Bulls on the Offensive! (Vinny Finally Fired Edition)
Like a kid having trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve, I sat up last night thinking about what exactly would be said this morning at the Berto Center. For much of the season I was on Team Gar-Pax, but after the March 30th incident, I began to drift over to Team Vinny. Now that didn’t mean that I necessarily wanted Vinny to stay on and coach next year, but I did feel a little bit more blame could be placed on management for not acquiring a replacement for Ben Gordon’s 3-pt shooting.
I had concluded that I would try to take up Henry Abbott from TrueHoop’s challenge to write a recap focusing on defense only. I figured that would be easy as I expected Gar-Pax to be extremely defensive about their decision to hire Vinny in the first place, not firing him in the winter when they offered him little to no support, the March 30th incident, and the firing of a coach that brought a young team to the playoffs two years in a row.
If the Forman or Paxson were defensive in today’s press conference they must have been watching Golden State game tape (lack of defense, not the whole completely dysfunctional organization part). In what I thought a wise choice, they refrained from double-teaming the press, instead choosing to go with a man-to-man approach.
Forman went first, as a GM should, and acknowledged that Vinny Del Negro had worked hard, and had certainly done some good things with the Bulls. I thought it was odd that when asked why they fired Del Negro, Forman responded there was not “anything specific” and then went on to say that where they were just wasn’t where they wanted to get. I can’t quite remember but didn’t the Bulls make the playoffs these past two seasons? Even more remarkable this year considering they struggled with numerous injuries, BG’s departure, ho-hum free agent signings and two significant trades during the season? Where else did they expect the Bulls “to get”? What Forman really meant to say was that they didn’t believe Vinny could get them to where they wanted to go.
Forman was clear, in his last bit of defense he played, that he would let the media drive past him and discuss the March 30th incident with the man responsible for it, John Paxson, sliding over to provide the weak side help defense. Interestingly enough, he said that Paxson wanted to address the matter with the media immediately after it happened, but Forman told him to hold off until the end of the season to avoid distraction (Whoops!).
From there Forman then went on the offensive, turning the press conference into an extended free agency pitch. It was as if they were saying “we know we can’t talk with all of you until July 1st, but put on these 3-D glasses and it’s as if I’m talking directly to you -Lebron, Chris, Dwyane, Joe, Carlos, whomever”. He praised his young nucleus of Rose, Noah, Deng, Hinrich, Gibson and Johnson, explaining that they were almost all in their early 20′s (although he called Kirk a glue guy, which is code for “I know Kirk is turning 30 next year”). He went on to detail the great city of Chicago, the great fans, and the great organization – insert talking points – which was first rate, with great ownership, and unified.
Forman offered very little in terms of what he would look for in a new coach, indicating that today was truly the start of their search and that he had twenty messages waiting for him on his voicemail after the press conference.
With that, John Paxson took the podium and without recanting too many of the specifics of the March 30th incident, apologized to Del Negro and the rest of the Bulls organization. He explained that as a player he had to fight and scrap for everything he had, but that there was no place for such behavior as an executive in the organization. Paxson also smartly acknowledged that it didn’t matter the reason for why he stood up to Vinny on that day, he was wrong and he was still embarrassed by his decision. Consistent with the Bulls organization’s message that Vinny didn’t do anything wrong and they were merely looking for a new dynamic moving in the future, Paxson saluted Vinny for being a diligent, hard worker, who did not short change the Bulls in his preparation.
Post-Script to Press Conference:
About a half an hour later, Vinny briefly spoke with the press outside of the Berto Center. He thanked Jerry Reinsdorf for the opportunity to coach the Bulls and thanked his players for their effort and support. He credited his assistant coaches for working extremely hard throughout the two seasons. Lastly, he thanked the fans for continuing to support the team and its growth.
Notice anyone missing? You can’t blame Vinny for omitting the two guys above after the complete lack of support throughout the season. They easily could have lent Vinny the support and still made the same decision at the end of the season. It should not be hard to get a quality coach in place this offseason, but only time will tell whether Forman and Paxson can succeed with the upcoming free agent class.
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