As Blackhawks bring Chicago another title, Boston is a double loser

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I'd have really been impressed with the Blackhawks if they had won the Stanley Cup while skating on a two-inch wire stretched between the Hancock and Willis towers.

But you know ... scoring twice late in whatever the Boston arena is called these days will have to do.

With titles in 2010 and now 2013, the Blackhawks are undisputed kings of the Chicago sports scene.

That's right ... ranked even ahead of DePaul basketball!

Seriously, it was a heck of a lot of fun watching Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and Corey Crawford and Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith and all of the fine supporting players this postseason -- a postseason that almost didn't happen because the season almost didn't happen because a collective bargaining agreement almost didn't happen.

Good thing the NHL solved that mess, because, if you haven't noticed, Chicago doesn't produce many championship teams these millennia.

Selfishly, I was hoping the Bruins would hang on to win just because I wanted to see a Game 7. Not only for the riveting hockey but for the incredible announcing of NBC's Mike Emrick.

Still, for all the Blackhawk backers I know -- including Ben and Katie, the fair-weather Hawkey fans I sired -- I'm glad the team in the Indian head "sweaters" won the Cup.

And to think: The Hawks have won two more titles in the first four years of this decade than the Cubs have won in the last 10 decades combined!

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Rough week for Boston sports fans, who also lost their basketball coach to the Clippers.

Yes, the coach of the Celtics left for a better situation with the freakin' Clippers! If this isn't a sign the world is coming to an end, I don't know what is.

Doc Rivers, the guy I knew as "Glenn" when we were taking classes together at Marquette, decided he wanted to leave the sinking Celtic ship to take a stab at leading the young Clippers to prominence.

The Celtics landed a first-round draft pick in the deal, but I can't help but think they got the short end of it. Rivers is that good.

A couple of interesting tidbits here:

-- For the second time, Vinny Del Negro coached just well enough to be sent packing for being not quite good enough. The first time, he was dumped by the Bulls, who hired Rivers' top assistant in Boston, Tom Thibodeau. I guess it takes a Celtic to clean up after Vinny.

-- Though it hasn't happened often, this wasn't the first time a team has traded for an NBA coach. Thirty years ago, the Bulls did it, acquiring Kevin Loughery from Atlanta for a 1983 second-round pick that the Hawks used to draft ... wait for it ... Glenn "Doc" Rivers! Pretty cool, huh?
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At least Vinny kept Thibodeau's Bulls seat warm

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Bulls 106, Clippers 88. Or, to put it in different (but equally accurate) terms:

The Coach The Bulls Should Have Hired Three Years Ago 106, The Coach The Bulls Never Should Have Settled For Three Years Ago 88.

Three questions:

Did the Bulls really have to endure two years of mediocrity under Vinny Del Negro to get to Tom Thibodeau -- the then-Celtics assistant I urged them to hire back in 2008?

Given that the Bulls are 34-14 despite playing huge chunks of the season without Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer, shouldn't Thibodeau be the frontrunner for coach of the year?

A year or two from now, when the Clippers realize they have too much young talent to be laboring under Vinny Del Excuse, who will be their next coach?
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This has been a LeBron TV Production

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I was really surprised to hear that LeBron will announce his big decision in prime time Thursday on ESPN. I mean, to this point in his life, everything he's done has been so understated.

My sources tell me it's between the Grizzlies and the Bucks.

Kid all you want about the speculation and hype and rumors and such. All I know is that it can't be easy for LeBron to decide between playing one more year for the Vikings or riding tractors in Hattiesburg.

If the Bulls miss out on LeBron and D-Wade and Bosh, word is that they already have a contract ready for Ron Mercer.

Did I say the Grizzlies or Bucks? Now that Vinny Del Negro will coach the Clippers, how can LeBron resist being the No. 1 attraction for L.A.'s No. 4 pro hoops team? And psssst ... my informant tells me that LeBron will command even more money than most of the UCLA and USC kids do.

ESPN's hoops expert, Chris Broussard, put his reputation on the line Tuesday by predicting LeBron just might end up in New Jersey. Unless he goes to New York. Or Miami. Or Chicago. Or re-signs with Cleveland. Seems that Broussard's segment ran out of time before he could name the other 25 teams.

Bullish on Jax, less so on Pax

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Let's take a look at the Dynastic Bull Scorecard, shall we?

10 - Phil Jackson, already with 10 NBA titles as a coach and 2 as a player, is closing in on the baker's dozen.

9 - Steve Kerr's Suns finally beat those dastardly Spurs and advanced to the Western Conference finals.

8 - B.J. Armstrong became an agent and quickly landed Derrick Rose as a client. Last month, B.J. sold his Highland Park mansion to new Bears savior Julius Peppers. Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching!

7 - Scottie Pippen soon will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

6 - Bill Cartwright, cast aside by "buddy" John Paxson 7 years ago, is an assistant coach for the high-flying Suns.

5 - Michael Jordan's Bobcats scrapped their way into the playoffs but promptly got swept out.

