Turning the page, The Next Chapter: The Official Chicago Bulls 2019-20 Season Thread

[Lootpack]

Booth appears like he's just there, but he wouldn't be a bad hire.

That said, go get Troy Weaver. If Weaver doesn't take this job, then I don't know what he's waiting for.

OKC already denied permission once

 

[jwinfield]

OKC already denied permission once

Something isn't lining up.

First set of candidates were released for the top spot, no Weaver. Article comes out about no black candidates and then Weaver pops up as someone we tried to talk to and were denied.

Not OKC is ok with him talking to us about a lesser position?

 

[jwinfield]

NBA champion Raptors' resolve personified by assistant coach Adrian Griffin

Griffin went undrafted in 1996 out of Seton Hall. He played three years in the CBA after being cut in the Philippines. "I couldn't even get past a summer league tryout to make the summer league team," he said. He landed a tryout with the Dallas Mavericks and he called his dad, crying "like a baby" and questioning himself. David Alan Griffin Sr., a preacher, told him not to give up on his dream.

"What's happening, especially I think in the younger generation, is that they have this perception that everything is supposed to go well," Griffin said." But really in life there's a lot of ebbs and flows, a lot of highs and lows, a lot of peaks and valleys, and you gotta learn how to navigate through those things. If I would have given up years ago, I wouldn't be standing here."

In the summer of 2005, Griffin's agent was led to believe the Chicago Bulls would re-sign him. They "kind of reneged on the contract," Griffin said, leaving him paranoid and anxious, working out two or three times a day while waiting for the phone to ring. When he couldn't sleep, he would get out of bed after midnight and run on the treadmill. Four weeks into the season, the Mavericks signed him. He got two DNP-CDs and played 10 minutes in his third game; in his fourth, he started next to Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Michael Finley. Six months later, he started in the Finals.

Griffin played for a variety of coaches, too: Rick Pitino, Don Nelson, Jeff Van Gundy, Avery Johnson, Scott Skiles and P.J. Carlesimo. Skiles cut him at the end of Buckstraining camp in 2008 and offered him a spot on his staff before hanging up the phone. Griffin has now been an assistant coach in the NBA for 11 seasons after nine playing in the league. He considers Tom Thibodeau, his boss in Chicago from 2010 to 2015, a father figure, and is thankful for how Thibodeau pushed him and held him accountable. Griffin's leadership style, though, is less aggressive than Thibodeau's, his temperament more like that of Nurse and Billy Donovan, the Oklahoma City coach he worked with for two years. Griffin believes there are different ways to lead. What matters most is authenticity.

Griffin has interviewed for six head-coaching jobs, including the recently filled Memphis opening. He remains patient, though, reminding himself that you don't go into it, you grow into it. Sometimes, he said, if you get an opportunity quickly, you're not as prepared as you could be. Griffin considers himself significantly more well-rounded than he was five years ago and thinks his basketball IQ has "almost doubled" under Nurse, whose first season in charge in Toronto is itself an argument for staying ready for the right opportunity. Almost evangelical in his belief in the power of coaching, he said that, from middle school to college and minor leagues to the NBA, every coach he has played for or worked with has made a profound impact on him.

When Griffin says he believes the job is about making better men, not just making better basketball players, it sounds earnest, not like typical coachspeak. At Jimmy Butler's Most Improved Player press conference in 2015, the star wing famously gave Griffin a shout-out for dealing with him when he was an "unbearable" rookie, frustrated with being out of the Bulls' rotation. "He has a lot to do with who I am," Butler said back then. Those words still mean the world to Griffin, but the 44-year-old cringes when people credit him for Butler's development. In Butler's first season, Griffin shadowed Ron Adams as the more experienced assistant coach worked with him.

 

[Lootpack]

Something isn't lining up.

First set of candidates were released for the top spot, no Weaver. Article comes out about no black candidates and then Weaver pops up as someone we tried to talk to and were denied.

Not OKC is ok with him talking to us about a lesser position?

Yeah that puzzled me too. I can't see OKC granting Weaver permission to interview for a lateral GM move

 

[Brozay]

Yeah that puzzled me too. I can't see OKC granting Weaver permission to interview for a lateral GM move

He’s been interviewing for GM roles for a few years now, I’m not sure if it’s viewed as a lateral move

 

[Trot LaRoc]

Griffin wouldn't be a bad choice for coach imo.

 

[god shamgod]

 

[Lootpack]

Yeah that's a no from me dawg

 

[Trot LaRoc]

I don't see that happening

 

[The G.O.D II]

 

[Morethan1]

 

[Morethan1]

 

[Morethan1]

 

[Lootpack]

Oh it's official official

 

[Conscious Pilot]