VDN the great communicator.

fola

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Forgive me for any typos, its late.

I won’t go into a rant about today’s game. Questionable coaching aside, I knew that this would be a tough one to pull off due it being the second game of back to back away games… in another freaking country, for that matter. What I will say is this: Vinny is nothing like what he was sold to us as being (that made sense right?). Anyone know any fans that he is resonating with? Seriously.

Although I was willing to give Vinny the benefit of a doubt, when his hiring was announced, it would be a lie to say that I didn’t expect him to struggle a bit. I’d have no problem dealing with his shortcomings (mismanaging time outs, forgetting who he has on the bench, his ‘go away from the hot hand’ approach, his moderately attractive wife, et al.) if, for a second, I thought his “preparedness’’ , “putting players in position to be successful” or his instilling “defensive resolve” in this team ever panned out—or ever will. Those are the things he sold himself on, remember? Instead, what we have is….this.

He was supposed to have a vision for what he wanted this team to be. And coming into the tail end of this season, I pray this isn’t what he envisioned. Maybe he has some strange masochistic tendencies (like Marv Albert, sans the biting). And maybe if I wasn’t the huge Bulls fan that I am, id find it amusing. (Ok, maybe I do... sometimes). One thing is obvious (other than the fact that I like parenthetical statements); Vinny is going to need some seasoning. And with the looming storm that is LBJ’s maturity (game wise) I’m not sure that we bulls fans have the time, and definitely not the patience. At least not those of us that are here.

In closing, I’m pretty sure that Vinny has sealed our fates and we’re stuck with him for another half season. Maybe I’ll be wrong, and over the summer VDN will sit back and learn to be a better coach. I won’t say it isn’t possible. I just hope that come the end of the season someone is bringing up the fact that he, nor the team, are any of the things he said they would be.

Ps, And yes, I understand. We’ve been playing pretty good ball of late. And hell, maybe we’ll even make it into the 6th spot in the east. Maybe. But as someone who now is a bigger bulls fan than he ever was in the MJ days, that just isn’t enough for me. I want more. Sure, maybe we can take some team (Cavs, Celts, or the Magic) to a 6th game in the first round. And maybe, after the Bosh trade Pax better make this offseason, we’ll be someone’s sleeper pick for next year. All I’m saying is…. Is VDN really the one we want driving this bus?

Pps, great job DT love the new site!
 

fola

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well... that turned out unnecessarily long.
 

Gene

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Good post. I think Vinny has done just enough this season to earn himself a couple months of coaching next season. If he flubbs that up and we start out awful I look for us to have a backup plan, similar to what the Blackhawks did this season. I don't see us firing Vinny during the season and giving the reigns to one of our assistants, it would have to be an established guy like Van Gundy that would come in.

We've got a superstar on the rise in Rose and I can't see management pussy footing around with their head coach, they don't want to delay Rose's development.
 

fola

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I kind of think that they are already 'delaying' it keeping VDN on, but them's the bricks.
 

Gene

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Yup, it was a stupid hire in the first place. You draft a PG you feel is gonna be the centerpiece of your franchise for the next 10-15 years and you go and hire a coach with no coaching experience what so ever.

Which is why I think we give Vinny a couple months next year and if he doesn't work out we hire the best available coach and hope he is good enough to stick around until Rose is fully developed and no longer needs a coaches guidance.
 

Diddy1122

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Well, sad to say I think making the playoffs will buy Vinny another season. Unless we are really horrible next year, I think he will be here the remainder of his 2yr contract.

Thank God it's only two years.
 

dougthonus

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Dpauley23 wrote:
I've heard its three

I believe the third year is a team option year.

I think that VDN has improved:

Good:
He's played the young guys a lot even when they've been horrible, but he hasn't just handed them minutes, when Tyrus/Noah were not playing with effort he made them earn back their positions, but once they did he gave them a lot of lee way to make mistakes. He seems to allow mistakes but not allow laziness. I think that's a good approach to take with young players.

