It’s intriguing to watch the Bulls try to dig themselves out of their early-season mess, especially with more problems lurking. Ben Gordon and Luol Deng have those new contracts coming up, potential trades are hanging over everyone and, of course, the team’s coaching future is undecided.
In the post-firing honeymoon, the players clearly are making their personal statements, and it hardly reflects well on them that they had tired of playing under Scott Skiles. How about all those fans paying so much money? Didn’t they deserve their best efforts?
OK, it happens all the time in sports. It appears Jim Boylan, a solid, knowledgeable basketball guy, has done well in going 4-2. But what’s most interesting to me is to watch the way he has done it. It’s something of the informal handbook for interim coaches.
I’ve seen it before, used most successfully by Jeff Van Gundy in New York and Lawrence Frank in New Jersey: Go to your go-to guys.
A coach generally loses his job when his best, or most important, players give up on him or lose enthusiasm. By most accounts, that seemed to be Ben Wallace and Deng, though the play of Kirk Hinrich and Gordon clearly was off too.
What Boylan seems to have done is make a commitment to the regulars, even more so than Skiles did. It’s what Van Gundy did when he replaced Don Nelson and what Frank did in succeeding Byron Scott. Patrick Ewing had rebelled against Nelson, and Jason Kidd against Scott.
“You owe it to yourself to coach your personality and your beliefs,” Van Gundy said. “And then do the players have the innate basketball character that they’ll give respect to the coaching position not for who is coaching but what it stands for?”
Here, it appeared Wallace had shut it down on Skiles, though he has been much more interested and involved since.
In the six games since Boylan has been coaching, every regular has played far more than he did under Skiles, and the kids off the bench have played less.
The stated idea has been to go with the veterans to save the season, but it’s also a way to perhaps solidify a position. Boylan appears to be betting the regulars will produce better under him, enhancing his chances of maintaining the job.
Like many coaches before him, Skiles had taken out Wallace when trailing late or in close games because of his poor free-throw shooting. But Boylan has stuck with Wallace, who even made one free throw for the difference Saturday night against the Kings. Wallace is averaging 39.2 minutes per game under Boylan, about seven minutes more than under Skiles and 10 more minutes than in the last six under Skiles.
Joe Smith is up about seven minutes per game, Hinrich almost five, Deng about five, and Gordon is averaging more minutes under Boylan coming off the bench than he did starting under Skiles. Gordon is up more than three minutes per game compared to the last six games under Skiles.
Conversely, though Tyrus Thomas felt his benchings had become personal under Skiles, he’s playing even less under Boylan and is averaging about three fewer minutes per game now than in the last six under Skiles. Joakim Noah is down more than two minutes, Thabo Sefolosha about four minutes and Aaron Gray about 10 minutes.
It’s part of being in the uncertain position of interim coach.
Many have made careers from it. Frank rode Kidd to 13 straight wins and won the job. Van Gundy went back to relying on Derek Harper, John Starks and Ewing, all of whom Nelson had demoted.
Sometimes it doesn’t work.
John Carroll took over the Celtics for Jim O’Brien and made the playoffs but was replaced.
“In my situation, Jim did a wonderful job and the players liked him,” Carroll says. “It was philosophical, so I didn’t have the juice. Sometimes a guy comes in who is an assistant and had a good relationship with the players, and they play harder and better. That guy has juice.”
The NBA is filled with stories of unlikely interim coaches who went on to great success, like Rudy Tomjanovich in Houston and Gregg Popovich in San Antonio.
“You have to ask yourself: Are you an interim coach, or are they looking at you as a guy for the future?” Nate McMillan told the Seattle Times about his interim experience there. “Because if they are looking at you as a guy to finish out the season, then really you don’t have any more leverage than the guy you just replaced.
“But if they are talking to you, then you can get the players’ attention right away. It depends on what’s the relationship with you and ownership because the players are reading the papers. They know. If they know you’re going to be the man there next year or you’re working on that, then you can get their attention right away and you can do some things that you probably couldn’t do if you may be replaced.”
No one, including Boylan, is certain what will occur. So Boylan is trying it his way for now, and all that really matters in sports is the wins.
Though, as Carroll notes: “When you’re coaching, you’re always an interim coach. If you don’t think that way, then you probably don’t understand the NBA very well.”
