Dumars finally found out what the rest of the league already knew. Namely that Flip Saunders is not a good postseason coach. His teams are usually great during the regular season but they choke in the playoffs.

Betting against history is NEVER a good thing, and that’s exactly what Dumars did. History won again as Saunders took a team that went to the finals on consecutive times - winning once - and was unable to get them past the Eastern Conference Finals. This despite having the best overall winning percentage in 2006, the best winning percentage in the East (4th overall) in 2007, and 2nd overall in 2008.

Who will the Pistons name as their next head-coach ? If they’re smart, they will pick Terry Porter despite already granting the Suns 2 interviews with him. Or they could chose from a number of young assistant coaches.

Meanwhile there already are people painting Saunders as a candidate for the Suns job. If the Suns are smart and they paid any attention in history class, they will stay clear of him. The past 24 NBA titles are shared between KC Jones, Pat Riley, Chuck Daly, Phil Jackson, Rudy Tomjanovic, Gregg Popovich and Larry Brown. That’s 7 coaches that won the title in the past 24 years. In the past 17 years, with Phil Jackson  and Gregg Popovich dominating, there were only 3 other coaches that got a title: Larry Brown (who might be considered some sort of a fluke as the Pistons met a completely dysfunctional Lakers team), Rudy T and Riley.

In other words, coaches that have been recycled over and over and over again don’t win titles. Most coaches that won a title did so in their first 4-5 years on the job, so if your goal is winning a title, you have better chances if you try with a new young coach than with someone like Flip Saunders. Or Doug Collins for that matter.

Finally, Jim Boylan was let go. Some of the Bulls fans, and probably some of the players as well, wish he was let go sooner. Maybe from a plane flying really really high.

Jimbo, you were a sorry excuse for a coach. Your failures are many, and well documented.  Not only did you suck as a coach, but you also had the players this close to mutiny.  Jimbo, you idiot, you’re lucky they didn’t make you walk the plank - the appropriate punishment for a butt pirate like yourself. Chris Duhon and his almost 30mpg know what I’m talking about.

Now that this has been taken care of, we’ll have to see if Paxson will disband the rest of the circus. The midget and the half man-half woman will probably regret not taking those 10 mil per season they were offered. The juggler who over-juggles way too often should be shopped, cause he’s paid as a lead act but his performance went from passable to horrible. Perhaps he should be packaged with one of the pinheads that never stop from shooting even when they’re shooting blanks. Those 2 could team up with Jamal Chuckford and write a book called “The only bad shots are the ones you DIDN’T take”. And if he’s at it, Paxson should try to trade the rather normal guy with an OK contract but who’s not really bad but not quite good-en . The problem with him is he’s been eating the minutes of the young bigs.

I said I would address the Bulls later today so here I am. All season long, my beef with Boylan and Paxson was the young players not getting enough minutes. So what does Jimbo the Clown do even with the season mathematically over ? He keeps refusing to play Tyrus Thomas. I don’t care he had 5 fouls. Let him play till he fouls out.  Especially since he had 12 points (on 6-8 shooting), 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks with no turnovers in those less than 18 minutes.  This would amount to 26.7 points, 17.7 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 4.4 blocks per 40 minutes. There is absolutely no fucking reason to play Nocioni more than him.

And why was Noah on the floor for just 20 minutes ? Is Jimbo the Clown saving him for the playoffs ? Let the kid play and develop. Let him make mistakes and learn from them. Let him foul out, let him blow defensive assignments, let him miss passes, miss shots, make turnovers, whatever. Then, after the game, show him the game tape and explain to him where he made mistakes AND how to correct them.

And yes, Thabo got 34 minutes against the Bucks, which is ok, but he could have gotten even more, especially considering he had  6 points on 3-5 FG, 8 reb, 7 ast,  2 stl, 1 blk and 0 TO. And just 2 games ago, agains the Cavs, Thabo received less burn than Duhon. This is absolutely inexcusable at this point in the season when the  Bulls have nothing to play for. Yet somehow I suspect Boylan hopes that by winning a few more games (and possibly ruining the Bulls chances in the lottery) he can land that head-coaching job. And he does this the only way he knows: by playing the veterans. Not only should he not be offered that job, but he should be banned from the NBA and forbidden to get within 100 yards of any young NBA player under the penalty of death. If Jimbo really thinks he has a shot at being a head coach, he’s either completely delusional or just hoping Paxson is blinder than a masturbating bat with glaucoma.

