Does Mike D'Antoni Want To Come To Chicago?

When the Bulls fired Jim Boylan officially and began their search for a new coach, I have to admit, I wasn't very excited by the prospects out there. In the last few days, things have changed dramatically. It all started when Mark Cuban fired Avery Johnson after the Mavericks were eliminated from the first round of the playoffs for the second straight season.

I like Avery Johnson, and anybody who's taken a look at his coaching record in the regular season would be as well: 194-70, a 73.5 winning percentage. Of course, then you take a look at his record in the playoffs, 23-24, and you start to wonder if he's capable of winning in the playoffs. Sure, he got the Mavs to the NBA Finals a few years ago, but since they went up 2-0 on the Heat in that series, they've lost 12 of their last 13 playoff games.

All this with a team that actually has a legitimate superstar in Dirk Nowitzki, and this season added another Hall of Famer in Jason Kidd.

So while I wouldn't mind if Avery became the Bulls next coach, I wouldn't exactly treat him as the messiah either.

What really got me excited was when I heard that Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni isn't happy in Arizona, and wants out. Apparently he feels that new Phoenix GM, and former Bull, Steve Kerr is a bit too much of a micro-manager, and they're philosophies towards basketball just don't mesh.

So D'Antoni wants out, and it could happen as soon as today. Where does D'Antoni want to go? Apparently he's got his eyes on Chicago, and our underachieving Bulls.

Sources say D'Antoni is increasingly likely to get an invitation to relocate to the Windy City if he can indeed extricate himself from the Suns. As covered in this article in cyberspace on Wednesday, moving to the Eastern Conference with Chicago is an idea that has D'Antoni more than intrigued and which apparently has a few Bulls players (presumably Luol Deng and Ben Gordon) already salivating.

D'Antoni is scheduled to meet Friday with Suns owner Robert Sarver and team president Steve Kerr, who will try to convince D'Antoni that he belongs in the desert and that their in-house tensions can be diffused. But sources continue to echo the sentiments revealed earlier this week bv Sports Illustrated's venerable Jack McCallum, who wrote that the highly frustrated D'Antoni considers his philosophical differences with his bosses to be "irredeemable." You'll recall that McCallum spent the 2005-06 season as a virtual member of D'Antoni's coaching staff to write the acclaimed book "Seven Seconds or Less."

Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes.

I would love to have D'Antoni running the Bulls. He's had the same success as a head coach as Avery Johnson, good regular seasons and postseason letdowns, but unlike Avery, he's more suited to take over this Bulls team.

Watching the Bulls the last few seasons, I've had one major complaint about the way the team ran it's offense. They tried to do a little too much half-court sets when really, the team has the athletic ability in which they should be running up and down the court a lot more often.

That's exactly the style D'Antoni would bring with him in Chicago, and I would love every second of it. Now, Kirk Hinrich is definitely no Steve Nash, but he could blossom under D'Antoni's system. Luol Deng could develop into the Shawn Marion type that flourished in Phoenix. And tell me, would you rather see Tyrus Thomas running up and down the court from the wing, or posting up in the block? Where do you think he'd be a better fit?

Hell, Ben Gordon might actually still have value on this team with D'Antoni because in Mike's system, his inability to play defense won't be so glaring.

I also think D'Antoni could be set up to have a lot more success in Chicago for a couple of reasons. The biggest being that the Bulls are in the Eastern Conference, and it's a much easier road to hoe on this side of the country. The other area would be the depth the Bulls have.

Have you noticed while watching the Suns the last few years that they basically had an 8-man rotation at best? There were always those four or five guys on the bench who never saw any playing time, outside of garbage time. There was good reason for this, and that's because they sucked. It wasn't D'Antoni's fault though, as the Suns owner Robert Sarver is an incredibly cheap bastard, and after giving money to Nash, Stoudemire, and Marion, he didn't want to spend any more money to fill out the team. Therefore, D'Antoni was actually quite handcuffed in Phoenix, and he still had a lot of success.

In Chicago that wouldn't be a problem, as John Paxson and the Bulls have no problem filling out the entire roster with guys who can get time on the court. Hell, the Bulls generally have too many players.

I really think that if D'Antoni came here and took over the Bulls, we might finally have the coach to take us to that next level. I'm not saying we'd be a title contender, as we still don't have a superstar, but we'd be a lot better off than where we are now. Not to mention, they'd be a hell of a lot more fun to watch.