He's improved his rotations a lot as the year goes on. Maybe the trades and injuries have forced his hand on th at issue a little bit, but he's shortened his rotations and is no longer finding minutes for Lindsay Hunter and Aaron Gray just for the heck of it, the team has played better for that. I think there are pluses and minuses with that philosophy, but I think he's learned a lot in rotation management over that period.

He tends to play guys in a pretty consistent rotation for the first three quarters and change for a game, and then rides the hot guys for the end of the 4th quarter. I think that's a good way to do things as well. It allows guys to be comfortable with their role and their teammates, but still give the guys playing the best a chance to close the game.

His offensive scheme has looked really good lately, and I've always been iffy on it, but part of the problem is when you don't have a good big man it's really hard to make a good offensive scheme. Brad Miller has played real well, and Tyrus Thomas has improved his jumper, and Noah is now hustling, and the Bulls offense has been really great (near best in the league great) over the past month. I'd need to see if he can sustain it over the long haul, but you have to feel better about what he's got the team doing offensively.

Bad:
His defensive scheme seems pretty poor. I think we have enough defensive talent on the roster to do a good job, but our guys seem poorly coached and confused defensively a lot. We often are playing man defense, and in today's NBA, I think you need to be better at providing help then we are most times.

Game management is really poor at the end of games from a timeout perspective and lack of success in running plays out of timeouts. There have been so many times where we've desperately needed timeouts at the end of the game where VDN blew them early. He likes to call timeouts in pseudo key possessions with about 1:30-2:00 left to set up a play. The problem is we don't do well off those plays (so it's really not helping) and that there is still too much clock left and we invariably need the timeouts later. This has resulted in frequently poor possessions out of the timeout and losing the timeout for when we really need it.

He hasn't resonated with the team. This may have changed with some wins, but throughout most of the season, basically to a man the entire team disliked and disrespected him. I think that may come with the territory a little bit for a guy who really didn't put in his dues. I'll be interested to see if they have changed their minds any as the season has worn on and the team has improved.
 

dougthonus

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All in all, I can't give VDN my full stamp of approval, but the team has played really well since the trade when the roster was balanced out. At our current level of play, we may be the 4th or 5th best team in the East right now, and as such, I can't blame management for thinking things are clicking pretty well with VDN.

If this team makes it up to .500 then I think he'll be back. My preseason goals were a bit higher than that, but the way the team has played at the end gives you some hope for forward momentum, and there have been improvements over lots of things he struggled with early.
 

HeavyC

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dougthonus wrote:
All in all, I can't give VDN my full stamp of approval, but the team has played really well since the trade when the roster was balanced out. At our current level of play, we may be the 4th or 5th best team in the East right now, and as such, I can't blame management for thinking things are clicking pretty well with VDN.

If this team makes it up to .500 then I think he'll be back. My preseason goals were a bit higher than that, but the way the team has played at the end gives you some hope for forward momentum, and there have been improvements over lots of things he struggled with early.

That's pretty much where I'm at right now. You can hardly knock anything about this team post trade. It wouldn't seem right to completely dump him after a turn around like this, but I don't think he has much to do with it happening (I'd very much like to be wrong about that). I don't think there is any way he doesn't come back next year, unless the team completely implodes over the final 10 games.
 

Dpauley23

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For me Vinny needs to approve on one of two things either learning how to draw up plays at the end of the game or get good defensive scheme. I think you can still be good even if you can't draw up plays at the end. I mean like at Roy Williams for example
 

Hawkfanwillie07

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I think Pax has saved VDN's job with the trade, and if the Bulls can pull of another big trade this offseason, say Bosh comes in, it could save his job next year. That being said, if they do start out badly he will probably get the axe quicker as well. Vinny has got to get better at his faults and I haven't seen them improve at all over this season.
 

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