Bulls Expected to Name a Coach Today

Of course, all that headline means is that they'll announce they're going to hire a coach today, but won't sign anyone to a contract. Then Jerry Reinsdorf will mull it over for three weeks, trying to decide if he wants to risk the friendship he has developed with the candidates the last few days, get distracted by the White Sox win streak. Then, after the new coach gets tired of waiting, the Bulls will just draft Derrick Rose and make him the first player/coach #1 pick in league history.

Go Bulls!

But, yeah, here's the deal on the two new candidates.

On April 17, the day he fired Jim Boylan, general manager John Paxson said he preferred but wouldn't mandate previous coaching experience for his hire as the next Bulls coach.

Weighing that very issue will come into play as, barring a surprise, Paxson will offer the job to former Minnesota coach Dwane Casey or Suns assistant general manager Vinny Del Negro.

Those two, plus a longer shot in Kings assistant coach Chuck Person, expected to know Paxson's decision late Sunday or sometime Monday.

Casey has some head coaching experience in Minnesota, where he was fired pretty prematurely, while Del Negro and Person have never been head coaches before.

To be honest with you, though, I'm not sure I even care anymore.

Are You Kidding Me?

What the....

Doug Collins will not be returning for a second coaching stint with the Bulls.

Collins and team Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf mutually agreed during a Friday-afternoon phone conversation that the Bulls' coaching search, now more than seven weeks old, would continue without Collins.

"I just knew over the last few days that Jerry was really struggling over whether or not to do this, and I didn't want Jerry to have those struggles," Collins told the Tribune. "I love him. And I didn't want him feeling that kind of angst.

You can bet there will be more about this on Monday. If only it had happened yesterday, we would have had an Asshole Of The Week. Though at least we got a front runner for next week's award.

Mike D'Antoni Played With Jerry Reinsdorf's Heart

Just about everyone I know who cares about the Bulls or the NBA was shocked when they heard Mike D'Antoni had chosen the Knicks over the Bulls. All anybody had heard the previous week was that D'Antoni was going to be taking over on the bench here in Chicago.

It's just an important reminder not to believe anything you hear when it comes down to negotiations in sports. You never know when something you hear is the truth, or just an agent stirring the pot for his client. Now it looks a lot like Mike D'Antoni and his agent were just doing everything in their power to make sure Mike got as much money as possible.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

Still, that doesn't mean Jerry Reinsdorf appreciated it much.

"I'm disappointed in him," Reinsdorf said. "I don't know what else we could've done. He chose to go to New York knowing there was a good chance we would make him an offer. If he had really wanted to be in Chicago, he would've waited. Instead, he misled us. It's not the end of the world, but it is somewhat rude."

The "misled" accusation stems from their 2-hour-15-minute meeting Friday at D'Antoni's Phoenix-area home that is mere yards from Reinsdorf's, a meeting Reinsdorf said he left at 4:45 p.m. local time.

"The second subject, I said if we need to get something done this weekend we shouldn't even bother talking because it will take longer than that," Reinsdorf said. "He said nothing had to be done over the weekend.

"I also said if this proceeds to where we want to make an offer, we don't deal with coach's agents. He said that's not a problem and that money wasn't the most important thing anyway. He said he wanted a job where he was going to be happiest. He said he didn't want to coach the Knicks."

Now another thing you should know is that when a team is supposedly going to get a player or a coach, and then they don't get that player or coach, they then go into a spin mode to try and deflect all the blame away from them. That's what Reinsdorf was just doing there.

The Bulls can say all they want about the situation. They can say that D'Antoni misled them, or that he just wanted more money, or they can say that D'Antoni is an anti-semite and just doesn't want to work for Reinsdorf. No matter what they say, whether there's an ounce of truth to it or not, is just an excuse. And a bad one at that.

The reason D'Antoni is the new head coach of the Knicks is because the Bulls sat around twiddling their thumbs instead of making him an offer. If they liked him so much, and wanted him to be the team's next coach, they would have done so.

Instead, it's rather obvious now that they just didn't want to invest that much money in a new coach when they still have to pay Scott Skiles.

Jay Mariotti Is Transparent

So the general consensus in Chicago about the White Sox hiring Steve Stone to join their radio booth is that it's a good move. I've already made clear my approval and everybody I've talked to about it thinks it's similiarly great.

Sox fans would have been thrilled to hear the news they were finally free of Chris Singleton, and the fact that Stoney is replacing him is just icing on the cake.

Cubs fans have even told me that they're going to have to start listening to Sox games.

Everybody's happy! Even our old friend Jay Mariotti, though Mariotti is a fan of the move for completely different reasons.

In his column today, Jay writes about how he hopes Stoney will tear the entire White Sox franchise down.

So what happens when a fearless, incisive radio analyst is hired by a franchise with a crybaby owner, a volcanic manager, a brooding general manager, a long- winded radio partner, a hillbilly homer in the TV booth, a media-obsessed catcher and a hypersensitive fan base always searching for an enemy?

Seems all hell will break loose, as it often does in Steve Stone's world of truth, justice and calling out wretched baseball as wretched baseball.

Mariotti is right about one thing, Stone isn't afraid to speak his mind on what he thinks he's watching. After all, that is why he's no longer calling Cubs games after he ripped on the team a few years ago.

Unfortunately, Jay is off in his assumption that the team is going to revolt against Stone like the Cubs did.

Why would Ozzie Guillen care what Stone says? When the Sox suck, Ozzie is telling anybody who will listen about how bad the team is. Are we really supposed to believe he'll give a shit what anybody in the booth is saying?

Then there are those "hypersensitive fans always searching for an enemy." Um, Jay? While we'll ignore the "hypersensitive" comments, I feel the need to tell you we're not searching for an enemy. We have one, and we've had him for a while.

It's you, jackass.

Let's be honest here, Jay. The only reason you wrote about Steve Stone was as cover for what you really wanted the column to be about:

It will happen because Stone is unblushingly honest in his daily appraisals, contrary to Reinsdorf's other broadcasters, who are so fearful of the chairman's wrath -- or so far up his hind-end -- that they become pathetic weasels who somehow tip-toed over a 72-90 stinker last season. Harrelson, in particular, has become the biggest embarrassment in the industry, a shameless shill who keeps his job only because he gushes over Reinsdorf at every opportunity and does the chairman's dirty work by hurling pebbles at real and perceived enemies of Soxdom, which only paints the organization as amateurish and low-brow.

We get it. You don't like them.

Next time you're itching to use your column to take a few digs at Ozzie, Hawk Harrelson, and Jerry Reinsdorf, just write about how much you hate them. Forget the bullshit angles.