A REAL BASKET CASE
Bulls have been poster boys of dysfunction since parting ways with Thibodeau last year
The Bulls weren’t a whole lot of fun on the court this past season and apparently were even less likable off it.
Let’s run down the dysfunction that set in after they fired coach Tom Thibodeau a year ago. I think that scab deserves picking again:
The on- going cold war between Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose about which dog is the alpha was ratcheted up a few notches. The result was that both watched their approval rating in town dive. They don’t play well together basketball- wise and lifewise. It’s not a good look.
The Bulls fired their director of sports performance, who used to be Rose’s personal trainer, last week. It was the same director who had feuded with Thibodeau while he was coach. Now they’re both gone. If there’s a lesson here, I don’t know what it is.
The Bulls might hire one of Butler’s trainers to run their training program. That’s called not learning your lesson.
A recent Sun- Times story quoted a source as saying that Joakim Noah weakened during the season because of the Bulls’ emphasis on stretching rather than strength.
Before he was lost for the season with a shoulder injury, Noah— the ultimate team- first guy— was upset about being pushed to the bench by coach Fred Hoiberg. That was the first hint that something was seriously wrong.
With Thibodeau gone and no one even remotely in position to tell Rose how to handle himself, the point guard continued to talk about his desire for a max contract, even while the team was struggling. Tone, meet deaf.
Who’s running this show? Nobody knows. There’s tension in the front office, with rumors of a rift that makes the Rose- Butler competition look like kid stuff.
It makes you antsy for next season to start. The Blackhawks’ season, that is.
Now would be good time for some Cubs to hit
When is it time to worry about certain Cubs’ batting averages? Would now be OK?
Entering the game Monday against the Cardinals, Anthony Rizzo was hitting .240. Getting one hit in his previous 25 at- bats hadn’t helped.
Addison Russell was hitting .234, and his team- high 40 strikeouts included four in a 1- 0 loss Sunday to the Giants.
Javy Baez’s average was .238, Miguel Montero’s .210 and Jorge Soler’s .198. Jason Heyward, who is out for a few games with a torso bruise, was hitting .225.
The Cubs are lucky that David Ross, a career .229 hitter who hit .176 last season, was at .250. Will that hold up for the rest of the season? Will Ben Zobrist’s .326? If
you say they will, then you have to leave open the possibility that some of their teammates’ poor averages will remain the same, too.
June is fast approaching. The sample size is healthy enough to suggest the Cubs are on the verge of a problem.
But what does that problem mean? The Cubs have the best record in baseball, despite a decent number of their players struggling at the plate. But they lead the majors in walks, and their on- base percentage ntage is third- best.
The real question here e is whether you think the Cubs’ pitching hing can continue to be this dominant. nant. If you do, then the lack of hitting isn’t as much of an issue. I don’tn’t see their 2.67 ERA, the best in baseball, holding up. I see two older pitchers, John Lackey ( 37) and Jon Lester ( 32), who will cool off as the season grinds on.
Perhaps we’ve reached the inevitable point where we’re looking for problems that aren’t there. It’s what happens with dominant teams: You start looking at the supermodel for imperfections.
But Rizzo and Heyward have to get their averages up for the Cubs to get where they want to be at the end of the season. You only can applaud walks from your best players for so long.
Cuban as vice president would be ( ahem) fine idea
Idon’t know what’s more ludicrous, the idea of Mark Cuban as the vice president of our country or the idea he thinks he would have substantive input as the vic vice president of our country. His claims to fame are for being fined aboutab $ 2 million by the NBA forNBA for variousv outbursts as owner of the Mavericks t and for being a regularreg on a realityTV show.show So, yes, he’s eminentlyemine qualified to be one heartbeat from I from the presidency. In an interview on NBC’s ‘‘ Meet thet Press’’ on Sunday, Cuban said he’s open to talkingt with either ofo the leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.C ‘‘ If [ Trump] asked me, I’d be like: ‘ OK, Donald. That’s great.g Let’s talk about it. But we’re both going to have to dig in and really look and understand the issues so we can come up with solutions,’ ’’ Cuban said.
Being vice president is like being deputy NBA commissioner, which is to say there’s no way Cuban could handle being so far in the background. This is a guy who gets as much camera time as any of the Mavericks’ players. That tends to happen when you make sure you’re sitting courtside and hopping up and down on every other play.
The vice president serves the president. If that means making a trip to Bulgaria for a state funeral, he does it. If that means getting more cream for the boss’ coffee, he does it. Cuban’s ego isn’t built for that; it’s built for being in charge and letting everybody know he’s in charge.
The only way this works is if President Trump or President Clinton is allowed to fine Vice President Cuban $ 100,000 every time he says something stupid. I think we just solved the national- debt problem.
Cuban built his fortune by starting businesses and selling them, which makes him an icon of the start- up crowd. He has parlayed that into lots of attention. He has plenty of opinions and thinks everybody should hear them — sort of like a sports columnist. But I don’t know many sports columnists who want to be vice president.
Unless . . .