What’s so damn annoying is that this has been going on for the entire season. Of course, Skiles, and then Boylan, always had an excuse: first, they wanted “the best product on the floor” which somehow meant for them playing Ben Wallace instead of Tyrus Thomas. This despite the fact that Wallace just didn’t give a shit and Tyrus,  who’s production when given minutes was already arguably better than Wallace’s, if he got the minutes, would have improved enough to make this debate look ridiculous.

When Skiles was fired and replaced with Boylan and the Bulls kept sucking, the goal changed from (presumably) reaching the finals to making the playoffs. Boylan, a regular Mini-Skiles, thinking making the playoffs might land him a full time job as a head coach (this would have been worse than wathing Shaq in a free throw shooting contest), kept playing the veterans. In itself his inability to see that playing the young players gave the team more chances of winning should disqualify him from any coaching job.

Then it was time to showcase Wallace apparently. At least that’s what some Bulls fans believed. Although I really have to ask what’s the point of showcasing him if when you’re trading him you have to take back an equally awful contract. If you trade a player you don’t want and has a bad contract for a player the other team doesn’t want and who has a similarly bad contract, all you are doing is trading a piece of crap for another piece of crap. You don’t need to put your piece of crap in the window prior to that. Nobody is going to think that’s some tasty chocolate cake. Well, anyway, this showcasing meant the turd stayed in the window, while the good stuff was left to rot on the shelf in the closet.

So Wallace was traded and Boylan was forced to play Tyrus. And he delivered. Of course you wouldn’t expect a sophomore who played less total minutes that some rookies at that point to suddenly become Mr Consistency, but he had a few nice games:

And the result of him having few nice promising games was Boylan giving the starting job to Drew Gooden. Using the same retarded logic that playing the veterans gave him more chances of winning (and thus landing that head coaching job), he  kept playing the veterans. Gooden had a few nice games, indeed, but he is NOT the player drafted as a project by the Bulls using the 2nd pick in the lottery (yes, technically he was picked 4th, but had the deal with Portland not been in place, the Bulls would have picked him straight up with their 2nd pick).  I can only assume that the Bulls did not receive that memo informing them that when you pick a player who’s considered a project you should actually “develop” him. In case they know the meaning of the word, which I sincerely doubt.

So even if it was not Gooden the one who desperately needed minutes to develop, he got them nonetheless, while Tyrus found himself glued to the bench again. He received more than 20 minutes of PT only twice in March, but he got less than 10 minutes on 4 occasions, playing 9, 4, 7 and again 4 minutes. Not even in blowout losses did Boylan manage to find more than 15 minutes for him.

During the course of the season, Boylan basically ignored the franchise’s best (long term) interest in order to promote his own agenda. Again, speaking volumes about how qualified he is for a head-coaching job, was his sheer ineptitude of understanding how to better promote his own agenda. He continued with Skiles’ policy of claiming minutes are earned in practice and on the court while giving the veterans entitlement minutes, he lost the respect of all the players (if they ever had any for him), and, of course, he kept losing games.

Some people like to give him credit for “discovering” Thabo, but the truth is that Thabo would have stayed buried at the end of the bench had the guards that were ahead of him in the rotation not been injured. In fact what happened Boylan was forced to play Thabo, and the moron didn’t even realize what he got, or else he would have made it a point not to giveThabo less than 30 minutes in any given game.

So with all these in mind, in theory at least, there should be no chance that Boylan is retained as a head coach. But I wouldn’t be too shocked if Paxson thought that the blame rests more with the players than the coach, and for the 1st time in NBA history decided to change the players and keep the coach and “give Boylan a fair chance”. Which, of course, would mean he’d just give Boylan another roster to fuck-up with. But, at least, the disaster that would ensue would at least have Paxson fired and, hopefuly, replaced by a GM that is more able to build a champion.

When Skiles was fired lots of people (Bulls players included) said he was very similar in philosophy (or, as I like to call it when the term refers to Skiles, stupidity) to Scott Skiles. Of course he assured everyone that “he was his own man”. But so far it looks like when he cleaned up his stuff, Skiles left behind his coaching manual and Jim Boylan was happy to find it. The only thing he actually changed was to play Thabo Sefolosha more and Thabo proved he can actually play. In Boylan’s defense, he was forced to play Thabo because of injuries to the other G’s of else Thabo’d probably still be pinned to the bench while Adrian Griffin was getting 20 min per game.

Post game press conference in Chicago

Unfortunately, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, not even with the trade of Ben Wallace and Joe Smith, which cleared the log jam at PF/C: Tyrus Thomas does not get enough play time. Not even after he has one or 2 good games, not even if he plays well in the few minutes he receives. And even when he plays well in limited minutes, Tyrus still manages to get thrown under the buss by the coach (cause, of course, just like his good friend Skiles, Boylan isn’t guilty himself - it’s ALWAYS the players’ fault).

