Skiles Will Return to Chicago

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The Bulls bought the bluff

Of all the natural forces, the best is leverage. It is difficult to seize and has a remarkably short shelf life, but while it lives, nothing beats it.

Which brings us to the curious case of the Chicago Bulls and Scott Skiles

The Bulls failed to fail for the first time in the post-Jordanian era this season, not only finding a sense of promise but actually making the playoffs. There were many reasons for this (Eddy Curry, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, etc.). But one of them was surely Skiles, the beady-eyed, flint-faced head coach who enforced a template of success on a franchise that had wallowed in its own catalogue of failure since the 1997-98 title season.

In other words, he done good.

Still, the Bulls being the Bulls, one wondered just how nuts Skiles was when he walked out of contract negotiations because of leaks to the media that he thought were coming from owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

After all, NBA coaches are no less exchangeable these days than AA batteries, and there are some awfully appealing names out there for any coach to think he has a hammer over the boss.

Say, Flip Saunders. Or Paul Silas. Or, yes, even Phil Jackson.

The weirdness of the possibility of the Bulls rehiring Jackson, of course, was more than even Lakers conspiracy theorists would find plausible. But we've spent an exhaustive amount of time trying to make the round peg (Jackson) fit into the square hole (owner Jerry Buss' brain pan), so clearly any idiotic thing is fit for discussion.

As for Saunders, well, that part is inexplicable. He proved his skill in Minnesota, so when he got smoked this season, sensible people everywhere thought he was on everyone's short list of preferred candidates.

Thus, when Skiles walked, one thought he might have walked all the way out.

Instead, it turns out he had the hand read perfectly. He called Reinsdorf, aired his grievance-ettes, and ended up with a four-year deal better than the one the Bulls were originally offering.

Such is the state of the Bulls that Skiles could do that. In case you forgot, they spent a lot of years stinking to high heaven. They'd had a string of high draft choices that amounted to squat-on-toast, thus making this year's success all the more incandescent. Curry ... Gordon ... Hinrich ... an appealing style the players bought into ... and the next thing you know, they finish fourth in the East.

Now they did take the pipe in the playoffs at the hands of that other powerhouse, the Washington Wizards, but at least they were eliminated in late April rather than late January, a refreshing enough change that Skiles could expect to be handsomely rewarded for his role in fumigating the United Center.

But when Skiles got his spiny side up Monday, the betting was that the Bulls would go somewhere else, quite possibly to still inexcusably idle Saunders. As late as Tuesday afternoon, Skiles looked like a dead man walking.

Shows what we know.

You see, the beauty of leverage is that it is actually stronger when you take a bad team and make it good than when you take a good team and make it better. Unencumbered by expectations, Skiles became all the shinier to the Bulls, so much so that he could talk to Reinsdorf, wave his arms a little and get him to bend.

Of course, that's the last leverage Skiles will have in this job. Now the Bulls have to do more. They can't lose to the Wizards in the first round next year, or to anyone for that matter. They have to stride boldly into what is now a two-man game with Detroit and Miami ? and stay.

The other option, of course, is falling back with the Celtics or 76ers, at which point Skiles is out the door feet first at a full skid. Coaches can call out the boss once, but only once, and this was Skiles' moment.

He won't want it put this way, but he gets credit for beating Reinsdorf and John Paxson, the general manager. He also gets credit for beating the specters of Saunders, Silas and, yes, Phil Jackson. It might never be this good for Scott Skiles again, but it worked swell the one time he needed it to.

Maybe he can buy himself a trophy for the rec room.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com