Surely, Bulls can do better than Collins

It's time to wonder why the Bulls are taking so long to hire Doug Collins, other than it takes them until lunch just to order breakfast.

Maybe they want to finalize a trade for Dwyane Wade before settling on a coach. Yeah, right.

Then there's that report out of South Bend that Bulls general manager John Paxson, a Collins advocate, is on the list of candidates to become Notre Dame's athletic director.

Now, that might work: Paxson goes to ND as AD and Collins comes to the UC as GM.

But Collins coming as the Bulls' next head coach? No, sorry, I'm not for that at all. It's a potential soap-operatic disaster that club chairman Jerry Reinsdorf might be pondering.

Hopefully the Bulls are reconsidering their attraction to Collins the coach. Or perhaps Reinsdorf never wanted him here as much as Collins wanted to be here.

Anything is possible until the Bulls finally finalize something, say, a month into next season.

Collins is supposed to be a different man and different coach than he was during his first term as head coach here in the 1980s.

Today the enthusiastic public response to Collins' possible comeback must have less to do with what he was while here than what the Bulls were last season under Scott Skiles and Jim Boylan.

It's sort of like the new Soldier Field looked so good because the old one was so decrepit.

Collins' potential return is a last resort rather than a first, right? The Bulls will hire him if they can't think of anything else, always a possibility with them.

Look, I'm skeptical whenever somebody who was something in his 30s is expected to be something else in his 50s.

It's said that men don't mature until it's absolutely necessary. That goes double, triple and quadruple for sportsmen who acquire fame and fortune being who they are.

Yet the Bulls still are considering Collins as head coach 19 years after dismissing him as head coach. Hey, Indiana Jones made a successful return two decades later. Why can't Illinois Collins?

Well, mostly because Jones wasn't as out of control as a young action hero as Collins was as a young NBA coach.

This was a basketball lifer whose insecurities made his personal life nearly as self-destructive as his professional life was.

Remember, Collins emerged from tiny Benton, Ill., and Illinois State. He wasn't overly athletic yet became the NBA draft's first overall pick.

Proving himself worthy drove Collins as a player and drove him crazy as a coach.

While with the Bulls, his thin skin led him into conflicts with the media and more significantly with players.

That wasn't the person you saw later as a TV analyst. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? How about Broadcaster Doug and Coach Collins?

Back then, every day was a potential crisis under Collins. All you need to know is the Bulls fired Collins after three seasons, even though he had just coached them into the conference finals.

Ah, but now Collins is supposed to be different. Maybe becoming a grandfather matured him. Maybe he became spiritual, religious, even born again.

More likely, coaching stress will devour him just as it did here 19 years ago.

The best thing the Bulls could do is change their minds about Collins again and hire a next-to-last resort.

mimrem@dailyherald.com