La-rry, La-rry: Brown Can Turn the Bulls' Season Around

After a 9-16 start, the Chicago Bulls decided the best thing for their future was to fire Scott Skiles. 

Does this seem odd to anyone else?

Here’s Skiles, who in four years with the Bulls took them from Eastern Conference pretender to future championship contender, helped get rid of lingering waste like Eddy Curry, and formulated a team of young players into virtual superstars each with a distinct role.

But instead of giving this new version of the Baby Bulls time to recover from a slow start to the 2007-2008 season, they gave Skiles the ax.  The Bulls front office must know something I don’t about Skiles, or maybe this was just a bad move. 

Still, there is hope—and that hope comes from Larry Brown being available to coach this team.

If the Bulls hope to recover this season, they need to hire Larry Brown now.  Not tomorrow, not the next day.  Right now.

Brown took his Pistons team to the NBA Finals in 2004 and came out with a ring, and went back in 2005 only to lose to the San Antonio Spurs in 7.  Not a bad recent resume. 

Brown has a reputation—aside from his time with the New York Knicks—of getting the most out of his players, which is exactly what the Bulls need right now.  They have a plethora of young talent, not just in the starting lineup but all the way down the bench, that is waiting to be tapped and used to its fullest. 

Not to mention, the Bulls will have Ben Wallace back again and fully healthy within a few weeks—a guy who Larry Brown has anchored a team around. 

When Brown had Detroit at its peak in 2004, he had a smart passing but maybe even better shooting point guard, a Jim Calhoun-coached two-guard with talent bursting out of the holes in his jersey, a long small forward who could shoot and defend from a college program known for producing NBA superstars, a power forward who wore nasty on his sleeve, and Ben Wallace.

Sound familiar? 

If anyone can get the most out of this Bulls team and get them where they need to be, it’s Larry Brown.  What Skiles started and was in the process of building, Brown can finish. 

If you think the Bulls aren’t good enough to win a championship right now with the right kind of leadership, you’re kidding yourself.  Yes their talent is raw, but top to bottom it is hard to argue that any team has more.  And with Gordon and Deng up for free agency in the summer, having Larry Brown and a city that lives and dies with its basketball to come back to might sound pretty appealing.

While firing Skiles may have been the wrong move for the Bulls, hiring Brown can make up for it.  Just do it fast, Pax, before someone else does.