It's Avery Johnson Or Bust For Bulls

The Chicago Bulls are blessed with one of the most talented young point guards in all of basketball and a big city fanbase hungry for a championship.  And with its head coach (apparently) on his way out the door, there is only one man on the market that should be ushered in as the next head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

Avery Johnson.

Let me rephrase that.  Avery Johnson ... and no one else.

Johnson was a fiery point guard during his days with the San Antonio Spurs, and after years of hearing experts and analysts say "you can't win a NBA title with Avery Johnson running the show" the diminutive one delivered the Larry O'Brien trophy with the help of Tim Duncan and David Robinson.

Johnson would go on to lead the Dallas Mavericks to three playoff appearances, including a runner-up finish in the NBA Finals to the Miami Heat.  Johnson took over for Don Nelson and what transpired under Mark Cuban's leadership really is something for a story teller with much more time on his hands than yours truly.

Long story short, Johnson used Nelson's up-tempo, run-and-gun style of offense while implementing his signature style intense man-to-man defense.  It was a formula for success until Baron Davis' Golden State Warriors (coached by Nelson, of course) knocked off the Mavericks in the playoffs.  Did I mention the Warriors were the No. 8 seed?

Oops.

Still, Johnson remains the best coach on the market and when hired, will become one of the top 10 coaches in the NBA as soon as he signs the contract.  He will come with a price tag, and the Bulls would still be paying for Del Negro and Scott Skiles, but it will be a price worth paying.

Surely Jerry Reinsdorf should not mind paying three coaches for a short period of time.  I mean, he had no problem finding money to pay Scott Linebrink $4.5 million to post a 4.66 earned run average and 1.66 WHIP out of the pen, or to pay Mark Teahen (coming off a .271/.325/.408/.734 season with 12 homers and 50 RBIs) $3.75 million to play third base.

I won't go into detail, but at least I would be remiss if I did not mention that Alex Rios is signed up to make $58.7 million through 2014.

Jeff Van Gundy is a name that will get a lot of play because he was one of the league's best coaches, falling to Johnson's Spurs title team while coaching the only No. 8 seed to reach the NBA Finals.  JVG is also one of the NBA's elite TV analysts.  And Byron Scott is an excellent candidate in his own right, having led Jason Kidd and the Nets to the NBA Finals, and getting All-Star years out of Chris Paul.  Certainly Scott could be a good mentor for young Derrick Rose.

But this is Reinsdorf we're talking about.  He passed on Johnson and Mike D'Antoni to hire Del Negro on the cheap.  He's got Ozzie Guillen at a bargain (approximately a third less than what Lou Piniella makes on average) because he loves baseball that much.

What I'm saying is when the team brings in Lawrence Frank or Doug Collins, be prepared to battle an increase in blood pressure.  Frank is not the answer, while Collins is as much of a long-term solution as Bernie Bickerstaff or Del Harris would be.

Besides, I'd miss Doug and Marv Albert (yes!) on TNT.

In the end, it looks like Del Negro is on the outs.  Not that any of us are surprised, for he probably should have never been hired in the first place.

But if Avery Johnson isn't walking through that door, and things aren't stable before the big 2010 free agent class hits the market things really won't change.

Because, let's face it, it's going to be hard enough to get the LeBron James-Dwyane Wade packaged deal.  It will be much harder if Vinny Del Negro or Lawrence Frank is your head coach.