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| Wednesday, December 5 Floyd just a victim as Bulls continue to lose By David Aldridge Special to ESPN.com |
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It looks suspiciously like the endgame in Chicago now, with the coach telling his players things he doesn't expect to see in the paper the next day, only the relationship has been shattered, only the coach doesn't really know it yet, which is the way Rick Pitino and dozens before him went out. And it's how Tim Floyd looks now: defiant one moment, deflated the next.
Strangely, this isn't really about Floyd at all, but about how the Bulls have gone about their business since the championships ended. He took the money and thought he could ultimately win there, true. But the architects of the plan, such as it's been, were the Jerrys, Reinsdorf and Krause, both determined to win a championship not only without Michael Jordan, but Phil Jackson, too. Their failure to keep the roll going doesn't make them unique, nor their hubris in thinking that losing wouldn't happen to them. Amazing, really, the egos in the NBA. They really think the players don't matter. The whole lot of them. Only Chuck Daly seemed in modern times to really grasp it, that while he was important to the team, like a good producer is in Hollywood, nobody pays $8 to see David Zucker's ideas. It's always been about the players, the right players, the one or two superstars and the six or seven foot soldiers. (You don't believe me, ask Riles how things are going when his talent is the same as everybody else's.) And the Bulls thought that cap room would be enough of an enticement, that McGrady or Hill or Duncan wouldn't be able to resist a max-out contract. Money, not the idea of playing for Coach Floyd or in Krause's precious triangle, would do all the heavy lifting for Krause. Not only did they resist, so did Eddie Jones and Michael Finley and Antonio McDyess. Yeah, the rules changed on Chicago in the middle of the game, and stars could make more money by staying home, but there is something deeper to the Bulls' failure to land any free agents of significance for three years. Actions have consequences. And all the petty things that happened in Chicago during the title years, all the secrecy and mistrust, produced a telling price when the circus left town. But can Krause cashier Floyd, even as it appears that Floyd is begging him to? Wouldn't that be an acknowledgement that the pursuit of the ex-Iowa State man over anyone else in the World Coaching Fraternity was a mistake? Krause still is telling people that Floyd is the last coach he's going to hire, that he's got it right. And, really, does it even matter? The Bulls could pay Floyd off and bring in either Bill Cartwright or John Paxson to run the show, and nothing will change. The players aren't good enough. They won't be good enough for a very, very long time, and the ones that might get better, like Marcus Fizer, inexplicably have to split minutes with Charles Oakley when they should be out there 40 minutes nightly, learning something. You wonder if the Bulls will do anything because the luxury suites are paid for, and the stockholders are seeing at least some return after years of deficit spending to pay Jackson, Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. You wonder if they really care that their franchise's reputation is lower than the Grizzlies' (as is their talent base), that a 38-year-old Jordan on a bad team is more interesting to the basketball cognoscenti and fans, that people forget winners when they stop winning. The Kings used to play in Rochester, N.Y., and they were good. Once they stopped being good, it took 40 years for anyone to give a damn anymore. After all the champagne has dried, all that's left in the Windy City are a couple of teenagers and Fred Hoiberg. The Mayor deserves better.
Cavs, Ilgauskas try again
"The more minutes he plays on it, the more stress makes it more likely that the foot won't hold up," GM Jim Paxson said. "He'll be more than a part-time player, but probably less than a full-time player. Last year he played 34, 36 minutes and we won five in a row, but he got hurt. This year we're going to look at it closely. He's not going to be a 10- to 14-minute player. If he plays that much then he isn't happy. He doesn't want to play that few (amount of) minutes." Ilgauskas' X-rays should be on Cleveland's media guide. His absence has destroyed what could have been a pretty good young nucleus with Andre Miller. The numbers don't lie: In the 29 games he's played since the start of the 1998-99 season, the Cavs are 17-12 and their opponents shot 42.2 percent from the floor. In the 103 games he hasn't played over that time, the Cavs are 35-68 and their opponents shot 44.7 percent. Because of his absence, the Cavs have been forced to spend the seventh and eighth picks in the last two drafts, respectively, on centers Chris Mihm and DeSagana Diop. Oh, and he's costing them $67.5 million through 2005. But if Z doesn't pan out again, the Cavs might apply for an injury exception. Clearly, this is a chronic injury. They thought about applying last season but didn't want to have the exception during the season, when deals and signings to specific slots are a lot harder. (If Cleveland were to gain an exception after this season, it would be for a little more than $6 million.) "If we get to that point, we want to be able to maximize it," Paxson said. "I don't want to put words in his mouth. But I would think that if the foot doesn't hold up this time, he would have to think about (retiring). Because he knows he's done everything he could to come back."
Around the League As far as rating his individual skills, we leave it to a former NBA coach: Don Casey, who just returned from a month in China as a consultant. "He's got the baseline hook, and he attacks the rim, but he can't go into the middle," Casey disclosed. "Every team attacked him when he took his first dribble. He's a pretty good passer and he trails the break very well." And what of his problem holding the post? "He's 20!," Casey counters. "At 25, he'll hold his position."
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