Minutes after coach Vinny Del Negro told media to ask his players if they respect him, Ben Gordon was seen by some of the same media confronting Del Negro and using expletives toward the coach in a Berto Center hallway

It’s really sad that the necessary changes (firing both VDN & Pax) won’t be made. Pax is safe & VDN will be made the scapegoat when in reality, this current clusterfuck-of-a-quagmire is at least 75% of Pax’s fault. . .

too funny!

BG flips out over a fine!

Matt should be on suicide watch tonight.

His boy is going down (with a note in his hands)….

There goes that PHat contract..

The Bulls fined guard Ben Gordon for breaking an undisclosed team rule Thursday, and the typically stoic guard was seen at the Berto Center expressing his displeasure with the decision by using profanity during an animated conversation with coach Vinny Del Negro.

The incident took place after Del Negro addressed reporters. Del Negro declined a request through a team spokesman to address the issue. Reached outside the Berto Center, Gordon said the incident was no longer an issue and he had no problems with the Bulls’ coach.

that Ben didn’t curse directly AT Vinny, he was using expletives in a general sense (i.e. he was mad AT being fined)

VDN and BG both will be gone next year. This is unbelievable!

show up to practice with “Fire Vinny” headbands?

and not a Hughes for garbage type swap. If I was the Bulls I would seriously consider making the following trade with the Jazz.

Gooden/Nocioni/Simmons and a Top 5 protected pick (2009 Bulls option) for
Boozer/Harpring

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=1711245630301703306&teams=26262644&te=&cash=

The Jazz make this trade for a chance at a top 10 pick either in 2009 or 2010. It also leaves them with enough money to resign Milsap to an extension and adds some fire power off the bench. They don’t need Boozer on the court and the management doesn’t seem to have much love for him. The Bulls would rotation for the rest of the season would consist of:

Rose/Hinrich
Gordon/Hinrich
Deng/Sefo/Harpring
Boozer/Thomas/Harpring
Noah/Thomas/Gray

The Bulls trade 3 players they don’t want and a pick they don’t need for a chance to have the inside track on signing an all-star power forward who is only 27 year old. You sign him to a 5 year contract at near max money and you can expect to get a good return on your investment. You could give him Gordon’s money and let BG walk or renounce them both and save your money for the summer of 2010. Or give BG his money and let Boozer walk.

Boozer is an excellent compliment to our current bigs. He can score on the inside allowing Tyrus or Noah to play the high post. He is an excellent rebounder and so-so defender whose deficiencies could be hidden if the Bulls hired an adequate coach. Its time for the Bulls to take a chance. Boozer is the perfect guy for the Bulls to go after.

Noah and Deng with 2 all stars (Boozer/Rose) and Hinrich/Sefolosha + perhaps BG and Asik would give the Bulls a good chance to turn this team around next year. The Bulls need to give the Jazz a call.

A reporter asked “do the players listen to you what you have to say, do they respect you?”…to which his answer was something like “do they respect me? They better, they should. Why don’t you go ask the players…go ask them”

You could tell that it got under his skin. Then five seconds later Ben walked up and threw a peanut-buttered slice of bread at his face!

Of course I made up that last part, but that would’ve been pretty cool to see… :)

It was not a fine over Peanut Butter and Jelly. The FDA has issued a nationwide recall on peanut butter.

So it was probably Gordon erasing his name from the white board.

Luol if the players respected VDN and he smiled and said, “Of course”.

eddie jordan eddie jordan eddie jordan eddie jordan eddie jordan eddie jordan

Per KC

Gordon did not curse his coach directly but used profanity to emphasize his frustration, believing he had been falsely accused of the transgression.

Falsely accused? Strange way of putting it – I wonder what the story there is.

The Bulls have never had a problem out of him . He usually does everything they ask him to do no matter how he feels about the situation. I don’t know what happen but it must’ have been something petty. It just doesn’t seem like its in his character to snap on anyone . He is a very quiet guy that pretty much works hard and keeps to himself. VDN should be fired after this year. It was a terrible hire. You never hire a rookie coach (someone who has never coached in any form of the game) to coach a young team. Paxson needs to come down and coach this team. Its his mess.

Remember when Skiles kept Wallace on the bench a few times for coming late to the game due to traffic? This is no more of a situation than that or Duhon missing a practice. Big fucking deal. This team is throwing these things out to distract everyone from realizing how horrible they are.

now lets bring back othella, adrian griffin, get michael ruffin healthy, and have the funniest basketball team on the planet

But it makes an interesting point about fines. This daycare had a problem with people picking their kids up late, and so instituted a fine. And so all of a sudden more people started getting their late, because they could assuage their guilt by just paying a fine and they figured that everything was alright.
I think that Del Negro has created the same problem, the players (because of the fines) are now seeing this game more in terms of money. Its pretty much like he said “they aren’t listening to me, let’s hit them where it hurts: there wallet”. And now that is pretty much all they care about.
I mean that is the thing about fines they are personal, and most of the time in coaching you try and make it about the team. As a coach (albeit a 7th grade coach) you always make the whole team run for the screw-ups of one person, you almost never make the one person run. Because peer pressure is a good thing in sports, you want the players always thinking about the team and checking each other, and keeping each other focused. I know these guys are grown men, but at the same time, these principles (of team) need to be held in place a bit stronger than Vinny D micro-managing an entire team. I think the fines are quite possibly making the team focus on individual play and individual pay.
As a coach I was kind of shocked when Vinny D decided to coach this way. Anyways, I was just wondering what your guys’ take on it was, because I am a bit removed from the situation in Portland, why did he start fining people as punishment in the first place?

gotta love the media blogs taking this story and running with it:

If Vinny Del Negro hasn’t completely lost the Bulls locker room yet, well, he’s misplacing bits and pieces every day. The latest example? He was the target of a profanity-laced explosion by one of the team’s elder statesmen in full view of the media following yesterday’s practice.

Profanity-laced explosion? Huh? And he was NOT the target. That’s not how it was reported at all. I usually like FanHouse, but this is just insane.

I thought at first it was, but I have reconsidered.

Stuff like this happens frequently during the course of a long season…Coaches and players clash, sometimes they use adult words when they do so…no biggie…the only big deal, and I suspect Ben didn’t know, is that the media happened to be within earshot when Gordon approached Vinny with the WTF? I could only imagine if the media were privvy to all of the interactions between members of the Bulls…