Phil Jackson to Coach The Bulls? NO!

There is a rumor, or report – depending upon your perspective, that the Bulls have sent out feelers to Phil Jackson’s people to see if Jackson is interested in coaching the Bulls next season. That is not happening. There are a few reasons he may not be coaching the Lakers next season, but if he is not on the bench in LA he will not be on the bench anywhere. Like Ali Fedotowsky, the new Bachelorette that debuted last night, Jackson and Ali are both in high demand, but their shelf life is very limited. Ali is not really famous and just like all of the past “stars” of the reality shows they should appreciate the attention now because they will be long forgotten in less than a year. Jackson is 64 years old with a tremendous amount of health issues regarding his knees and his back. He can barely pace the sidelines and work the officials during the games. He doesn’t have that many years left to coach.

Reason #1 to go to Chicago: First and foremost is……the money. (you thought I was going to mention that LeBron guy)

He’s making $12 million this season and the Lakers have notified him that he will need to take a significant pay cut to return to the LA bench next year.

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: Part of that pay cut may or may not be related to an agreement for Phil to not travel on all of the Lakers roadtrips and other methods to ease the physical burden on him. Yet that is not reported by the big-four-letter. The only thing reported is a cut in salary for the coach with 10 World Championships. That must be a slight and Phil should head for the exits. In reality, the Lakers may be giving him more respect than any other team would to allow him to step back slightly to maintain his health.

Reason #2 to go to Chicago: He remained on good terms with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: He is not dating Reinsdorf’s daughter. He is dating Dr. Jerry Buss’s daughter, Jeanie. That’s a mismatch in favor of LA. It just doesn’t seem very likely that he would up and leave his girlfriend’s father’s team . He has a comfortable life with a team and owner that respects him and allows him to do whatever he needs to do.

Reason #3 to go to Chicago: A Young and Talented Team

The lure of coaching a young and talented team with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and potentially that LeBron James guy. If LeBron were to sign in Chicago the Bulls would have a core of young talent that could challenge for titles for the next 10 years. They would also have the potential cap space to swing a sign and trade with Toronto for Chris Bosh, giving up Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and draft picks. It can be debated whether Rose and James would be a good fit together as both tend to dominate the ball and are primarily penetrators rather than outside shooters, yet you cannot debate whether that team would have the talent to win it all repeatedly.

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: The Lakers have more talent

Yes, the Bulls would be in line to contend for the next ten years with Jackson & James. However he is currently coaching a team that is two wins away from their third straight NBA Finals appearance. He is currently coaching the best player in the game – Kobe Bryant. Yes, Kobe is more on the downside of his career than the upside, but he remains the best closer in the game, the most clutch performer and fiercest competitor. None of that can be said for James or for Rose at this point. Jackson is 64 years old. Add to that his health concerns and it appears unlikely that he will be coaching more than 3 or 4 more years. Bryant will remain lethal for that long. Gasol will still be among the best big men in the game for that long. Andrew Bynum won’t be 25 in 3 years. Lamar Odom will still be on a sugar high (though the concern is that being married to a Kardashian could drive him to the looney bin). He has young assets like Jordan Farmar to replace Derek Fisher, and Shannon Brown to play the Ron Artest role. Why would he leave a sure thing for a chance to see if LeBron really has that ultracompetitive gear?

At the end of the day, Phil has everything he wants in Los Angeles with the Lakers. He has the best team that will remain a title contender the next few years. He has the girl, thanks to the owner. He has made more than enough money in his career to comfortably take a pay cut for less travel and wear and tear on his body. Phil Jackson will be the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers next season.

Why It Must Suck To Be A Bears Fan

It is not debatable that it sucks to be a Bears fan. It is only debatable WHY it sucks to be a Bears fan. The football team in the city of broad shoulders has not excelled at the sport where broad shoulders should come in extremely useful.

So this is why it sucks to be a Bears fan…….

