圣诞无欢歌

What kind of heartless,gutlessorganization fires a coach on ChristmasEve? Actually, what kind of heartless, gutlessorganization agrees to Let three coaches goat Christmas and Thanksgiving over a seven-year period?

一支多么无情而又怯懦的球队，才会在圣诞夜解雇教练?事实上应该是，一支多么无情而又怯懦的球队才会在短短7年时间里，在圣诞和感恩节期间炒了三位主教练的鱿鱼?

Larry Brown is too expensive and anal,coveted Boston assistant Tom Thibodeauis off limits and Mike Fratello should stickto his telestrator -- it's important to assessthe creepy events of Monday and what it allsays about team management. Couldn't thedismissal of Skiles have waited a few days?Couldn't it have been done last week, whengeneral manager John Paxson already haddecided a major change was necessary? Did ithave to happen at 9:45 a.m. on Christmas Eve,when Paxson and Jerry Reinsdorf told Skiles?

拉里・布朗太贵，太爱“放炮”，被相中的波士顿凯尔特人助理教练汤姆・锡伯度又求之不得，麦克弗拉特罗又要专心做电视台解说员――在我们探寻谁将是下一个执教公牛的合适人选之前，评估一下本周一发生的离奇事件并以此解读这支球队的管理方略应该相当重要。难道就不能推迟几天解雇斯科特・斯凯尔斯?难道不能上周做出这样的决定?其实那时候总经理约翰・帕克森就认为有必要对球队做出重大改变了。难道一定要由帕克森和总裁杰里・雷因斯多夫在在圣诞前夜的清晨9点45分通知斯凯尔斯?

This gives new meaning to EbenezerScrooge, "Bah Humbug!", the Grinch and allthose things we thought were fictional aboutChristmas -- until Team Reinsdorf proved againthat nothing is sacred when trying miserably tochase the ghost of the Jordan dynasty.

(守财奴)艾柏纳泽・斯克鲁奇、“呸，胡扯”，格林奇和那些我们从前认为都是因为圣诞节所虚构出来的事物，都因此被赋予全新意义――直到雷因斯多夫团队再次证明，为追寻乔丹王朝的“海市蜃楼”，没什么是神圣不可侵犯的。

"It's never a good time," Paxson said,"Today's not better than if we waited or if we'ddone it earlier."

“这绝不是一个好时间，”帕克森说，“选择今天，并不比我们推迟或提前几天效果好。”

Sure, it matters. It matters when Skileshas a wife and children, all of whom had toawaken Christmas morning and open presentswith the sting of Dad having been fired. Andit particularly matters when it has happenedtwice before -- to Bill Cartwright, two daysbefore Thanksgiving in 2003; and Tim Floyd,on Christmas Eve in 2001. Both were failingand overdue for pink slips, with Floyd'sdeparture announced as a "resignation," butthe fact Reinsdorf would allow these traumaticevents to happen THREE TIMES duringthe holidays speaks poorly of his so-calledgenerosity. This is a man who never stopstelling us how charitable he is in the communityand how good he is to his employees, but all ofthat is washed away when he and his peopletreat coaches like dishrags during the holidays.

当然，这很重要，重要的是因为斯凯尔斯有妻有子，孩子们在圣诞节早晨打开礼物的同时也要承受老爸被开除的痛苦，更重要的是这样的事情之前已经发生过两次了――比尔・卡特莱特是其中一个倒霉蛋，2003年感恩节前两天被解雇，另一个是蒂姆・弗洛伊德，2001年圣诞前夜被炒。

他们的解雇通知书，不是来得太晚，就是根本没有，弗洛伊德的离开甚至被宣布为“辞职”。但事实是，雷因斯多夫已经三次在节日期间让这样令人伤心的事情成为现实，也让他所谓的“慷慨大度”成了笑柄。这是一个永远不会停止告诉我们自己多么关注社区公益事业，自己多么善待雇员的家伙，但在假期里，当他和手下就像对待洗碗抹布一样抛弃了数位主教练的时候，这一切也都已经被冲洗干净了。

I don't care if Skiles is walking away withalmost $7 million in owed salary. This team isrolling in revenues, worth about $500 milionas the NBA's third-most valuable franchise,all because Reinsdorf had the good fortune

of stumbling into Michael Jordan in the '80s.The problem now is that the Skiles bill forcesPaxson to hire a coach on the cheap, which iswhy assistant Jim Boylan probably will be theinterim coach until season's end after anotherassistant, Pete Myers, runs the team tonight inSan Antonio. Think Boylan can lead the Bulls tothe playoffs, especially after Chris Duhon saidplayers who didn't like Skiles should realizeBoyian was Skiles' right-hand man? Howappropriate that the Bulls, the league'sbiggest mess west of New York, playtheir first post-Skiles game againstthe defending league champs andone of sport's model franchises.

