Person within NBA: Bulls offer coaching job to Del Negro

[SenorSpur]

If the Chicago front office had a brain they would hire away Tom Thibodeau....

Exactly. This guy is 10 times the coach that Del Negro will never be.

...and you mean guys like Dwayne Casey and Pat Ewing can't get jobs?
Sheesh!

[SenorSpur]

Del Negro? I applaud the Bulls for thinking outside the box but how about someone who has at least been an assistant coach on some level. Del Negro in his playing days was known as the last one at practice and the first one to leave. He also wilted once Pop got on the sidelines.

I give him two years max.

Coincidentally, that's the length of his contract - 2 mil.

The Bulls, Paxson to be exact, should be run out of town for his terrible hire.

[Avitus1]

You know I was just talking with my brother about what happened to Del Negro... we had to google it. Its kinda funny that he comes up now. Though I'm not entirely sure how he'd be as a coach.

[SenorSpur]

As a player, I remember this guy being as soft as tissue paper, mentally fragile and was more dedicated to his golf game than his NBA game. I cannot believed some owner was gullable enough to give this 2-bit, weak-ass, corporate social-climber, a head coaching job. There's truly one born every minute.

[Bob Lanier]

The Bulls, Paxson to be exact, should be run out of town for his terrible hire.

Paxson is operating on the end of a very short leash.

As a player, I remember this guy being as soft as tissue paper, mentally fragile and was more dedicated to his golf game than his NBA game. I cannot believed some owner was gullable enough to give this 2-bit, weak-ass, corporate social-climber, a head coaching job. There's truly one born every minute.

Another way of looking at the situation is that Jerry Reinsdorf sees in the qualities you mention the perfect stooge, a potentially excellent excuse, and doesn't really give a damn if the Bulls win or not.

[blaze89]

I got this quote from this article

One thing scares the crap out of me - the idea that Bob Hill will become Del Negro's lead assistant. There's nothing wrong, especially as a coaching neophyte, to have a veteran hand behind you.

But Hill's veteran hand has had no shame in stabbing his bosses in the back in the past as he tries to move up in the food chain. He's the ultimate NBA usurper, and has been for over two decades. With Del Negro working with one of the league's cheapest coaching contracts and with only two years guaranteed, I can't think of a coach I'd look less fondly on to take over should things go to pot, say, by December of 2009. I'd be looking fondly on the truncated Doug Collins era by that point.

-- Kelly Dwyer

It seems like a bad hire but no one really knows and we won't know until the season starts.