Vinny Del Negro: Um, OK

June 9th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s official, or at least as official as Doug Collins was last week. Which is to say, not really all that official. Still: Vinny Del Negro is the new coach of the Chicago Bulls.

In scanning that Tribune story, I kept waiting for a paragraph or two about Del Negro’s basketball philosophy. Is he a yeller? A teacher? A runner? A squatter? (A joker? A smoker?) Will he work well with some minor internal strife? Will he utilize Derrek Rose appropriately? What the hell will this man do?

That paragraph never came, not until this at the end:

Little is known about his basketball philosophy since he never has coached before. Del Negro interviewed for the Suns’ coaching job that Terry Porter landed on Saturday, but failed to make Kerr’s list of four finalists.

Well then. No one knows, apparently except John Paxson and Jerry Reinsdorf and Del Negro himself. The one thing we do know about Del Negro is that he’s never coached anywhere before. He has literally no experience. Since he was promoted from his radio gig in Phoenix, he’s always been a front-office guy. So instead of hiring him as an assistant, or as a special advisor to the general manager, the Bulls make him the head coach.

That sounds about right.

Update: Watson just messaged me with this question. This is basically a more concise version of the above.

Matthew: let’s play a game. i say a word or phrase, and you tell me the first thing that pops into your mind:

vinny del negro
go!

me: hair

Needless to say, that word was not “coach.”