The struggles Vinny Del Negro is having at the highest level of the game are lessons learned by most coaches with their first J.V. teams. They make mistakes in every phase of the profession – from dealing with players to structuring their programs to substitution patterns. They learn the best way to discipline players, and develop a sense of what rules are truly important.

You learn that you can't start instituting silly rules and fines for things like eating in the locker room after your players have already realized you are way over your head.

..................

You make that mistake at the pro level, and you can lose a player or a team permanently.

We've all been where Vinny Del Negro is right now. It's just that when we made some of those same kinds of critical, sometimes near irreparable mistakes, we usually made them and learned those lessons against Fredrick Douglass Junior High.

The only witnesses to our blunders were the 18 people in the stands, not the 18,000 people in the arena, or the 18 million television viewers. More importantly, our mistakes didn't negatively affect players making $18,000,000.

Vinny's in a tough spot, because he's learning all these lessons that most coaches learn at a summer camp.

Contrast his situation with Erik Spoelstra, a first year coach with the Miami HEAT. This is a guy who has paid his coaching dues, learning the craft and the profession. Here is a young coach who players like Dwayne Wade and Udonis Haslem gushed about when he was named their head coach.

Why? Because he had earned their respect with his work ethic, his coaching I.Q., and his commitment to his players, his team, and his profession.

As an assistant, this guy ran pre-game workouts before HEAT games with more intensity than half the teams in the league play with in a game.

If you ever saw him coaching in summer league, he was into every possession, coaching each player on every play. You can't help but respect that kind of passion, effort and commitment. NBA players will play for a coach like that – regardless of his age or his playing experience.

That's a guy who knows what it means to "be yourself." He's learned who he is as a coach by doing just that – coaching morning, noon and night, and learning valuable lessons along the way.

Vinnie played in the NBA, and has been an executive in the league. He knows himself in those roles, but he doesn't know who he is as a coach or what his strengths, weaknesses, style and personality are or should be. And his team and the players are suffering for it.

Although there is no doubt he is working hard help his team and he is committed to trying to help them win, starting your coaching career as a head coach of an already highly dysfunctional NBA team could not be a more difficult assignment.

It's like starting law school by arguing before the Supreme Court.

The head chair on an NBA bench is not a place to begin to find yourself as a coach. And with things looking the way they are, the Bulls will be finding themselves out of the playoffs once again.

But, at least they can eat a sandwich while they watch the games.