For example, last night against Washington Tyrus had 2 points on 1-2 FG, 4 reb, 2 ast, 1 TO in 9 minutes. That would have meant about 7 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists per 30 minutes. For most players that would have guaranteed more minutes during the second half. But Tyrus was yanked early in the 3rd and then left on the bench.

That apparently happened because “coach” Boylan (and I use the term “coach” very loosely) decided to play small ball. Which may not be such a bad decision if your guards were not named Larry Hughes (who had 5-16 FG and, of course, a website asking him to stop taking so many bad shots), Kirk Hinrich (3 ast, 5 TO) or Ben Gordon (2-9 FG, 3 ast, 3 TO).

Not to mention that going small against a team that shoots 11.1% from the 3p line is basically inviting them to beat you inside if they can’t do it from the outside. It’s like Boylan thought “These guys can’t shoot from the 3p line, so lets make things easier for them. Let’s go small so they have the size advantage”. And it worked. The Wizards said “Thank you for giving us the game” and then proceeded to kick the Bulls’ asses.

There are 2 things to say about this: First, when Tyrus is finally traded and blossoms into an all star and people will wonder “why didn’t this guy produce while he was with the Bulls ?” just remember: it’s Boylan’s fault. Second, considering Paxson already made a statement in which he endorsed Boylan by saying “Jim Boylan is an NBA head-coach”, don’t be surprised if in the summer you’ll see Boylan get the head-coaching job. After all, he’s cheap, just like Jerry Reinsdorf. That’s a match made in heaven.

Since I’m ranting about moron coaches, how can I not mention Bernie Bickerstaff ?? Yeah, I know his lame ass got fired like 8 months ago, but this thing has been bothering me for a while. Especially since there wasn’t much talk/outrage about it in the media (SI/ESPN etc).

“But this was a miracle shot” you say ? “What could he have done” you ask ? Well, according to the NBA rules coaches should be kinda familiar with, with less then 0.3 seconds left on the clock the only allowed shot is a tip-in. Watch again the video. Now tell me, why the hell were 2 Bobcats players “defending” the 3p line ? How many 3p tip-ins have you seen ? One of the Bobcats is 10 meters (30 feet) away from the basket. Are you kidding me ? He might as well have went for a hot-dog while he was there. Since you’re not allowed to catch the ball, the odds of “tipping” it from the 3p line are zero, nil, none, zilch, zip and whatever the fuck synonym you want to use. Even worse, the 2 guys left under the basket are Gerald Wallace (who’s indeed an amazing athlete) and all-world defender Matt Carroll.

What the Moronosaurus Bernix should have done was to have one player pressing the Knick inbounding the ball, and the other 4 standing in the paint forming a square with 3m (10 feet) sides. Have 2 of them on each side of the rim, and the other 2 in front of them. Is more likely for the tip-in to be attempted from the opposite side of the rim (in relation to the player inbounding the ball). Which is exactly what happened. If it was attempted from the same side, the player trying to tip-in the ball in would have to have his back turned to the basket or at least be sideways in order to be able to see the ball coming. So have all of them ready to go towards that area, to clog the area and try to get the ball. As soon as the ball is touched, the time expires. All the Bobcats have to do is tip that ball themselves, just not towards their basket.

If you watch the movie, Gerald has his back turned to the passer so he can chase Lee. He doesn’t see the pass and he only reacts to Lee jumping for the ball, which is too late. Tell Wallace that as soon as the pass is thrown, he has to get to it. The pass must be lobbed over the defender trying to stop the inbound, so it’s not gonna travel too fast. An athletic player with good positioning can easily grab or tip away that ball. Lee shouldn’t have even sniffed the ball.

What makes things worse from my perspective as a Bulls fan is that with one more Bobcats win over the Knicks would have had the Knicks tied with Portland and Minnesota at 32-50. Since the Bulls had the right to swap their picks with the Knicks and it was obvious they would exercise this right, there was 1 chance in 3 for the Bulls to actually end up with the 1st pick in the draft. (Portland won a tiebreaker with Minnesota and then won the lottery, and if the Bulls were tied with them, there would have been a 1/3 chance of winning the tiebreaker).

Interesting fact: later on in the season the Bobcats allowed Eddy Curry to win a game with a buzzer beater. From behind the 3p line. His only 3p shot of the season. His second in his 7 year career. But I don’t blame Bernie too much for that shot. You don’t worry much about Eddy Curry at the 3p line - although he’s 100% for his career (2-2). But that tip-in should have had him fired on the spot.

