Bulls could miss out on top NBA coaching candidates
After an eventful week in some other NBA locales, here's an update on the Bulls' coaching search.
• Dallas' Avery Johnson became available a few hours after the Mavericks were eliminated by New Orleans in the playoffs. Both the Bulls and Knicks are guaranteed to have strong interest, but so far there has been no word on whether Johnson intends to take another job right away.
• Rick Carlisle, the leader out of the gate in the Bulls' derby, has emerged as a strong favorite for the Mavs' vacancy. Reports surfaced Saturday that Carlisle had been offered the job, but both sides claimed there is no agreement yet.
• In the meantime, the Bulls will be watching Phoenix in the coming days to see if coach Mike D'Antoni joins the list of available candidates.
Depending on how things work out, Bulls general manager John Paxson could be faced with a tantalizing choice between Johnson's discipline and D'Antoni's up-tempo offense. Both have taken home NBA coach of the year awards and produced multiple 60-win seasons.
On the other hand, D'Antoni could end up staying with the Suns, while Carlisle is hired in Dallas and Johnson decides to take a year off.
It's also conceivable that Atlanta emerges as a contender for Johnson after the Hawks' embarrassing Game 7 effort against Boston.
If all three of those coaches are off limits, the Bulls would be forced to keep waiting, most likely for Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau and Detroit assistant Michael Curry to wrap up the playoffs. Broadcaster Mark Jackson has also spoken to Paxson about the Bulls' opening.
D'Antoni's departure has been widely speculated since Phoenix's season ended with a five-game loss to San Antonio. He met with Suns general manager Steve Kerr and owner Robert Sarver on Friday, but any resolution on D'Antoni's future was tabled until this week.
There has been talk that D'Antoni felt micro-managed by Kerr, who took over the Suns' basketball operations in June. Kerr, a product of defensive-minded championship teams in Chicago and San Antonio, wants D'Antoni to place more focus on defense and use his bench more liberally.
"I'd like to see him back," Kerr said. "I'd like to see us working together. It's been well-documented we have some different ideas and different approaches. And what we have to do is talk and communicate and make sure we can get on the same page in terms of how this team can get better."
Kerr was always a straight shooter while playing for the Bulls, so it's difficult to imagine him delivering a complete lie when discussing D'Antoni's future.
D'Antoni has two years left on his contract worth a reported $8.5 million. The money shouldn't be a factor if D'Antoni plans to take another coaching job, so maybe the discussions with Kerr and Sarver involved whether D'Antoni can quit and still be allowed to work for another team.
"I think that once he sits down and talks with management, they can come to sort of consensus on how they can move forward together," Suns guard Steve Nash said. "I would imagine that's what's going to happen."
Keep in mind that it was Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum who wrote following the Game 5 loss to the Spurs that D'Antoni would not be back. McCallum once joined D'Antoni's coaching staff for a magazine story, so his insight figures to be reliable.
Once the Phoenix situation is settled, there is a good chance Paxson makes a move fairly quickly toward either Johnson or D'Antoni. So it may fall on Kerr, the 1997 Finals hero, to decide the Bulls' coaching future.