The Bulls may stink but at least we're finally being entertained!
Floyd is hanging in there, but will heads roll?
Bulls coach Tim Floyd isn't quitting. GM Jerry Krause isn't firing him. It's a standoff for the ages, and it may be time for Floyd to take advantage of it. Lately Floyd has been bolder about standing up to players and management. If Krause is going to keep him locked up in the basement, he will run the team his way, critics be damned.
'I'm going to coach here until they don't want me to coach here,' Floyd told the Chicago Sun Times. 'And if they don't want me to coach here, maybe Millsaps [College] will hire me.'
He'll have his hands full. Sources in Chicago told Insider Tuesday that Floyd has asked the Bulls to shop defensive specialist Ron Artest, one of the players involved in Monday's flap, to see if they could get more offensive production in return. Floyd is also pressing the Bulls to deal Charles Oakley, who continues to stir up trouble.
'If a horse keeps losing, sooner or later you have to get a new jockey,' Oakley said Tuesday. Or, the jockey could begin looking for new horses. While Floyd has little or nothing say on personnel matters, he does decide who plays and who doesn't. Floyd is ready to be more assertive, whether the players or Bulls operations chief Krause like it or not.
'I'm going to stay true to myself, stay true to these players and try to do what I think is right,' Floyd said. 'If that leads to being unpopular with players because I'm doing the difficult thing, then that's OK. Because I think it's the right thing to do in a growing, developmental organization vs. an organization that's the Lakers or Sacramento.'
Still, players and management wonder whether Floyd has already lost this team. 'The players are together, but it's almost like he doesn't want to be here,' Artest said. When asked if other players felt that way, Artest said: 'Yeah, basically.'
Floyd made it clear that he doesn't think his coaching is the problem, it's the players Krause has given him to coach. 'We have gone back with a younger core group that is not quite as prepared to play as Artest and Elton were [in 1999] and shouldn't be,' Floyd told th Tribune. 'That doesn't mean that ultimately [Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry] won't be better players. But that's where our team is going into this fourth year. I was fine with that in Year 2 [of rebuilding]. It's unfortunate that right now we're there again in Year 4. But we feel it's in the best interest of the franchise to approach it that way.'
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