It Looks Like a Pink Slip for Bulls

In the death throes of their dynasty, the embattled men who run the Chicago Bulls did what they’d been threatening to do for years and hired Jerry Krause’s bestest buddy, former Iowa State coach Tim Floyd.

Due to circumstances slipping beyond their control, all they could offer was a job to be named later so for the moment, Pink, er, Tim, gets the heretofore nonexistent title of “director of basketball operations.”

In a surprise, or a charade, owner Jerry Reinsdorf insisted Thursday the coaching job still belongs to Phil Jackson. If Jackson and Michael Jordan don’t return--as the former has announced and the latter has hinted--Floyd will become coach while Reinsdorf, the proud-to-be-a-cold-hearted-businessman, and Krause, his thorny general manager, protest they tried to bring the guys back but were turned down.

“I’ve said over and over again, I want to bring back the players and the coaches who won the 1998 championship,” Reinsdorf said at a news conference in the United Center.

“We are leaving open the option for Phil, Scottie [Pippen], Michael, the others, to return and defend their championship. At the same time, we are providing a plan to move forward if they choose not to do so.”

In real life, Jackson already has left the building.

“He [Reinsdorf] knows that Phil is in retirement for the year, at least,” Jackson’s agent, Todd Musburger, said from Chicago.

“He knows that he doesn’t want Phil back. He knows that he wanted Tim Floyd as the coach but for some unknown reason, he was unable to explain it truthfully.

“This is not a sincere effort [to re-sign Jackson]. This is truly a P.R. campaign. We went through many of them before. The difference is that in the past, we had some official connection to this group.

“Phil agreed to coach the ‘96-97 season. They held Tim Floyd off for one more year. Tim Floyd is now in place. They’ve wanted it for years. It would have happened long ago except for one major problem. Phil kept winning championships.”

For Floyd, this promises to be a challenge, for management a hard sell. Even adoring Bull fans can tell the difference between an elite team with Jordan and a 50-loss version without him.

“Fifty percent of the people are going to blame them, no matter what happens,” a Bull source said of Reinsdorf and Krause. “They just don’t want it to be 100%.”

As if they had a chance of slipping out the back door on this one.

Reinsdorf and Krause have long run an arrogant organization, indifferent to players’ sensibilities and not shy about claiming what they perceived as their share of the credit. Or as Krause said in an especially defensive moment, “Players don’t win titles, organizations do.”

They often mused publicly about rebuilding the franchise, which they seemed to think they could do in a hurry. Say, before the summer of ‘99, when the five-year leases on the United Center’s luxury suites expired.

When the Jackson-Krause power struggle emerged, Reinsdorf praised his coach but, faithful as ever to his inner circle, backed his general manager, all but announcing it formally when he told the United Center crowd in the celebration after the ’96 Seattle SuperSonic series, “If you had to give credit to one man, that guy that put them all here . . . Jerry Krause!”

After that, Jackson and Jordan worked on one-year contracts.

With the coach-general manager relationship strained to the limit, Krause began speaking warmly of Floyd, describing their fishing trips together.

In the Bulls’ cosmos, Floyd might as well have been working on Pluto as Ames, Iowa. He was a well-regarded dark horse who came up the hard way, turning around downtrodden programs at New Orleans and Iowa State but never making a Final Four.

Besides, the Bulls’ program didn’t need to be turned around, it was going pretty well the way it was.

If Floyd was the heir apparent, as a Krause protege he was in trouble with the players, who were fiercely loyal to Jackson--chief among them Jordan. Mike began referring to Floyd as “Pink,” after the rock group.

Why Floyd wanted this Mission Impossible is another question, but in coaching, ambition is a fever. Thursday, having just agreed to stick his head in the T-Rex’s mouth, Floyd almost begged for the fair chance he might never get.

“Give me a chance,” he said, addressing the media. “If you give me a chance, I’m going to give you time, I’m going to give you respect and I’m going to give you context.

“But don’t call me Jerry Krause’s boy, OK? And don’t call what Jerry Krause does fishing, all right?”

Everything, as usual, depends on Jordan’s whims. Reinsdorf went to see him Wednesday. Jordan reportedly said he was exhausted. Reinsdorf reportedly came away thinking Jordan won’t return.

(There’s a lockout on, but Commissioner David Stern probably won’t take action against Reinsdorf. If Stern thought it would do any good, he’d go and plead with Jordan, himself, to stay.)

If Jordan doesn’t return, if Pippen makes good his vow to leave, there will be little left for Floyd to coach. Only four Bulls--Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper, Randy Brown and Keith Booth--are under contract. Nobody looks good losing 50 games, much less at Bull prices, wearing Bull uniforms. Floyd could soon be wishing he was back leading the quiet life in Ames.

Jackson is already vacationing with his family somewhere farther west. This ball of yarn is already unraveling, and all Reinsdorf’s Bull and all Krause’s fishing buddies might not be able to roll it up again.