Vinny's Last Stand

I can see light at the end of the tunnel. We are almost there, Bulls fans. The biggest coaching abomination in the history of the franchise has one, or possibly, two more games to go. Vinny Del NoMind is like Nicky Santoro at the end of Casino…..Dead man walking. As someone who has lived and died with the Bulls my entire life, it has been an insult watching someone who couldn’t coach up a Men’s rec league team. This two year coaching stint has given me more anxiety than a weekend in Vegas with The Blade. I’ve been hard on him since the start because he is over matched in every aspect of the game. The Bulls run about 5 plays on offense, the same in-bounds plays that a blind person can see coming, and oh yeah, he played a 7-man rotation in November that led to Joakim Noah’s foot problems. Del No Mind’s selfishness has been his biggest hindrance as a coach. He has known since day one that he was a short term coach who would need to win, and win big, to fulfill his 3 year contract. I want to preface this by saying Vinny shouldn’t be fired because of back to back .500 seasons, or first round playoff exits. He should be fired because of……
1. Last season…Heat vs Bulls: The Bulls are in-bounding the ball with a chance to win and Vinny calls on Thabo Sefolosha to in-bound the ball. No problem, right? Well, it would be fine if Thabo ever in-bounded the ball. It also would have helped if Thabo had played big minutes in that game and was in a flow. Neither happened, and Thabo turned the ball over on the in-bounds play. Heat call time-out, execute a solid play, score, and win. Where was Rose? On the bench for the final crucial plays. Take a bow Vinny.

2. Last season…Bulls at Heat: A double overtime classic. Bulls have the ball with a chance to take the last shot. Instead of letting Derrick Rose or Ben Gordon handle the ball at the top of the key with a chance to create a shot for themselves or a teammate, Vincenzo calls on John Salmons to go one on one for the game winner. Salmons dribbles, dribbles….Rose sits in the corner, Salmons attempts his shoulder fake and jump shot move…..But Dwyane Wade sees it coming, strips Salmons, and hits a running 3 pointer to clinch the win. Why wasn’t Rose trying to create for himself, or drive and kick to Ben Gordon who was literally on fire in that game? Thanks again, Vinny.

3. Last season…Bulls at Celtics Game 5: The coaching imbecile lets Paul Pierce drive right, get to his sweet spot (right elbow), and hit 3 jumpers down the stretch to seal a Celtics win. In a great series, that game was there for the Bulls taking. Unfortunately, the Bulls coach wouldn’t let it happen.
This season. Kings at Bulls: Bulls blow a 35 point lead at home and lose to the lowly Kings. That’s it. No examples needed. This is when this clown should have been let go. This is when this nightmare should have ended. However, the Bulls management couldn’t decide whether or not to fire Vinny Santoro.

I’ve been told that the Bulls, again, had discussions with Doug Collins in December about becoming the team’s coach. Collins wanted a 4 year deal, and, with the lockout looming in 2011, “Chairman” Reinsdorf was against giving big money to another coach. They are still paying off Scott Skiles. So, the Bulls kept Vinny and it’s been a circus ever since. As bad of a coach as Vinny is, the real culprit for all of this is Bulls management. By management I mean John Paxson and the “Chairman”. I don’t count Gar Foreman. He’s a Pax puppet who is there to take the heat from the media because Johnny Jump Shot can’t deal with the media’s questions.
To Paxson’s credit, he never wanted Del Santoro. Pax tried to hire Mike D’Antoni, but the “Chairman” dawdled. Pax wanted Collins, but Jerry said “he couldn’t handle firing Collins again.” To know this team is to hate everything about how they go about finding coaches. It’s a train wreck every time, because Reinsdorf thinks there are two good basketball coaches on the planet– Collins and Phil Jackson. The Del Santoro hiring is all on Reinsdorf. He was still paying Skiles, so he wanted to go on the cheap. So after Game 5, he should be the one to step up, fire the coach, and explain to the most loyal fans in basketball why he hired him to begin with. Those fans deserve, at least, that much. Those fans, who have led the NBA in attendance since the lockout season of ‘99-’00, deserve a big name coach because the franchise is heading into the biggest off-season in the team’s history.

Side Note: Here is a list of the Bulls attendance figures since ‘99-’00 and the teams record. Judge for yourself if it’s time for the “Chairman” to step up and hire a big name coach.

‘99-’00: Average attendance– 22, 124. Team record–17-65
‘00-’01: Average attendance– 21, 674. Team record– 15-67
‘01-’02: Average attendance– 18, 934. Team record– 21-61
‘02-’03: Average attendance– 19, 617. Team record– 30-52
‘03-’04: Average Attendance– 19, 736. Team record– 23-59
‘04-’05: Average attendance– 20, 204. Team record– 47-35. Made playoffs.
‘05-’06: Average attendance– 21, 188. Team record– 41-41. Made playoffs.
‘06-’07: Average attendance– 22, 160. Team record– 49-33. Made Playoffs and won 1st round vs Miami.
‘07-’08: Average attendance– 21, 987. Team record– 33-49.
‘08-’09: Average attendance– 21, 197. Team record– 41-41.

I need to say again that THEY LED THE NBA IN ATTENDANCE WITH THAT CRAP ASS PRODUCT. 20, 891 average over that span.



Thankfully the Bulls two best players will be playing for a real coach next season.

This off-season is so critical for the Bulls future that they cannot have another prolonged coaching search. The only way the coaching search should drag on is if the team believes they have a legit shot at LeBron James and will let him pick his coach. If not, then they need to fire Vinny 24 minutes after the last game, hire Doug Collins (who’s going to be sought after), and put to rest the rift/altercation between the Italian who likes to argue and the executive with a shorter fuse than Mike Tyson. (Speaking of Vinny again, he had made me so frustrated that I tweeted last week that he gives Italians as bad of a name as The Sopranos). This team needs to have their house in order by the draft. There is a good chance that the fate of James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Joe Johnson will be determined by then, so the Bulls will have an idea of which guys to target. Many of them will want a sign and trade to get the most possible money from their current team. This has been a 2 year organizational failure, but the Bulls are positioned the best of all of the teams with cap space to make a sign and trade happen. It starts by ridding themselves of Del Santoro, hiring a coach, and having free agent/trade plan that needs to be accomplished before July 1. Because if it’s not, the Bulls next decade will be as miserable as the Vinny coaching tenure was on my stress level and blood pressure.

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BuckeyeLakerCub said:

To go on about the Bulls attendance, I read a couple years ago in Forbes, that the Bulls have profited 46M a year since Jordan, the only team that comes close is the Lake Show, and the league average is 7M

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