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.

Must Be The Money

I was shocked on Saturday when I found out that Mike D'Antoni had signed a 4-year $24 million deal to become the head coach of the New York Knicks. From everything I'd been reading or hearing, it was only a matter of time before D'Antoni was announced as the new head coach of the Bulls.

Much like everybody else, I figured D'Antoni was using the Knicks as nothing more than a bargaining chip to get a better deal out of the Bulls. After all, he and his agent were saying how excited they were about the possibility of coaching this Bulls team, and the Knicks are such a mess right now that it will be a few years before they can think of turning that around.

There was no way D'Antoni would choose that project over Chicago.

Then he did, and now I have no idea why. The only reason I can think of is the money, as I see no other motive that makes sense. It could have been the draw of coaching one of the NBA's premiere (well, what used to be premiere) franchises in a city like New York, but the Bulls aren't exactly the Sacramento Kings here. We do have quite the basketball history of our own, and Chicago isn't exactly the middle of nowhere.

No, the only thing I can think of is the money, and the fact that they just weren't willing to give D'Antoni as much money. Hell, according to the Bulls, they say they never had a chance to even make the offer.

That's bullshit.

How long has this story been out there? How long were we hearing that D'Antoni wanted to come here, and that John Paxson wanted him here as well? There was no time over the last week to make an offer?

The Bulls had found the coach they wanted, the coach had found the team he wanted, but the Bulls just couldn't pull the trigger. They found themselves stuck in the mud, and they're probably going to find themselves stuck in the mud on the court this season as well.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Mike D'Antoni was going to instantly make the Bulls into title contenders. I just thought that he'd at least make them interesting and entertaining, and a lot more fun to watch than they were this last season.

Mike D'Antoni Given Permission to Talk to the Bulls

There was supposed to have been a decision on Friday about the future of Mike D'Antoni and the Phoenix Suns. Well, Friday came and went with word that the two sides would meet again this week to discuss their future, or lack of one, together. They stuck to their word this time.

D'Antoni has been given permission by the Suns to talk to both the Bulls and the Knicks about their head coaching vacancies.

The Bulls will move to interview Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni in the next few days after Suns general manager Steve Kerr granted D'Antoni permission Sunday to do so.

League sources confirmed a report by the Suns' flagship radio station, KTAR-AM, detailing Kerr's change of mind. Last week, Kerr said he wouldn't allow teams to speak to D'Antoni, who has two years and $8.5 million remaining on his contract.

As far as what any of this means, I'm not entirely sure, but I have no problem speclating. It's pretty obvious that Steve Kerr isn't willing to just fire D'Antoni and eat the rest of his contract, but is willing to let D'Antoni take a job elsewhere, which would free the Suns of any obligation to pay him. What I can't be sure of is whether or not the Suns are going to want some kind of compensation from the Bulls if they do hire D'Antoni, whether that be a player or a draft pick.

If that's the case, I hope Paxson is smart enough to tell them "Thanks, but no thanks." It's obvious to just about everybody that Kerr doesn't want D'Antoni back on the bench next season. They have two very different philosophies, and it doesn't seem as though they like each other much either. So I doubt that Kerr is going to keep D'Antoni around even if he doesn't get job somewhere else, and he's just stalling in hopes somebody else will hire him.

So if Kerr starts talking about a trade, remind him of the $8 million he'll be saving by the Bulls taking D'Antoni off his hands. Unless all Kerr wants in return is Chris Duhon. If that's the case, I'll pitch in for Chris' plane ticket to Phoenix.

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.

Sour Grapes?

As David Stern would say, what's with all this mishigous about Steve Nash?

First, Charles Barkley and Suns coach Mike D'Antoni get into a dust-up over the way the coach is handling his crown jewel point guard as the team moves towards the playoffs:

"Barkley criticized D’Antoni at length Tuesday night, saying the Suns coach is running the risk of wearing out Steve Nash for the playoffs by playing him too much now. He also said the Suns don’t play their backup point guards enough to allow them to develop confidence.

The next night, D’Antoni fired back at Barkley, pointing to past criticisms of Barkley’s efforts at staying in shape. 'He didn’t train. And he blew championships. If you train, maybe you don’t blow championships...We have a guy who trains.'”

Snap, Mikie.

Now, Shaq is getting into the fracas. According to the Arizona Republic (via Fanhouse):

O'Neal questioned how the media picks MVPs and said the award has been "tainted" the past two seasons. O'Neal was the runner-up for Nash's first MVP in 2005. O'Neal repeated "tainted" references to reporters.

Say what you want, Shaq, but if you want a measure of MVP qualifications, one need only look at the fact that the Suns didn't win a single game without Nash when he was out with back and shoulder problems.

Sure, if LeBron or Kobe or Dirk were out it'd be disastrous for their respective teams too, but factor in overall team performance and let's get real, the only other reasonable contender for MVP would be Dirk Nowitski.

So, sorry, Shaq, ya might wanna do some more running on the court and less running of your mouth. And Charles? Well, he's a great commentator and I love him, so even though the only dunkin' he's seeing is found on a donut box, I'll give him a pass.

Meanwhile, anyone who has a gripe with Steve Nash might wanna back off until the end of the season cuz I get the distinct feeling he could be the NBA's Peyton Manning.