Let me tell you a story. In the not too distant past, there was a storied Chicago franchise, with many promising young players. But they couldn't reach their full potential under their bumbling, overmatched player's coach. So they replaced him with an old-school kinda guy, who was coming off of a successful run of his own, to take the team to the next level. And he did, at first. In fact, he led the team to success they hadn't seen since the glory days, with a long playoff run. However, he was outmanaged and lost to a team full of superstars from Florida before reaching the championship. However heart-wrenching the loss was, we still had high hopes for the team going forward, due in part to the change in culture the coach brought around.
But the coach rode his superstars too hard, and injuries followed. The old school manager didn't believe in things like "rest" and "science", that said you should maybe not play your best players as much as possible all of the time, so they could perform that way in the future as well. The team choked the next year, the superstars were never the same, and the Chicago team hasn't been back to the semi-finals since.
You have probably surmised by now that I'm referring to Dusty Baker. It's hard to remember now, but there was a year when people wore "In Dusty We Trusty" shirts to Wrigley, and were throwing around the "W" and "S" words every year. Then when it was clear the real secret to his success was throwing Prior and Wood out there for 150 pitches a game every 5th day, we started to wise up. Now his name is practically a dirty word in this town.
This is going to happen to you, TT. Unless you start to show some flexibility. Every great coach of the past 25 years (except maybe Belichick) was tough, but open-minded. I mentioned Popovich and Jackson earlier, but I'm thinking also of your Tony Dungys or Joe Torres. You can't push everyone 100% all the time. You have to know when to take your foot off the pedal.
This has been a problem I've harped on for the past two seasons. The Bulls wouldn't have lost this game if CJ had played the final 6 minutes. They wouldn't be the 4 or 5 seed if Jimmy Butler had played about 8-10 of Luol Deng's minutes every game. You have to have more faith in your team. The whole team. One whose depth is a significant strength. But you act like if Derrick isn't on the floor at any given moment, the Bulls are going to morph into the Bobcats and just throw the ball away at random. The Bulls were 18-9 this season without Derrick playing. They were fully capable of finishing off the Sixers without him too.
So you have two options now, TT. You can learn a lesson from this, and start to loosen up going forward. Maybe in the future you'll find the balance, and all this we be forgotten. Or maybe you'll keep spouting off about "managing the game at hand" and "I don't work backwards", and Derrick will be chronically injured his whole career.
And then TT will be synonymous with VDN and Tim Floyd and all the other morons that didn't have what it takes. The choice is yours.
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