed to be a leader. Childish behavior by multimillionaires, so fun to watch, and make great role models for the youngsters.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Return of the Raider @ Dec 25 2007, 09:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Dec 25 2007, 08:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>"How would I characterize my personal relationship with any coach?" he said. Wallace is said to have told Paxson last week, "He quit on us, so we've quit on him."</div> You gotta love having players that only bring 0% effort. Wallace is getting paid by the owner, not Skiles. The least he could do is earn his paycheck and show up when he's on the clock, regardless of who his coach is. Wallace is supposed to be a leader. Childish behavior by multimillionaires, so fun to watch, and make great role models for the youngsters. </div> Yeah, he's set a pretty good example for our younger players. For me to poop on!
There's a very different and more interesting take on all this that I'd like to raise. You hardly ever see a Bulls story that mentions Reinsdorf being involved in anything. People assume he has given Paxson a mandate to stay below the LT threshold and that kind of thing, but I've never seen it in the form of a quote or in part of any article about the team. In fact, the last two times I saw anything about Reinsdorf being involved in anything to do with the team were: 1) he and Pax flying to California to sign Tyson Chandler, and before that, 2) he stepped in on the Skiles re-signing negotiations and got the deal done. Before that, it was signing Pax as GM. Put all this together, and Reinsdorf has been invisible and about as hands off as he possibly could be. In this light, it's interesting to analyze this: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>A team source said Reinsdorf and Paxson met with Ben Wallace and his agent, Arn Tellem, who is close with the chairman, shortly after the Bulls concluded their annual extended November trip to gauge the team's mood regarding Skiles.</div> There's four people involved, any one of them could have called for this meeting. It seems that Paxson and Reinsdorf initiated the meeting to "gauge the team's mood" rather than Wallace asking for the meeting to complain about Skiles. It's evident from the quote that Tellem has Reinsdorf's ear. The interesting question is, how long has Wallace been complaining to Tellem and then Tellem talking to Reinsdorf about the problem? The next question would be, what took Reinsdorf so long to get involved? After all, Skiles coached Wallace all last season as well. Of course, the question of why Reinsdorf got involved at all is a good one. Perhaps peoples' take on the relationship between him and Paxson isn't accurate. My take is that he's an owner and owners want their teams to win, but he's given Paxson a lot of rope and free reign to do what he wants up until now. With mixed results - Paxson took a team that won 15, 21, and then 30 games and has turned it into a team that has won 40+ each of the last four seasons (nice!) but has faltered in the playoffs each time (not so nice). Look at the record this year and the performance of the team and there's clearly something wrong. We can analyze that some more (e.g. the way the team is built, the coach, the poorer play of the players, etc.) or we can see it as a reason that Reinsdorf might say to himself that it's time to get involved. So he chooses to get involved. Who's he going to talk to? There's more to the Reinsdorf/Paxson relationship to consider. Maybe Paxson didn't want to re-sign Skiles and Reinsdorf forced him to accept Skiles as coach. That's not unreasonable given what went on when Skiles was re-signed. If so, it could be that Paxson and Wallace teamed up to go to Reinsdorf and beg for the green light to fire Skiles. You'd think that the players would have talked to Paxson all along.
Interesting thoughts. Who choses to get involved? Well, ultimately it's Reinsdorf. He's the boss, so he's the only guy in the room, ultimately, with the power to say no. If he didn't want to meet, he could have said he didn't want to meet. And so forth. Still, how does it bode for the future? That's largely where my problem is. It seems to me that Wallace's seeming power and authority just grew a fair amount at a time when his interests are less aligned than ever with that of the team (his interests are in playing as much as possible and contending, the Bulls interest collectively is very likely in developing their multitude of young big guys). I guess seeing how that shakes out will tell who's calling the shots. I'm off for a couple hour drive to ponder it and go home
