May 30, 2008
SO, Bulls GM John Paxson has talked to Doug Collins about his team's head coaching vacancy. What, Kevin Loughery didn't leave a phone number? Ed Badger out of the country? Red Kerr wanted too much power?
If Paxson, who suspects this will be his last hire should the trap door he triggered remain open another season, believes Collins is his savior, he ought to check out what happened to Michael Jordan in Washington.
How Chicago chairman Jerry Reinsdorf can endorse a person he fired in 1989 under shadowy circumstances after the Bulls were evicted from the Eastern finals defies comprehension. Selective long-term memory loss has its benefits, but there are still too many of us around who haven't forgotten.
Despite repeated evidence to the contrary, ex-coaches and former players-turned-TV-analysts continue to stamp Joey Crawford as one of the NBA's elite officials. I challenge them to cite a controversy within the past 20 or 30 years he was judged to be correct.
If the league office isn't calling Crawford on David Stern's carpet, or fining and suspending him, it's apologizing for a game-deciding mistake - his non-call on Derek Fisher jumped into Milk Bonespur Brent Barry in the waning seconds of the Lakers' two-point Game 4 victory.
With the aid of instant replay - and the help of Crawford's seeing-eye dog - the league felt compelled to admit a foul had been committed for fear its fans would buy into the twisted perspective of those same commentators that the game is whistled differently in the last minute of a game than the first 47.
Naturally, mixed messages lead to confused reception. On one hand, the league boasts that only the highest-grade refs are assigned to work late into the postseason. Then it undermines them by announcing they screwed up.
Nobody can deny Fisher created contact, yet nobody on TNT's air (or connected with the Spurs) expected Barry to get "bailed out" from behind Joakim Noah's arc? Reggie Miller and Kenny Smith admonished Barry for not "selling" the foul to officials the way Indiana Bones and Walt Frazier did. Yup, Brent should be ashamed of himself for not kicking his opponent as Reggie was wont to do.
For his part, Gregg Popovich was genius enough to realize his gang didn't need to get "crew-cified" in last night's potential elimination game by whining about a verdict that was going to remain unchanged.
