Ben Gordon Takes On Coaching Atrocity

January 22nd, 2009 by Andrew Wamboldt

From the Inside the Bulls blog that the Chicago Suntimes hosts, Brian Hanley wrote:

Minutes after coach Vinny Del Negro told media to ask his players if they respect him, Ben Gordon was seen by some of the same media confronting Del Negro and using expletives toward the coach in a Berto Center hallway. Gordon was upset at being fined for breaking a team rule. “I respect Vinny, everybody respects Vinny,” Gordon said, declining to go into detail. “This is not a `respect’ issue. It’s a non-issue.” Del Negro declined to comment through a team spokesman.

It will be intriguing to find out which team rule Gordon broke. It could be the ridiculous “no eating in the locker room” rule that he broke. If not that, probably something equal in ridiculousness.

The one thing that is certain of this is that Vinny Del Negro has gotten the one player who doesn’t cause waves to cause waves. It never happened under Scott Skiles, despite having his role yanked around, because Ben Gordon respected him. Jim Boylan couldn’t even get it to happen.

Vinny Del Negro stands alone in this department, getting the ultimate professional to lash out publicly against his coach. There is a good reason for this, Del Negro is the worst coach that Gordon’s ever had. Scott Skiles took the Bulls to the playoffs three times, Jim Boylan won 42.9% of his games coached. Del Negro? 41.9%. Del Negro is doing a worse job as coach than Jim Boylan, who some Bulls fans refuse to speak his name, and Del Negro has Derrick Rose on his team, Jim Boylan did not.

There is no use keeping around Vinny any longer. He is stunting the development of Derrick Rose and causing unrest throughout the rest of the team. The situation Del Negro came into was ideal. A talented team that disappointed that added the top pick in the draft. The team should easily be sitting in a playoff spot, but Del Negro messed up. It’s time for John Paxson to end this charade that Vinny presents as Bulls coach, and fire Vinny Del Negro right now.