It is time, Jerry, to replace your Jerry with a Hall of Fame Jerry.
It is time, Jerry Reinsdorf, to acknowledge the cold, hard truth about your loyal confidant, Jerry Krause. He has made a mess he is incapable of cleaning up. You know it and–more important–so do your investors and dwindling season ticket-holders.
Thanks to Krause’s three-year free fall of bad moves and bad luck, your Bulls are threatening to set some very bad records. Soon your franchise will become a Leno/Letterman punch line, something like, “George W. is so confused he invited the Bulls to the White House.”
What’s left of the six-championship mystique is about to congeal into one sick mistake. Act now before it’s too late.
Six weeks ago you lectured Krause in front of your coach, Tim Floyd, ordering him to get poor Floyd some players. You might as well have ordered him to get taller. Krause has drafted so unsuccessfully and been such an embarrassment in free agency that he has few tradable assets beyond Elton Brand and a probable first pick in the draft.
He won’t trade pride-and-joy Brand. He can’t trade Ron Mercer because he so desperately overpaid for him–$26 million for four years. So what do you expect him to do, trade Brad Miller for Tim Duncan? No, he can swap only spare parts for hood ornaments, a Miller for a 31-year-old Cedric Ceballos.
Maybe an established NBA coach could milk two or three more victories out of this sorry roster. But Floyd isn’t the problem. The GM is.
Fair or not, the perception of Krause among agents, free agents and rival executives is that of an insufferable egomaniac who ran Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan out of town. Too many people he must do business with have a score to settle with him. Thanks to Krause, all your players and coaches are starting to think of themselves as hopeless, hapless losers.
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Krause can’t remedy this, but you can. Krause learned that he can’t just snap his fingers and replace Jordan with a Shaquille O’Neal or a Kobe Bryant. But you could replace Krause with the man who signed Shaq and chose Kobe.
To rise again in the East, head West. Take a run at another Jerry–Jerry Alan West.
What goes around could come back around. GM West, who once considered himself a Laker for life, lost a power struggle to Jackson just as Jackson lost to owner’s pet Krause. Perhaps the Spin Master gained an unfair advantage by befriending the daughter of owner Jerry Buss. But West now collects his $3 million salary while making putts instead of picks.
At 62, he wants to make one last NBA run. He would insist on keeping his home near his golf haven, Bel-Air Country Club, and perhaps bringing along his friend Rick Sund (who played at Northwestern) as assistant GM. But he would consider Chicago.
An L.A. source close to West said: “Reinsdorf might have a less than 50-50 shot of hiring Jerry, but until now he’d have had no shot. Jerry loves a challenge, and he’d be intrigued with all that cap room, the No. 1 pick, how weak the East is, the Bulls’ championship tradition and the opportunity to take over Phil’s old stomping grounds and maybe stick it to him a little.”
Shaq is such a West fan that he says he’ll follow West as soon as his contract allows. Kobe still calls West. He wouldn’t come cheap–he might want 2 or 3 percent of the team–but “with his mystique he’d be worth his weight in gold to a franchise needing to attract free agents and hit on high picks,” said the source.
This Jerry is the anti-Krause. West is a former great player liked and admired by just about everyone. His public ego is no bigger than one of Krause’s balled fists. He lives to win, not gloat.
Yes, West was able to lure Shaq partly because Shaq wanted to do Hollywood. But 13 GMs passed on a high school kid named Bryant–Charlotte took him at No. 13 for West, then traded him for Vlade Divac. “The best and gutsiest draft move in the last 10 years,” one GM said.
The kind of move, Jerry Reinsdorf, that cleans up a mess. Make your move for West. Make a splash that would have the country buzzing about the Bulls again for the right reason.
Please don’t think small and cheap. Don’t make Krause GM emeritus and elevate B.J. Armstrong. He’s not ready.
Put your buddy Krause out of his misery. Spare us another horrifying image of Krause trying to hug free-agent Tracy McGrady at O’Hare. Give Chicago a real Jerry.