I think Vinnie started this past season as a joke (and often coached like it), and was a joke for most of the season. But by the end of the season and through the playoffs, I didn't see any national level guys going on about how he sucked anymore. I think the "consensus" (as it almost always does), did pretty much a 180 when we ended the season hot and took the Celtics to 7 games in the playoffs. Suddenly Vinnie become a guy that "got his legs under him" but who "never lost his team" and had them "fighting to the end". And he's got a system (such as it is) that allows scorers some amount of freedom. I have no idea if players feel this way or not, but that's the sense I get from reading folks outside of Chicago. As for Chicago players, I don't see anyone complaining about him the way they pretty openly did about Boylan, who was obviously ludicrous to the end. None of this means he's great, but in the context of attracting a FA, he's probably the best alternative. What are the alternatives. * Vinnie and the Bulls do well this season. I don't think a coach with two years experience and an ok record is a negative when attracting a free agent. He's not a positive in the mold of Phil Jackson or Pat Riley, but I don't think he's much of a negative. * Vinnie and the Bulls do poorly this season, Vinnie gets axed at the end. Team is in disarray, and it's not obvious who they hire. To really make a splash with FAs, they'd need to go out and spend on a big name guy (Avery Johnson, I guess?). Not even sure that'd be an unmitigated positive, since some players might not like the big name guy's style. If they've got another unheralded guy, he's got all the drawbacks of Vinnie, and without any positive track record. * Vinnie gets the axe in the middle of the season. Well, I suppose it depends who we hire, but limping through the year with an interim coach would seem to be pose all the problems of hiring one at the end of the season, but even more uncertainty and lack of track record to boot. So I think clearly the best situation we can create is for Vinnie to do well. The top free agents want to come to stable and improving situations. The more stable and improving our situation is, the more continuity we have, the better.
That's how bad Reinsdorf has screwed things up. You need to pull for Vinnie. You know who has even more appeal than PJax or Riley. D'Antoni. Hard not to complain about spilled milk around here.
I like Vinnie and I hope he does well but the players have to keep listening to him this year for him to actually earn serious respect of the rest of the NBA. The Bulls-Celtics series was a fluke.....KG along with Powe were out and we still didn't beat them when we should have. There was also that 15 game span or so where he was sitting Rose in favor of Hinrich at the end of the 4th quarter. I still don't know what he was thinking there. After Pax talked to him, he switched to Rose in the 4th almost immediately. Then there was the Bulls-Miami game where Vinnie put in Sef to inbound the ball only to have it stolen by Wade following with a Marion dunk to win the game for Miami. Stuff like that sticks in my head but hopefully he's learned from it and he'll get wiser. The only person who I think he might have a problem with is Tyrus. There was something that obviously happened between them after Game 1 of the Celtics series. Yeah, Tyrus made some big shots but you just know that Vinnie nor the other coaches wanted him taking those. T-Time was pretty much non-existant the next 6 games. Whenever Vinnie mentioned the team this summer, he NEVER even spoke of Tyrus and then there were all those trade rumors. Plus, they drafted two big guys to fill in the void if they get rid of him. It's obvious that JR doesn't care for VDN that much and that combined with the terrible schedule, he's got the odds stacked against him.
The only thing I give VDN credit for last year was getting the ball into Rose's hands more as the season went on (and consequently out of the hands of other less effective players). I think they achieved in spite of Vinnie as much as because of him. I didn't particularly like the way he marginalized Tyrus as the C's series went on, but I have no idea how much of that was Tyrus's fault, so it's hard to assign blame (although everybody around here seems to be able to do that without having the first clue what they are talking about...) But I have to agree that the best thing for the bulls is for them to succeed whether it's because of Vinnie or not. That's not going to keep management from sacking him either, based on past history.
