Vinny Del Negro's Ideal Basketball Philosophy

Vinny Del Negro is at the “Doug Collins phase” of being named the Bulls next head coach, but this time it looks like both sides are going to take the next step. And, if you were surprised John Paxson and the Bulls would hire a man with no coaching experience, than you haven’t been following the team for very long.

Hiring Del Negro is just another one of the unusual things going on with the Bulls, right up there with Scott Skiles being fired/quitting, a million questions with the roster, and an overall crazy season, that are difficult to comprehend and explain.

I can’t really rationalize what is going on inside Paxson’s head (or maybe even more importantly Jerry Reinsdorf’s head). Del Negro can become a good head coach, but it’s difficult to understand Paxson’s decision-making process.

Next season the Bulls will (and should) have relatively high expectations, and how Del Negro is going to handle his highly pressured, first head coaching job is anyone’s guess. Until the Bulls hold a press conference this week there are probably only two people (Paxson and Steve Kerr) who know what Del Negro’s basketball philosophy is (it’s not even in any of the local papers yet).

Del Negro might be the ultimate player’s coach, or he might prefer to consistently scream at Tyrus Thomas for being in the wrong spot on the floor. Either way, the Bulls should be better next season.

Since no one really knows what his style is, or which coaching tree he comes from, I’m going to imagine that he is all of the following things. I’m going to picture him as the Bulls’ ideal coach. I figure my hopes and dreams for the Del Negro era are as good as anyone’s at this point.

Good with young players

Right now, the Bulls are the youngest team in the NBA and will probably be among the youngest for a while. Being able to relate with the youngsters seems like a necessary quality.

It’s also easy to envision the 41-year-old Del Negro getting along with the Bulls' young players. He has only been out of the league for seven years, so he should know all the hip lingo those crazy kids are using. Still, he’ll probably have a hard time understanding what Joakim Noah is talking about.

Open-mindedness on offense

The Bulls' three-year playoff run was filled with great defense and frustrating offense. They won because they tried harder than every one else, and because they played great team defense. This was all well and good, and as a basketball fan it was nice to see the Bulls relevant in the NBA again. Still, most of the time, the Bulls were pretty much unwatchable on offense.

At times the Bulls were terrible because they lacked a great go-to scorer, but the team’s offensive strategy didn’t help. Most of the team’s “plays” started and ended with one of the Bulls' guards attempting to play point guard and dribbling around in circles before someone eventually chucked up a three.

Under Skiles, the Bulls played progressively faster, and the team’s Pace Factor increased every year until this season. This year, the Bulls dropped to 11th in the league. Slowing down the pace for a team built around guards and athletic big men doesn’t seem like a good idea, and it obviously didn’t work.

When Mike D’Antoni was the front-runner, the Bulls' young players seemed excited to play in a more up-tempo offense. For years, the Bulls played in a boring offense that failed to improve for the first time last season. They seemed like they were tired of the same ineffective offense. Continued frustrations on offense caused a young team to lose some of their defensive intensity.

Some Bulls fans wanted Paxson to go after a defensive, tough guy like Avery Johnson, or to wait for the hot assistant, Tom Thibodeau, but the best way for the Bulls to regain their defensive intensity is to appeal to the team’s offensive interest. Unlike Golden State or Denver or Phoenix, the Bulls have showed the ability to play defense that wins in the playoffs.

It doesn’t matter who the coach is, the players on the Bulls are capable of making it tough for others to get a good shot.

Discipline

From January to April, you can argue the Bulls didn’t have a real coach. They pretty much did what they wanted and acted like the immature 20-somethings that they are. Still, it would be great if the team had a coach who has a little control over the team. Del Negro can’t rely on Ben Wallace and Adrian Griffin being enforcers anymore.

Humorous

Really, this has little to do with how successful Del Negro will be as a basketball coach in his career. But, if Del Negro hopes to get through the entire season without wandering into the middle of the Kennedy Expressway, a sense of humor will be important. Questions will surround the Bulls all summer long, yet expectations will be high nonetheless.

At the very least, Del Negro will have to answer questions about Joakim Noah’s summer in Gainesville, along with the interesting personalities of Noah and Thomas. And, if the Bulls draft Derrick Rose (and he doesn’t immediately begin playing like Chris Paul did in the first round of the playoffs), the ridiculously stupid questions about the pressure of him playing in Chicago will make Del Negro want to throw up.

Scott Skiles would smirk and say he wanted the Bulls to take Danilo Gallinari to avoid the hometown pressure, and, for Del Negro’s sake, I hope he has the same wit to get through it.

If the Bulls let Luol Deng or Ben Gordon walk, there will be more questions for Del Negro to deal with. And of course there will be the constant comparisons between Rose and Michael Beasley. This is a good NBA coaching job, but still a stressful one.

Derrick Rose

According to the Chicago Tribune, hiring a former point guard who came from the Suns' system all but guarantees that the Bulls will take Rose. So…Yay!