Betting the mortgage
The Bulls play at Philadelphia on Friday, and despite rumors of coach Maurice Cheeks being in his final season and guard Andre Miller on the trading block, the guy I’ve been most interested in is new general manager Ed Stefanski. With a flourishing career as a mortgage banker, he took an entry-level scouting job with the Nets when he was 44.
“People felt it was very odd that I’d leave a comfortable setting,” said Stefanski, who played college basketball at Penn. “The money, obviously, was a big difference. But this was the opportunity (old friend John Nash was running the Nets). If this ever was the shot, I felt I had to go for it. Looking back, people might say, ‘What were you thinking?’ And to be honest, I wasn’t thinking.”
I have some personal interest in his story as I switched from being an auditor at a big accounting firm to get an entry-level job in journalism. Stefanski is a thinking man. He has already dealt Kyle Korver and has the 76ers more than $10 million under the salary cap for this summer. And he denies that he’s looking to deal Miller.
“We’re not calling people about Andre,” Stefanski said. “The thought is if we can get a good piece, we’d like to have Andre with him and our core.”
Maybe he meant bottom four
Poor Michael Jordan. It doesn’t look good for his basketball team in Charlotte. They’ve yet to play on the road in the West, haven’t beaten a winning Eastern team and now play 25 of their last 38 on the road. They’re 13th in the East after coach Sam Vincent’s preseason prediction they’d be a top-four team. Vincent told the Charlotte Observer: “There’s been so much put on wins and losses, and it’s not very fair.” …
One of the surprises for the continually surprising Wizards has been 2002 Bulls second-rounder Roger Mason, averaging 13 the last seven games. … Kenyon Martin flew all his teammates to Miami for a New Year’s birthday party, put them up at the Four Seasons and partied at a private mansion with music celebrities. Then the team flew home and beat the Spurs. I’m not sure what this means.
Rasheed ‘moment’ coming?
The Pistons have been great, but they’re always just moments from that Rasheed Wallace moment. And he had some in Saturday night’s loss to the amazing Boston Celtics. He was visibly upset throughout the fourth quarter and left the game in his sweat pants. Glen “Big Baby” Davis hitting for 16 fourth-quarter points might have had something to do with it.
Wallace, by the way, is in charge of nicknames for Detroit. He calls newly acquired Primoz Brezec “Gangsta.” Don’t ask. The Warriors’ Baron Davis, by the way, says he likes to be called Boom Dizzle, B. Diddy or Too Easy. Hey, who doesn’t?
Paul or Williams? Paul edges ahead
Former DePaul star Sammy Mejia was named Development League player of the week. He averaged 31.7 points and 7.6 rebounds for the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants the last week of December. … Chris Paul of New Orleans has again nudged ahead of Utah’s Deron Williams in the Young Point Guard You’d Most Like To Have race and likely will get the All-Star nod over Williams. Barely behind the Spurs for the division lead, the Hornets are a fun bunch. They have rookies Adam Haluska and Julian Wright bringing their own Cabbage Patch dolls to games in a pink stroller to teach responsibility. … Likely to be dealt Warriors swingman Mickael Pietrus: “What would be best for me? Closer to the West Indies.” Pietrus started last week against Dallas, which has tried to deal for him.
Artest wants to be … a savior
The Kings’ injured Ron Artest says he’d love to go home to the Knicks, who visit the Bulls on Tuesday night. “Anywhere I go I can turn things around, given the opportunity,” Artest said. The Knicks have been in talks to trade for Artest all season. Zach Randolph is now saying maybe he shouldn’t have been traded to New York. Many see him as a low-post threat that teams like the Bulls need. But his holding the ball and isolating appears to have curtailed Eddy Curry’s production in New York. … The Nets have won seven of eight with Kidd playing as well as he ever has. They’re now fourth in the East, just 3 1/2 games ahead of the Bulls. … With Korver in, Ronnie Brewer has been losing playing time for the slumping Jazz. … With Mike Conley Jr. now starting in Memphis, Damon Stoudamire is on the inactive list awaiting a trade. … A spin-in-your-grave moment: Phil Jackson last week passed Red Auerbach’s coaching wins total of 938.
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sasmith@tribune.com
