It was a tumultuous, weird offseason for the Bulls. John Paxson hired Vinny Del Negro, a man with absolutely zero bench experience at any level of organized basketball, to be his head coach. Del Negro was previously of Phoenix, where GM Steve Kerr declined to even interview him. So that was a little unexpected.
And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, the Bulls landed the number one overall pick, drafted Derrick Rose, and all of a sudden -- hey, maybe we won't be so bad this year! Optimism. Strange, sudden optimism, but optimism nonetheless.
Most NBA training camps are boring affairs, but it will be interesting, I think, to not only observe how Del Negro coaches x's and o's but the way he works with young players. How does he command respect? What happens when they dislike his system (which, one assumes, will be similar to Phoenix's run-and-gun). What happens when Joakim Noah starts acting like Joakim Noah -- flailing about one minute, kissing Del Negro on the cheek the next?
No idea. In the meantime, Del Negro can do nothing but give quotes to sate us:
Vinny loves his children. But that doesn't mean he's afraid to punish them. Good to know?.
