Bull Buster

Scott Skiles was the ideal coach to pull the Chicago Bulls out of their post-Jordan abyss. A hard-nosed taskmaster, he molded a collection of raw underachievers into a unit that, much like Skiles in his playing days, hustles and sweats and scraps. But now that the team is respectable again, is the short-fused, sharp-tongued Skiles the right guy to lead the Bulls back to glory?

(page 4 of 4)

Skiles returned home to Indiana. "That was an important time for me," he says now. "It was important for me to learn that I could live without basketball. I had never done that before. I learned that I didn't have withdrawal. I followed the league, but I found I could be happy without it." He was able to spend time with his three children-two sons and a daughter. (Skiles remarried in 2004.)

Perhaps most important, he realized there was more to life than a leather ball and the give-and-go-a psychological victory for a man who was exposed to little else from the time he was old enough to walk. "I know now I'm not a lifer at this," he says. "I'm not going to do this into my 60s or 70s. I love the game; I love to coach. I love being around the guys and the camaraderie. But I have other things I love." Friends and followers of the game say they have seen the change. "I think the time out of the league humbled him a little bit," says K. C. Johnson. "He's recently married; he's a doting father." Ex-teammate Wendel adds, "He's definitely grown. He deals with people better now. The teaching is still there, but he seems to be comfortable with himself."

Lifer or not, when John Paxson called, Skiles leaped at the opportunity. "I knew it was not a great team, and that it would take a lot to get things turned around," says Skiles. "But in talking to John, I knew we shared a similar philosophy-work hard, be on time, be productive, learn to work with other people, self-sacrifice for the good of the group-and I knew it was worth going in and trying." He bought a home in Highland Park and set out to remake the team's attitude and style of play.

The reality of what he was up against shocked him. "When I first got here, this was the worst situation I've ever seen as far as guys being out of shape and guys having virtually no work ethic and being unprofessional," he says. "Everything was kind of a big silly joke. It was very odd. I'd never seen anything like it and I've been around the league for a long time."

Skiles knew that his reputation preceded him. Paxson himself acknowledges as much. "I knew there were all these things out there that were said about him-that he couldn't get along with players, that he's not this, he's not that," says Paxson. "That didn't concern me as much as getting our house in order."

Today, Johnson calls Skiles "the perfect hire. I think he's very good at preaching accountability and when he came in, the franchise was lacking in that regard-probably a little bit worse than in most situations." As was widely reported after his first practice, Skiles wrote words like "lazy" and "selfish" on one side of a greaseboard and "hard-nosed" and "disciplinarian" on the other, then wiped the board clean.

But the coach did not soften his approach to the game. Duhon shakes his head when he recalls the inaugural practice under the imposing new coach. "Oh, my God," he says. "I didn't think I was going to make it. I think a lot of it is he wants to test your mental toughness. He wants to see if you can play while you're tired." Nor did Skiles curb his sharp tongue. Asked what center Eddy Curry could do to be a better rebounder, Skiles responded, "Jump."

The Bulls' two young big men, Curry and Tyson Chandler, didn't last long under Skiles. As a result, the honeymoon with at least one columnist was short-lived. "This whole Skiles thing isn't working out," wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Greg Couch in March 2004. "Nothing is necessarily wrong with yelling, browbeating or berating, as long as someone is listening."

"When I first got here, this was the worst situation I've ever seen as far as guys being out of shape and guys having virtually no work ethic and being unprofessional," he says.

Skiles insists there was no sinister plan to get rid of the two players. "We moved Tyson to get Ben Wallace," he says. "That was just a money thing." Chandler's sharp words for Skiles in March, however, suggest there's more to the story, even though Chandler backed off his comments almost immediately. Meanwhile, both Skiles and Paxson have admitted that the pressure for Chandler to succeed here probably doomed his chances as a Bull. Both Skiles and Paxson have admitted that they had trouble getting their message of hard work and accountability through to Chandler. "Whether Tyson thought Scott was too hard on him [I don't know]," Paxson says. "I guess I would make the case that Scott's motive was to help Chandler become the best player he could be. Whether it was the right tactic for that player, who knows? It's not a perfect science."

Still, insists Skiles, "we never had any conversations where we said, ‘Hey, we hate this guy; we've gotta get him out of here.' We thought the exact opposite. If we're going to move these guys we better be prepared for them to do well because they're good players."

And they are doing well-Chandler with the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, and Curry with the New York Knicks. Skiles says he's happy for them. "We liked those guys. It just wasn't working here right then. You don't want to just beat your head against a wall, telling yourself over and over, It's going to work-we've gotta just give them more time. At some point you have to say, We've gotta mix things up."
For the Bulls, Curry's absence has left a particularly big hole. Both Paxson and Skiles have said they need a solid big man, someone who can calm the players down and run the offense. But this year's trading deadline came and went with no deal. On one hand, the lack of action is seen as an endorsement of Deng's potential, since he likely would have been part of any trade. But fans griped. With every two- or three-game losing streak, they have wondered whether Skiles is too smart for his own good. And they continue to raise the big question-whether he can lift the team beyond mediocrity. After a rough patch in late February, Skiles faced headlines such as the one in the February 28th Tribune: "Anything left in the tank? High-energy style, schedule take toll on smallish Bulls."

But Skiles feels the team is on the right path, and his players-at least for now-defend his approach. "I think any team at any point in the season is susceptible to the schedule [wearing on them]," says Hinrich. "Everybody has to fight through it." Observers like Johnson agree. "The question about Scott is not whether he's too much of a hard-ass," says Johnson. "He's won in Phoenix, he's won here, taking two teams to the playoffs. The question is, can he get the team to the next level?" Johnson's verdict is yes. "I think," he says.

Paxson shies from such predictions. But he does say he is pleased with the job Skiles has done-so far. "Right now, I like the coach we have," Paxson says. "I like what Scott does. I like how we play the game, for the most part. I look at it this way: We all want to win a championship. My job depends on results, too. Let's keep trying to improve and get better as an organization and see where it takes us."


The Bulls have forced two straight turnovers. Suddenly, they're on an 18-4 run. The faces of the hometown fans fall. Gorilla, the mascot, stays in the tunnel, caged under the stands. The Phoenix players trudge off the court at the buzzer. Chicago has handed the Suns their first double-digit defeat of the season. "Roadkill, baby!" a Bulls player shouts on the way into the locker room.

Nearby, Skiles steps before the cameras for his postgame press conference. It's a big win-perhaps the biggest of the season so far, but you wouldn't know it by looking at his face. His expression still reads grim and slightly forbidding. Yes, it was a good win. But there's another game tomorrow. Then it happens: the slightest lift of the lips, the small curl at the corners of the mouth. It's a fleeting moment, a Cool Hand Luke twinkle. That's it, Skiles says. Press conference over. The balding bulldog in the dark suit turns on his heel and vanishes into the visitors' locker room. With him goes the smile, if that's what it was, the moment having faded fast as a final horn.