I. The Fan Base

First and foremost, it sucks to be a Bears fan because you are lumped together with the overweight, sausage-eating, baker’s-dozen-heart-attack-having, Ditka-loving group from Saturday Night Live. Talking about da bears and dem guys dat can’t win dat game against dat udder team. It’s not a pretty sight to see the passionate fans of Chicago watching their team come up short time and time again. And the fans are passionate, because let’s be honest, what else do they have to cheer for? The Cubs? Yeah, that “curse” from 1908 isn’t going to end anytime soon for the loveable losers that fill the stands with people who don’t know anything about baseball, but know that they want to be seen at the game. Oh, and they just declared bankruptcy, so do you really expect them to improve any time soon? No. The Bulls? Ever since Jerry Krause ran Jordan out of town, the team has been a laughing stock. Oh, and that was more than 10 years ago the last time the Bulls were relevant. The White Sox? Please. There are only a dozen people that know the White Sox play in Chicago and 2 of them are still on probation from their booze-fueled attack on the Royals first base coach a few seasons ago. The Blackhawks? They have a great, rich tradition of success, but no one outside of Canada cares about a sport where they call the jerseys “sweaters.” So the fans in Chicago have no choice but to have blind faith and hope for the Bears success.

II. The Ownership/Management

The McCaskey family controls about 80% of the team, and I don’t think you can question their passion for the team and for football. Unfortunately, the problem has been with hiring poor personnel people and messing up the roster. The McCaskeys hired Jerry Angelo as the GM in 2001, yet their coach at the time, Dick Jauron, had in his contract that he would get final personnel power, so their GM essentially had no authority. That’s like having Barney Fife as your town sherriff and replacing him with Aunt Bea!! Amazingly, that didn’t work out well, and Jauron was eventually fired in 2003. The personnel decisions from Angelo have been horrendous. Free agency and trades haven’t treated the Bears well, bringing in Brian Griese, giving up a draft pick for John Tait, and giving away Thomas Jones. The same Thomas Jones who led the AFC in rushing last year, and is 5th this year. And it’s not pretty looking at the first round picks since 2001: David Terrell, Marc Columbo, Rex Grossman, Michael Haynes, Tommie Harris, Cedric Benson, Greg Olsen and Chris Williams. He gave up Thomas Jones to give the job to Cedric Benson who was eventually cut before resurfacing with the Bengals, and is now 3rd in the league in rushing. Is there such thing as a Reverse King Midas? Jerry Angelo might be King Turd – everything he touches turns to a turd until they are out from under the Bears’ grip. Oh, and then there’s Kyle Orton……..

III. The Quarterback

Speaking of Kyle Orton, it deserves its own section. The Quarterback of the Chicago Bears, it doesn’t sound that complicated. Play caretaker for a team with a good defense and a predisposition to run the ball. Yet the Bears have not found a quarterback since Sid Luckman – and he retired in 1950. Yes, Jim McMahon won a Super Bowl in 1986, but he was not the key to that team like Walter Payton and the defense were. Fans want to have a quarterback to see as the face of the franchise. Bears fans have had the following guys as their quarterbacks: Mike Tomczak, Jim Harbaugh, Peter Tom Willis, Eric Kramer, Steve Walsh, Dave Krieg, Rick Mirer, Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, Jim Miller, Chris Chandler, Henry Burris, Kordell Stewart, Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, Brian Griese, and finally Jay Cutler. I’ll take “Quarterbacks I will always bet against and will win much more than I will lose” for a million, Alex. The Bears threw in Kyle Orton along with first round draft picks to get Jay Cutler, and all Orton has done is lead the Broncos to a perfect 6-0 start with a passer rating over 100, good for 8th in the league.

I mean, Jay Cutler just signed a two-year contract extension yesterday. That’s a sign of how bad it’s been for the Bears quarterbacks. Five games, 10 TDs, 7 INTs and a rating under 87.0, and yet that is far and away better than anything they’ve seen before, so they wanted to lock him up as soon as possible. Your kid only got in a fender-bender during his first 5 weeks with his license and didn’t total the car, so you might as well upgrade him to a Bentley.

IV. Lack of Success

And finally, the biggest reason it sucks to be a Bears fan is that the Bears suck. They won the Super Bowl in 1986 (after the 1985 season), and since then, made one flukey trip in 2006, where they were demolished by the Colts. The Bears fans still rely upon that 1985/6 team for an identity, and idolized Coach Ditka, Walter Payton, Mike Singletary, and Richard Dent so much that they have failed to realize how poor the team has been in the past 20+ years. Oh, and Ditka is from Pennsylvania, not Chicago. The Bears are 5-9 in the playoffs since winning that lone Super Bowl, and have only won their division 3 times since 1991. The Monsters of the Midway are about as intimidating as the Baby Muppets. Even Paris Hilton realized that the Bears suck, and dumped Brian Urlacher because she couldn’t date someone that was more overrated than her.