4 - Luc Longley is a rich, happy, 7-foot surfer dude in Australia, mate.

3 - Bill Wennington is the only coherent member of the ex-Bulls big men announcer troika that also includes Stacey King and Dickey Simpkins.

2 - Dennis Rodman occasionally still finds some dupe to give him money just for being That Wacky Old Worm. When he's not being hauled off to jail for copping a feel at some Vegas bar, that is.

1 - Jerry Krause has been hired as an international scout by the White Sox and, sources say, is closing in on Dominican baseball's Dragan Tarlac.

0 - John Paxson turned the Bulls into laughingstocks, went into hiding and then crawled out from under his rock just long enough to make a martyr out of Vinny Del Negro.

Limiting Bulls to Van Gundys, Fratellos would be silly

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We could start and end with Phil Jackson and our case would be made, but that would be no fun. So let's continue with ...

Gregg Popovich ... Rudy Tomjanovich ... Pat Riley ... Tom Heinsohn ... Bill Russell ... Al Attles ... Larry Costello ...

Yes, each of those coaches won a championship - many won multiple championships - for the franchise that gave him his first NBA head-coaching job.

And I'm not even counting Chuck Daly, who coached Cleveland to a 9-32 half-season record as an interim before the Pistons took a chance on him and were rewarded with two titles. Nor am I counting the many coaches who, while leading their first NBA team, led their franchises to the Finals but lost.

So for all of those who say the Bulls absolutely must hire a guy who already has been an NBA head coach - a.k.a. a retread - I answer only with a question:

Why?

Why have a knee-jerk reaction to the Vinny debacle, forgetting that he never had been so much as an assistant JV high school coach when John Paxson and Jerry Reinsdorf fell in love with him?

Why not consider all of the outstanding NBA assistants who are ready to take the next step?

Why limit the field by excluding guys who might turn out to be the next Phil Jackson or Pat Riley or Gregg Popovich?

OK, that was four questions. Shoot me with a Taser.

"Vinny, vidi, vici" again for brainless Bulls?

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You might think John Paxson and Jerry Reinsdorf are as clueless as a couple of teenage virgins at a bra-unhooking convention, but believe me: The Bulls Braintrust does have a plan for this edition of the semiannual coaching search.

They will take forever ... they will interview everybody who even knows what a basketball looks like ... they will come close to hiring somebody competent but find all kinds of reasons not to hire him ... and they ultimately will settle on a guy who has never coached on any level, not even 2nd grade bitty-ball.

I mean, that plan worked to perfection last time, so what could go wrong?

From Lou's lament to Tiger's favorite number

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Today's high-5:

5. Late in spring training, Lou Piniella asked us media mopes what we thought of the squad he'd be taking north. After a few guys answered with mostly encouraging words, Lou looked at me and I said: "We'll see what happens when the lights go on."

I chuckled as I finished my sentence, realizing I was paraphrasing something Lou had said just a few days earlier. Piniella didn't laugh with me, but he didn't seem even the slightest put-off by what I said. He merely nodded his head and moved on to the next writer's opinion.

Later on, a couple of my sportswriter buddies playfully gave me crap for being cynical, sarcastic and negative.

Then the lights went on ... and the Cubs started losing. Their hitters squeezed their bats into sawdust and their their young relief pitchers peed down their pantlegs.

Said Lou: "Remember what I said in spring training? 'Everything was fine when we were in afternoon, single-deck stadiums. Now all of a sudden, it gets a little different, and we'll have to see.' Well, we haven't see what we'd like to see, let's put it that way."

Jeesh. What a cynical, sarcastic, negative guy.

4. In the 11th inning the other night at The Cell, Hawk Harrelson was whining about a strike call White Sox reliever Tony Pena didn't get. The whining got louder after Pena promptly gave up J.J. Hardy's go-ahead hit.

In the bottom of that inning, Twins closer Jon Rauch threw what appeared to be a strike right down the middle to Mark Kotsay but it was called a ball. Rauch fanned Kotsay on the next pitch.

It's an athlete's job to control what he can. Rauch did. Pena didn't. Which is why, Hawk, the game soon was "ova."

3. The Bulls pulled off a big win at Toronto on Sunday, which means only one thing: There's still plenty of time for them to find other ways to humiliate themselves anew.

This team has suffered countless embarrassments on and off the court this year. None was as unique as Joakimgate - with Vinny Del Negro insisting he was under an edict to not play a rehabbing Joakim Noah more than 35 minutes Friday and Not-Quite-GM Gar Forman insisting the mandate had been modified. Vinny kept Noah on the bench and the Bulls managed to lose to the Nets for the second time this year.

I'm still trying to figure out why D-Wade and other marquee free agents would want to come to Chicago when they could get as much or more money playing for franchises that have a clue.

2. Cubbie fans shouldn't get too upset at Alfonso Soriano. I mean, only about 95 percent of beer-league softball players would have caught that ball he dropped in left field Sunday.

1. OK, so Tiger Woods didn't win the Masters. At least he scored another 69.