Q. What is your reaction to the firing of Bill Cartwright after just 14 games this season?
A. When things don’t go right, that’s what seems to happen. And that is a shame because I thought Bill was on the verge of getting done what he was hired to do.
Q. What type of coach does this team need?
A. I don’t know, but maybe some of the players were taking advantage of Bill. I understand that John Paxson wants a no-fooling-around guy. Somebody to come in and be a taskmaster. Sometimes you get a little bit lax.
Q. The Bulls’ starting lineup on opening night–Oct. 15, 1966–was Len Chappell, Bob Boozer, Don Kojis, Jerry Sloan and Guy Rodgers. How gratifying was it to beat the St. Louis Hawks 104-97?
A. We were trying to create an identity in Chicago. Now, we are playing kind of a waiting game, wondering what kind of a team is going to come out on the floor.
Q. Your first Bulls team finished with a 33-48 record, the best ever by an expansion team in its first year. It made the playoffs and you were named NBA Coach of the Year. How do you feel players today have changed the most since your coaching days?
A. The biggest thing now is that you have a middleman to deal with. You have the agents. They never had agents in those (’60s) days, so it was a one-on-one deal with either the player and coach or management. Now if a guy doesn’t play, all of a sudden the agent is on the phone with the coach or general manager, wanting to know what’s the matter. Before, you had to find out yourself if you weren’t playing. Usually it was because you weren’t pulling your own weight.
Q. As an NBA player you surpassed the 10,000 mark in both rebounds and points, and you held the league record for consecutive games played with 844 until Randy Smith eclipsed your mark during the 1982-83 season. How frustrating has it been for you to watch the slow development of this Bulls team?
A. You always have that fan in you, or the coach’s eye in you. You ask yourself: “What would I do.” Maybe it’s because I was a player and I sense things that should be done right and aren’t done right. Whenever we go to the arena, I always feel we have a shot to win the game. That feeling often turns around in the first quarter.
Q. As a former star at Tilden Tech and Illinois, do you feel like the quintessential Chicago sports hero?
A. There aren’t many times when you can play high school basketball and college basketball in the same state and then come back and coach your own Chicago professional team. It has been a great ride. I still get excited about it.
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