The writing is on the wall and seeds have been planted...for lineup changes

to mention the complete deconstruction of the player formerly known as Luol Deng, but not really. That deserves its own post.

i mean, Vinnie is already the laughing stock of Chicago, this would make him the laughing stock of the entire United States of America

It seemed to be that Salmons was exteremely favored even before he put on a uniform…
That concerns me…. I hope he proves me wrong.

i don’t think i’ll be able to watch another game this season.

If that happen, I want us to miss the playoffs so Vinny can get his ass fired

First, there’s a history of organizational acceptance/preference of Ben in a bench role – the coach is different, but based on history if Vinny chooses to bench Ben there’s no reason to expect any backlash from the org. People just can’t wait to say that Ben is best off the bench, 6th man role, whatever – the rep has stuck no matter the evidence as a starter. I think it sucks for Ben and is also wrong, but it is easy to see that writing on the wall.

Second, there is some logic to seeing whether Salmons can be the starting SG going forward, at least to see what it looks like this season. It’s a circular issus – they want to see what Salmons can do in case Ben leaves, but benching Ben to see what Salmons can do is almost certainly going to eliminate any possibility of Ben returning, if there even is a possibility left. And Pax was pretty droolish over Salmons in the press conference.

Neither of those factors is present in Derrick’s case. He will definitely be here next year and going forward, and he’s clearly been designated the PG of the future. Obviously, I could be very wrong and these last few games could be the beginning of a trend leading to Derrick going to be the bench. I just think it’s far more likely that each has made sense to Vinny situationally (insert Vinny joke here). No question he’s trying to win games – it’s good for a coach’s tenure, and I’m sure the org wants to get into the playoffs – so he’s going to be more likely to make decisions in the 4th based on a specific game than on making sure Derrick plays a set number of minutes closing out games. A couple of times it has been because what was out there was working, and a couple of times because Derrick was having trouble with defense while at the same time playing passive on offense. I expect in at least one of the next couple of games the situation will change and Derrick will be out there. In fact, I think the Orlando game was kind of just circumstance – Derrick came out for a fairly normal breather, and I honestly think Vinny would have put him back in around the 7 minute mark but the team was pulling away. The only thing I didn’t get there was why he’d put him back in late – I don’t think Derrick’s development benefits from playing in garbage time.

There’s been plenty of arguing back and forth about what the “right” thing to do is in that situation, so no need to restart it here. But I still think it’s a leap to go from Derrick not being in to close the last few games to getting pulled from the starting lineup. I do think they’re trying to limit his minutes to around 30-35 a game going forward, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing personally. Right now, I think Vinny’s just having a tough time getting a rotation down with the new guys. I don’t think he should be having such a tough time, but I think he just isn’t looking at the guys available and having any sort of preconception of how different guys will play together, so he’s trying it all on the court.