What the hell do you need to do in order to become a coach in the NBA ?? If you watch the league long enough, sometimes you’ll have the impression that the answer is: “Not much. Not much at all“. During the Lakers - Cavaliers game the commentators were discussing the foul trouble situation. Jeff Van Gundy notices Lebron has 4 fouls and has a really bright idea. For him. He says the foul limit should be extended to 7 allowing the superstars of the league to stay on the floor more, and then asks himself where’s the harm in that.

Well, since you asked, Jeff, how about the fact that the fucking games would be a hack fest ??? And they would last like 6 hours each. Nobody would pay to watch people (be they superstars or whatever) shoot free throws. Not for 6 hours in a row. Not to mention the fact that those shooting those free throws won’t be the Nash’s and the Iverson’s of the league. Nope. It would be the Shaq’s, the Ben Wallace’s and the Dwight Howard’s. With extra fouls to give, the coaches would be like “Can I have a Hack’a'Shaq ? Yeah, sure, super size me !!“.

Just in case you’re asking yourselves what the fuck was Jeff thinking about when he came up with this “idea“, well, this is the kind of basketball Jeff likes to coach (and you can actually see him doing some coaching in the lower part of the image):

PS: As you may already know, Lebron was just fine. He didn’t foul out and he played some excellent D on Kobe and helped the Cavs win the game.

I am probably beating on a dead horse, but can anyone explain to me why Thabo only played 23:38 while Duhon got 31:58 against the Suns ? And Duhon is said to be injured. So was an injured Duhon so much better then Thabo ?

The boxscore says he wasn’t. Thabo had more points (10 to 5), shot better (4-8 compared to 2-8), rebounded better (5 to 1), had more assists (2 to 1) and less TO (0 to 2). The only area where Duhon contributed more: assists. Duhon had 3 assists to Thabo’s zero. Some may think this was a good reason to have Duhon in instead of Thabo. But that’s not true. Thabo is a shooting guard. He may not be a great scorer, but in this game he shot 50%, which means he could (and probably should) have taken a few more shots since they were dropping for him. You can probably compare him to Raja Bell who also wasn’t much of a scorer and especially 3p shooter till he started playing with Steve Nash.

Now if there are complains about the number of assists, then Hinrich is the main culprit. He is supposed to be the team’s PG, yet he had 3 ast and 4 TO in this one. I know he just had a couple of very good games in which he scored 38 and 31 points, but for what I am concerned his scoring outburst just confirmed what I’ve always said about him: he’s a combo guard. He’s not a playmaker. He plays PG out of necessity because there is no one else on the Bulls who can do it better (which doesn’t make him good at it). Actually, the coaches apparently think Duhon can play point better this being the reason why they benched Gordon and played Duhon next to Hinrich, but since they are kinda retarded, I wouldn’t give them too much credit. Hinrich playing SG is not a good idea because he’s too short and because he’s less aggressive than a lump of pudding in taking the ball to the hoop.

With Gordon out, Hinrich seems to be benefiting from playing alongside Sefolosha as he’s been playing better recently. Either that or he just broke out of his slump (is it a slump if it lasts half a season ?) against the all world defense of Tinsley/Diener and Nash. But despite his recent 2 good games, I’ll be impressed when he scores more then 10 points against Detroit, since so far in 3 Bulls wins he scored 8 points (3-11), 9 points (4-11) and again 8 points (2-7).

“And even then, there’s always the option of playing Adrian Griffin. After all, he’s a veteran. “

It was only a few days ago when I said this and Boylan couldn’t wait to go and prove me right. Against Indiana Adrian Griffin was on the floor for almost 28 minutes. And he justified those minutes by producing 5 points on 2-8 shooting, 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal in those 28 minutes. Which is about 23 minutes more then he should see, no matter what the situation is. Speaking of which, Duhon and Gordon missed the game with injuries. Gordon had a sprained right wrist, and Duhon was apparently still not over Skiles’ firing and sobbing uncontrollably. But no amount of sprained wrists or broken hearts justifies this atrocity.

This would have been the perfect opportunity to give JamesOn Curry some burn. After all, how can you find out if you got a 2nd round steal if you’re not playing him ? If you can’t find time for him when you have a lot of injuries (especially at his position) and you’re playing a bad team who’s missing his best player and defender and its 6th man, when will you find time for him ? Apparently, you just don’t. Probably in the view of the Chicago coaching staff and front office developing young players is overrated anyway. Just take a look at the video below and replace Corddry with Skiles/Boylan, “children” with “rookies” and “money” with “playtime” and judge for yourself:

Are the youngs the franchise’s future ?? I mean, come on !!