我不在乎斯凯尔斯是不是带着合同欠下的700万美元卷铺盖走人的。这支球队的收入正在以滚雪球般的速度增长，价值约5亿美元，列NBA第三，而这都是因为走大运的雷因斯多夫在上世纪80年代偶然撞上了迈克尔・乔丹而已。现在的问题在于斯凯尔斯的工资单逼着帕克森不得不以低价聘请一位新帅，这也就是为什么助理教练吉姆・博尔兰很可能在另一位助理教练皮特・迈尔斯今晚带队打完与马刺的比赛之后，作为过渡主教练完成本赛季的原因。尤其是考虑到克里斯・杜洪已经表示，那些不喜欢斯凯尔斯的球员应该意识到博尔兰是斯凯尔斯的左膀右臂时，你认为博尔兰能带领公牛打进季后赛?公牛，这支纽约西边全联盟最乱糟糟的球队应该以怎样的面貌迎战卫冕冠军和体育界的那支模范球队，打完后斯凯尔斯时代的第一场比赛?

The dysfunctional news doesn't stop witha Christmas knife in the back. Even Paxsonacknowledges that the rah-rah, hustling,defense-and-grit foundation began to collapsein October, when Luol Deng and Ben Gordonrejected extensions. Both players voiceda deep desire to stay with the Bulls for thelong term, yet both were offered extensionsthat were considered moderate lowballsin the current NBA marketplace. No, I'mnot impressed by the sluggish play of Dengand Gordon in the wake of their contractualdisappointments. Neither was Arenas, theinjured star of the Washington Wizards, whocriticized Deng and other young players forrejecting extensions in a Dec. 7 blog entry.

内乱的消息并没有因为圣诞节期间一把从背后捅来的匕首而停止。即便是帕克森也承认，在今年十月罗尔・邓和本・戈登拒绝球队的续约报价之后，公牛内部为己方球员的欢呼声、积极拼抢和强韧的防守都已经开始逐渐衰落。他们两人都表达了长期留在公牛的强烈渴望，但他们得到的续约条件在如今的NBA市场只能算得上中等偏下的低价而已。不，邓和戈等在续约不顺之后的懒散表现也让我不以为然。阿里纳斯也是如此，这位受伤的华盛顿奇才队球星，在12月7日的博客文章中批评了邓和其他拒绝与球队续约的年轻球员。

Seems Gordon, who wasn't even partof Arenas' screed, was upset about the blogshots. So when the Bulls played in Washingtonrecently, Gordon sought a conference withArenas to tell the real story -- one that doesn'treflect well on Paxson and, by extension,Reinsdorf.

戈登的名字，虽然并没有出现在阿里纳斯风格单调的博客文章中，但似乎也对其中涉及的内容烦恼不已。所以当公牛最近前往华盛顿打客场时，戈登找到阿里纳斯，告诉了他真实的情况――显然没有说什么帕克森的好话，连带着被骂的，还有雷因斯多夫。

Writes Arenas of his personal chat withGordon: "He was telling me, "They didn't evennegotiate with me. They were like, 'This iswhat it is, take it or leave it' and that was it.'I'm thinking, 'Damn, that's kind of messed up'in my mind, because when you have a playerwho has done a lot for your franchise...twoyears ago y'all would have been signing thisman to $75-million plus, and now two yearslater it's just like, Take this or leave it!...Andthe same thing with Deng. I ended up findingout that with Deng, they didn't even offer him$60 million. No, they didn't even come close to

that money. Ben was like, 'I heard if they wouldhave offered him $58 million, he would havetook that.' So Luol didn't actually end up turningdown what people thought he turned down."

