The Chicago Bulls remain silent these days. After a flurry of activity a couple of months ago, the organization retreated into a shell. One it has yet to emerge from. Much to the anger of fans who are still waiting on some sort of decision regarding head coach Jim Boylen. Is he staying? Is he going? Most prefer the latter but the team brass has yet to definitively show which way they're leaning.
Based on recent rumors, many of the Bulls players would prefer he were gone. Not necessarily because he's a bad guy. Nobody has come out and hinted at such a thing. It is a much simpler case of the guy being underqualified for his job.
Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times elaborated in considerable detail. It seems all of the "solutions" Boylen had for the Bulls offense last season were not even his own.
Instead it was a rigid system passed down to him by a bunch of mathematicians.
"There were at least a handful of players — several key ones — unhappy with coach Jim Boylen as well as the scheme the analytics department had imposed on the offense.
The midrange shot was frowned upon even though LaVine and Markkanen consider it a key part of their games. The Bulls lived and mostly died from three-point range...
...It was a square peg trying to be jammed into a round hole, and Boylen was accepting whatever the analytics department was feeding him.
LaVine did have one of his better offensive seasons, but he still felt somewhat handcuffed and could have done more. The same can’t be said for Markkanen, who privately ridiculed the offense most of the season...
...That offensive philosophy already is being picked apart by the new regime, according to a source, so expect Boylen to have to teach a new look again if he is retained."
Jim Boylen has all the classic signs of a coach promoted one spot to high
In the NFL, there is a common saying that some coaches are way better coordinators than they are head coaches and vice versa. This example can be applied to Boylen. He seems to teach a solid defensive scheme. No doubt a reason Fred Hoiberg brought him in as an assistant. However, when it comes to crafting anything bigger? He appears in way over his head.
None of the Bulls players respect him. They think his offense is a joke. Couple that with his well-known problems with game management and it only reinforces the original question. Why is this guy still employed?
Anybody who has followed this organization for long enough knows the obvious answer: money. Jerry Reinsdorf never likes to spend big if he can avoid it and with the pandemic hitting his finances hard, the idea of paying Boylen to leave wouldn't sound appealing to him.
It's a weak excuse but there it is.
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