06-08-2005, 08:04 AM
|
#1 (permalink)
|
|
Administrator 12/02--7/07
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: That other place and now here sometimes
Age: 42
Posts: 35,837
|
Daily Herald: Now We'll See if Skiles' Skills are Long Term
http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/imrem.asp?id=59067
Quote:
OK, let’s see what Scott Skiles really is made of now that the Bulls gave him one of the NBA’s most lucrative coaching contracts.
The deal makes sense, I guess. The Bulls wanted him. He wanted the Bulls. It figured to get done despite the alarms of the past couple of days.
Skiles’ agent said Monday on the Score that negotiations were over, and everybody took him seriously.
This was three weeks before the Bulls’ deadline to exercise a one-year option on Skiles, five months before their next scheduled gameæ…
And negotiations between the Bulls and Skiles were supposed to be over? All because a freakin’ agent said so? My goodness, when did anybody ever take an agent at his word before?
By the way, Skiles and Bulls chairman Reinsdorf talked Tuesday afternoon and a new deal was completed. So what’s the next widespread panic over in the media, a two-strike count on Derrek Lee?
Better we all should just wonder and worry about whether Skiles is the right guy long term for the Bulls after all.
It isn’t as if the guy doesn’t pose some uncertainties. He isn’t exactly Phil Jackson with nine NBA coaching championships. He isn’t exactly a guy with pristine relationships with players. He isn’t exactly the easiest person with whom to coexist.
And this notion that Skiles turned around the Bulls last season from 23 victories to 47? Those weren’t the same players from one season to the next.
General manager John Paxson gave Skiles the right roster mix — solid youngsters who played for demanding college coaches like Skiles, and journeymen in no position to cause problems.
That isn’t to diminish what Skiles did with them after a 0-9 start. I thought he should have been NBA coach of the year for taking the Bulls to the playoffs.
One quality season doesn’t normally earn a coach a long-term contract guaranteeing nearly $4 million per year, but that’s what Skiles will receive.
Now all he has to do is prove he can be as good a coach over the next four years as he was over the past six months.
|
__________________
You can't fake the funk.
|
|
|