KC Johnson seems to think that while Skiles wanted to get out of the Bulls with his reputation intact and perhaps saw the writing on the wall with the Bulls, he wasn't happy about being fired. http://www.northtonorth.com/blogs/SoundClips.php (Check out the KC Johnson interview on April 23rd, go to the 5:45 mark when they starting talking about it) I disagree that Skiles showed that he can mold a bad team into a good team. He can take a team tailor-made to his style who are rookie-deals/aging vets with a strong work ethic and coachability and make it decent. That's pretty much all he showed here in Chicago. My take? It was Wallace/Tellam vs Skiles. They committed a lot of $$$ to Wallace. They were saying Skiles was the problem. Skiles probably said that Wallace was the problem (or at least a large part). "superstar" vs coach, superstar usually wins. Once Skiles got da boot and the team still sucked, Paxson had the ammo to do what he really wanted but couldn't (would'nt?), which was to remove the cancer.
So Jerry Reinsdorf was the guy who fired Skiles and then relented at last and allowed Wallace to be traded?
I think that Skiles was a bit disheartened by the play.......the TERRIBLE play this season, but nonetheless, he liked coaching the Bulls. Sure, Skiles made coaching mistakes, but he is human. An even larger mistake was made by Reinsdorf and John Paxson by abruptly firing him. Ben Wallace isn't a superstar anymore, he's a star. Lebron James is a superstar, Kobe Bryant is, D Wade is, Dwight Howard is, Tim Duncan is, Manu Ginoboli is, Tony Parker is, Steve Nash is, Amare Stoudamire is, Kevin Garnett is, Paul Pierce is, Ray Allen is, Chauncey Billups is, Chris Paul is, Jason Kiidd is, Dirk Nowitzki is, Gilbert Arenas is, Shaq is, even Vince Carter......Ben Wallace is <u>not</u>. He WAS, but the second he put on a Bulls jersey he began crumbling up. If Paxson and Reinsdorf would think twice about choosing a "star" over a coach, then we would have more than likely had a slightly better season. Jim Boylan is not Scott Skiles; Skiles is a much better coach.
