Saturday, May 8, 2010
The recycling of coaches in the NBA is one of the most ridiculous practices in all of sports. This is not to say that someone who is fired was bad at their job and unworthy of a second chance, because people get those chances everyday in this country. I mean lets be honest, if your first opportunity in coaching was for the Nets or the Clippers, you weren't put into a position where success was possible, especially if a championship is the expectation. But we are talking about someone you are paying millions of dollars. Those people are C-level in the corporate world, and if they get fired, another company offering a job with the same or better pay isn't sitting there at their doorstep. This has been a long held opinion of mine and was recently refreshed as the names started coming out for the newly opened Chicago Bulls head coaching position.
On Tuesday, rightly or wrongly, the Bulls fired coach Vinny Del Negro. Reasons scattered from the altercations between Vinny and John Paxson to the fact that Vinny runs a high school offense consisting of five plays (literally). Bottom Line: Vinny was hired to be fired two years ago. At the time the Bulls were still paying Scott Skiles millions of dollars to sit at home, swung and miss on hiring Mike D'Antoni because they were hesitant to pull out the checkbook, and simply didn't want to pay a head coach. Enter Vinny Del Negro. Given his success over the last two years with a team not yet built to make a playoff run, he probably didn't deserve to get fired after leading them to the playoffs two years in a row, including one of the most exciting first round playoff matchups ever. Vinny, however, was not going to be the coach that lead the Bulls to their first championship since Michael, Scottie, and Phil. So it was time to make the change going into a summer that could completely change the course of the franchise for years to come (or put it back on course, however you want to view it).
The news was not unexpected and candidates had been coming out for weeks, but when it became official, speculation really took off. The initial lists have included Doug Collins (fired twice), Maurice Cheeks (fired twice), Eric Musselman (fired twice), Phil Jackson (a dream thats not going to happen), Jeff Van Gundy (fired once), Byron Scott (fired twice), Sam Mitchell (fired once), Tom Thibodeau (long-time assistant), Lawrence Frank (fired once), Dwane Casey (fired once), Avery Johnson (fired once), and John Calapari (fired once). So the question is, where is this desire for hiring a once (or more) deposed coach coming from? They obviously know something I don't know, as I would never claim to be an expert in basketball. I am merely a fan, but something seems fishy here.
Here's the backup for my case against recycling coaches. If you look back over the last two decades, there have been three coaches that had previously been fired to win a championship. The first was Chuck Daly who led the Pistons to back-to-back championships in '89 and '90. He had been allowed less than a full season in a previous stint with the Cavs, which is hard to even count given the time allowed and the franchise. The second was Larry Brown who also won with the Pistons in 2004. Brown, of course, has long been considered a journeyman in the basketball world and when he was fired by Larry Bird from the Indiana Pacers he had already had successful stints with Denver, New Jersey, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Clippers, and a National Championship with the Kansas Jayhawks. A resume far different from the names above. So, what teams are really hoping for is the next Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers won a championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008, after having spent four years with the Orlando Magic before being fired. The other names of the last 20-25 years Pat Riley (4 championships), Phil Jackson (10), Rudy Tomjanovich (2), Greg Popovich (4), not bad company. If you go to twenty-five years you add in KC Jones, who won two titles coaching the Boston Celtics but had previously been fired by the Washington Bullets. So, over the last twenty-five years that makes four coaches previously fired in the NBA, but only for two franchises, the Celtics and the Pistons, who, oh by the way, have won the first and fifth most championships of all time.
All this is to say that I don't know who the Chicago Bulls should hire if they want their next coach to take them to a championship, but I will say this, hiring someone like Dwane Casey, Sam Mitchell, or Eric Musselman would not only be unsexy, but also unsuccessful.
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