关于这次与戈登的私人谈话，阿里纳斯写道：“他告诉我，他们根本没和我谈判。他们当时的态度就是，‘这就是我们的条件，要么接受，要么拒绝’，就是这样。我就想，见鬼，我的脑子里变成了一团乱麻，因为当你拥有一位已经为你的球队做出很多贡献的球员时……两年前你们就应该用7500万美元以上的价码把他签下，而两年后情况变成了，要么接受，要么拒绝!……邓的情况也是一样，我后来才知道，他们给邓的报价甚至连6000万都没有。不，距离这个价码还差得很远。本的态度是，‘我听说如果他们拿出5800万美元，他就会接受。’所以罗尔最后拒绝的合同，与大家想象中的合同，根本不是同一回事。”

I realize Gilbert Arenas is a little loopy.But a lot of rich, loopy superstars run the NBAthese days and create bad reputations forfranchises. Remember when Jordan, ScottiePippen and other dynasty Bulls badmouthedJerry Krause and Reinsdorf? Well, Arenasand his blog have influence in the league. AndDeng is starting to admit that the contractualbreakdown is weighing on him.

我认为吉尔伯特・阿里纳斯有点蠢，但如今正是很多富得流油却又蠢得冒泡的超级巨星们统治者NBA，玷污着各支球队的声誉。记得当年乔丹、斯科蒂・皮彭和其他公牛王朝的成员如何痛斥杰里・克劳斯和雷因斯多夫的吗?没错，阿里纳斯和他的博客在联盟中具有一定分量，而邓也开始承认签约失败正在让他承受着压力。

I keep saying that the contract thing isn'ta big deal with me, but it's getting to the pointwhere I don't know," the fourth-year forwardsaid. "It's not like I came in and said I'm notgoing to play hard. It's a life-changing decision.When I made the decision, I decided that I'mjust going to play. It became part of it becausethat's what people kept talking about."

“我一直说签约问题对我来说不算什么，但这件事已发展到了我无法理解的程度，”这位四年级的前锋说，“并不是我走进球场说‘我不会好好表现’的问题，这是做一个能改变一生的决定的问题了。当我做出这个(拒绝续约的)决定，我已经下定决心只是上场打球而已。但这也成了问题的一部分，一位大家都在对此喋喋不休。”

Rejecting an extension is no reason toquit on a coach, mind you. But it does explainwhy playing financial hardball with playersyou've developed -- players you're fond of-- can erode an entire season. Maybe that'swhy Skiles was conciliatory after getting thebad news. Maybe he knows the wounds aretoo deep to fix. "I hope nobody's feeling badfor me because it's Christmas;' he said. "I'mnot like people in the real world, somebodyloses their job at Christmas and don't have anymoney or anything. Nobody should feel sorryfor me. When you think it's time for coachingchange, you do the coaching change."

提醒一句，拒绝续约并不是炒教练鱿鱼的理由，但确实能解释为什么要和球队自己培养的球员(同时也是你说喜欢的球员)打一场“薪水硬式棒球赛”最终会毁了整个赛季。也许这也是斯凯尔斯在听到(被解职)的坏消息之后心里有所安慰的原因。也许他知道伤口太深，已经难以愈合。“我希望不会有人为我感到难过，因为今天是圣诞夜，”他说，“我和现实生活中《被炒鱿鱼的》人不太一样――他们在圣诞节失去工作，没有钱，什么都没有。不应有人为我难过。当你认为改变教练组的时候到了，那就改变吧。”

I'll never forget Floyd's departure, oneof the all-time farces. It was a snowy day,and when I arrived late after a Halas Hallpress conference announcing coach DickJauron's extension, I was greeted by an oddsight:Floyd's wife and daughter sitting ONTHE FLOOR of the Berto Center. There weremaybe nine or 10 people in the place. One ofthem was Krause, who noticed me brushingsnow off my coat and ordered me to wipe asmirk off my face, a smirk I wasn't wearing.

我永远也不会忘记弗洛伊德离开的那一天，他被解职绝对是史上最大的闹剧之一。那是一个雪天，在参加完在哈拉斯大厅举行的关于迪克・乔伦教练续约的新闻会之后，当我赶到珀托中心的时候却看到了奇怪的一幕：弗洛伊德的妻子女儿正坐在地板上，周围大概有九到十个人，其中一个就是克劳斯，他注意到我正在把雪从大衣上捋下来，还“命令”我摘掉脸上虚假的笑容，而我当时根本没有假笑。

"Merry Christmas!" was my reply.

“圣诞节快乐!”就是我的回答。