This isn't your usual interim coaching gig. With precious few head-coaching candidates available on the open market, an owner that likely wants nothing to do with paying two different men (with Scott Skiles' guaranteed checks still being cut) two big salaries to coach, and a talented team just a few months removed from taking in a series of conference-championship expectations, the coach the Chicago Bulls select to take the reins for the rest of 2007-08 season is going to be faced with a ridiculous amount of pressure.

Former Bull Pete Myers will take those reins for Wednesday night's loss game in San Antonio. Myers has run things before, not entirely well, for a Bulls team that had just fired Bill Cartwright a month into the 2003-04 season, dropping games against the Spurs and Mavericks.

Fellow Bulls assistant Jim Boylan, meanwhile, is being interviewed by Chicago GM John Paxson to test his interests in running the team for the rest of the season. Overtures from Rick Carlisle (no, please), Larry Brown (seriously?), and Paul Westphal (anyone have a fork I can stab myself with?) have been made, but Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf is loathe to pay the salaries of two head coaches for a team that will have to win 40 of 57 games just to match last year's record. 

The key here is finding an interim that doesn't go the usual route on his way to either winning or losing a full-time head coaching job in Chicago. If Boylan is indeed the man (and, short of Paxson coming down to coach the team he put together, Boylan is the best in-house candidate), then Paxson needs to make it quite clear that the 2008-09 gig isn't his to lose, and that Boylan has already lost it. This can't be an audition, for the coach at least. This has to be a developmental year for the seven Bulls within the team's 11-man rotation that are 25 years old or younger.

Paxson is essentially going to have to demand that a staunch insistence upon playing the kids is a prerequisite for the job, even if it is just for an interim gig. If Boylan plays along and plays the kids, even knowing that he's out the door once the season ends, he could raise his cachet and lure around the league as head-coaching material.

If he falls into the trap most interim and/or coaches with thin job security usually trip into -- working the consistent veterans for big minutes while desperately trying to win enough to keep the job -- then Boylan will not only hinder Chicago's development, but his modus operandi will be pretty transparent to other teams. An agreement between Boylan and Paxson could result in a win-win situation for both parties, even if the Bulls don't actually win as many games as they likely could by throwing Ben Wallace, Andres Nocioni, and Chris Duhon out there for 40 minutes a night.

This doesn't mean a massive rotation overhaul needs to take place, however. Certain members of the Chicago media have been needlessly harping for Ben Gordon to take to the bench and try to contribute in a sixth-man role, which is absolutely moronic. Chicago is last in the league in offensive efficiency, so how could reducing the minutes of last season's leading scorer help in any way?

Those who argue for this move's ostensible benefits usually aren't aware that a player's per-minute numbers typically rise with the more minutes a player is allotted, and probably haven't really thought out the post-move implications of a slower Luol Deng (and, to a lesser extent, a slower Nocioni) having to chase down shooting guards (and, for Noc, small forwards).

So, if history is any indicator (and we'd like to think it is), Gordon would contribute less per-minute, while playing fewer minutes per game. It's a pointless move that reeks of desperation and of iffy basketball knowledge, because even if the Bulls did manage to hold serve offensively with Gordon playing less than his current 35.7 minutes per game, the defense will obviously suffer with Deng (already too slow to guard some small forwards) chasing around guards. 

Another worry for Bulls fans is the idea of Ben Wallace playing more minutes, allotted to justify the three years and $44 million left on a contract Paxson signed him to. At 33, it's obvious that there are some nights where Wallace just doesn't have it, and one of Skiles' biggest failings was in the way he stuck with the former All-Star in spite of poor defense and nonexistent rebounding, in spite of Wallace's best efforts.

Whether Bulls fans want to believe it or not, Wallace is trying out there, and this isn't the case of some semi-star taking on a big contract and taking it easy in the years following. Wallace just isn't that good any more, he'll have some All-Star nights now and again, but the new coach needs to find a way to involve him in a fluid rotation that sends rested bodies at the opposition for 25 minutes at a time. With Paxson likely calling the shots behind the Chicago interim coach, don't expect that to happen, sadly.

This doesn't mean Wallace can't play better. With his body rounding into shape after a pair of early-season injuries, he'll probably want to prove a bit more with the interim coach on board, and January 2008 might be his best month as a Bull. 

But that won't last, All-Star play from 33-year-old 6-7 centers rarely does, and the interim has to be ready to mix Wallace in with youngsters Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, Aaron Gray, and stalwarts Joe Smith and Nocioni up front. Smith is coming back to earth after a strong start, though he can still contribute, and Nocioni (the team's best player thus far) can't play power forward as well as he did last season. The youngsters, meanwhile, should flourish within the confines of well-defined roles. It's nice to go to work each day knowing what your actual job is, and Skiles left his kids in a constant state of confusion. Any improvement on that will help this team.

The Bulls can still win, mind you; assuming Myers steps aside after a few games and Boylan takes over. There are a dozen sound assistant coaches (I'm a fan of San Antonio assistant Mike Budenholzer, and Dallas' Mario Elie would be an intriguing hire) out there that should be ready to turn this Chicago team around next summer, but it's nigh-on-impossible to hire those sorts of talents away from their respective teams in the middle of a season. 

Carlisle, Brown and Westphal have won in the past; but the first two offer a slowed-down attack that doesn't really benefit Chicago's small roster and jump-shooting guards, and the latter was more or less being ignored (and not in the typical, "players tuned out the coach"-sense) by his last two teams toward the end. A team as talented and malleable as these Bulls remains a head coach's wet dream, which is all the more reason Paxson needs to make the right move this week, and next summer.

The answer, for now, has to come from within. The answers behind winning with this team, to me at least, seem obvious. Here's hoping Chicago's next coach doesn't follow Skiles' line of unpredictable orthodoxy, because this is a young team that still has an outstanding chance to be great.