At long last, it appears the Chicago Bulls will fire coach Vinny Del Negro, who they were supposed to fire in December. Well, probably.
Report: Bulls Will Fire Coach Vinny Del Negro “Barring A Snag”
KC Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reports:
Vinny Del Negro met with Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf on Sunday, but the embattled coach's 11th-hour argument to keep his job won't change what the Tribune has reported since December 2009:
Del Negro is expected to be dismissed with one year and roughly $2 million remaining on his guaranteed three-year contract. Barring a snag, the Bulls will make this news official Tuesday.
Normally, “barring a snag” means nothing and is simply a way for a reporter to save face in case his report is wrong, but this is no normal case. Back in December, there was actually a snag: the Bulls couldn’t find anyone to replace Del Negro, so they had to go back and tell him he could stay. Awk-ward. If the Bulls had fired Del Negro like they were supposed to anyway, then the March fight between Del Negro and GM John Paxson never happens.
So why then does it appear that the Bulls haven’t learned their lesson? As Johnson writes:
Doug Collins, Lawrence Frank, Kevin McHale, Maurice Cheeks, Byron Scott and Dwane Casey are some of the many names who fit that description and could receive interviews. Management is waiting to contact prospective candidates until Del Negro officially is dismissed.
Uh, no, that’s not how it works. You fire your coach first, then contact potential replacements later. Once again, the Bulls are bungling what seems like a simple decision.
SB Nation’s Bulls blog Blog a Bull is not amused by how the Bulls are handling this either.
July 1st is two months away so there’s still some time, but the sooner the better when it comes to the coaching search. A bit discouraging that our two-headed basketball executive isn’t mentioned as in trouble, and that they’ll be leading the search. Which then I suppose Jerry Reinsdorf will have to
meddleapprove.As ChicagoNow points out this morning, it’s strange that Reinsdorf is having this meeting directly with Del Negro in the first place. While it’s indeed his $2m, it’d be nice if the Chairman left it to his basketball executives to fire their coach that they all agree (and I do as well) should be fired. And GarPax can’t be happy that their boss is having a meeting where Vinny will have to denigrate their job to save his own.
This way doesn’t bode well for the hope of a newly streamlined front office, and the upcoming search (and free agency) will be business as usual.
Seriously, just fire the guy already. There’s no reason to keep leading him on like this.
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