Turning the page, The Next Chapter: The Official Chicago Bulls 2019-20 Season Thread

[CHICAGO]

Gar is so insignificant at this point, who even cares. It’s clear Pax has final say and Boylen is the biggest issue IMO. What’s Gar even responsible for? Scouting? We haven’t even drafted that poorly tbh

Firing Gar would be their way to appease the fanbase by firing someone but what impact would it even have? Like I’m all for Gar being gone, but ultimately it’s not going to change things

WELL IT SAYS GAR
MADE THE FRED/THIBS MOVE
A YR IN ADVANCE
SO ALL THIS shyt IS ON HIM IMO.
THAT WAS THE DOMINOE
THAT GOT ALL THIS BULLshyt ROLLING.




​

 

[KingB137]

Wendell just liked this tweet.

 

[Brozay]

WELL IT SAYS GAR
MADE THE FRED/THIBS MOVE
A YR IN ADVANCE
SO ALL THIS shyt IS ON HIM IMO.
THAT WAS THE DOMINOE
THAT GOT ALL THIS BULLshyt ROLLING.




​

Gar has already had his power removed is my point. Pax hardly lets dude talk publicly anymore, they basically regelated him to scouting. I’m all for firing him, it’s just not going to solve any of the main issues. Boylen should be gone ASAP

 

[jwinfield]

 

[jwinfield]

Gar has already had his power removed is my point. Pax hardly lets dude talk publicly anymore, they basically regelated him to scouting. I’m all for firing him, it’s just not going to solve any of the main issues. Boylen should be gone ASAP

Article from last year

John Paxson spent 15 years building the NBA’s worst culture with the Bulls. He must fire himself now

John Paxson tried to quit once before. As the Bulls were stumbling through the 2008-2009 season, one led by rookie point guard Derrick Rose and rookie head coach Vinny Del Negro, rumors swirled around the team that Paxson’s resignation was imminent.

There appeared to be only one thing preventing Paxson from leaving the franchise: Jerry Reinsdorf wouldn’t let him do it.

“If there’s one person that is not responsible for what’s going on right now, it’s John Paxson,” Reinsdorf said. “I have tremendous confidence in John Paxson.”

That quote, right there, is the answer to so many questions. How does an NBA team employ the same GM for 15 years? Why does one man get to hire five head coaches without a single trip to the NBA Finals? Where is the accountability when a global brand devolves into a league-wide punchline?

Paxson even told you this himself at the onset of the season, when he refused to set expectations for his team and outright denied culpability for its fate. Paxson is the man who put together the roster, yes. He’s the one who traded Jimmy Butler, who re-signed Zach LaVine, who made a deal for Cameron Payne, who cut Spencer Dinwiddie for Michael Carter-Williams, who let E’Twaun Moore walk, who badly overpaid Cristiano Felicio, who traded Nikola Mirotic for a weak package. He’s the one who made the worst signing in Chicago sports history with Dwyane Wade, and then essentially repeated the same mistake with Jabari Parker.

Paxson loves to talk about Bulls culture. When the team added Doug Collins to its front office at the start of last year, he explained his own role like this:

“My responsibilities lie mostly in defining the culture of what we do every day.”

Let’s talk about Bulls culture under John Paxson.

Bulls culture is assaulting your own head coach in the locker room. Bulls culture is misdiagnosing Luol Deng’s injury and then questioning his toughness in the media when he was physically incapable of playing. Bulls culture is creating a toxic locker room with rifts so pronounced they had to be settled on Instagram. Bulls culture is one teammate punching another in the face and blaming the victim. Bulls culture is spying on your own team. Bulls culture is the classless letter this organization sent out after firing Tom Thibodeau. Bulls culture is dragging your players through the mud the moment they leave the organization.

For someone so willing to talk about the culture of this organization, Paxson sure has botched it at every step of his career. The man hasn’t just built bad teams, he’s created a hostile work environment that no player should willingly want to come into. It’s no wonder this franchise annually strikes out on free agents.

Of course, it’s never John Paxson’s fault. It’s Derrick Rose’s fault for not being a good enough recruiter. It’s Thibodeau’s fault for coaching the team too hard. It’s Fred Hoiberg’s fault for not coaching the team hard enough. It’s Jimmy Butler’s fault for wanting the money that he’s earned. It’s anyone’s fault but Paxson’s.

The trainwreck that is Jim Boylen’s brief head coaching tenure with the Bulls only underscores how broken the Bulls’ culture really is under Paxson. It was Boylen’s idea to pull the starters with 21 minutes left against the Celtics. It was Boylen who embarrassed the franchise with a 56-point loss because he refused to put his best players back in, all so they could have a hard practice the next day during a stretch of three games in four nights. It was Boylen who lost the team within a week by treating them like children, making them do push-ups at practice, forcing them to run suicides, and both publicly and privately questioning their toughness.

Jim Boylen sucks, and the players told him as much to his face. At best, Boylen is an extension of Paxson, from the farcical military fetishizing to the assbackward way of treating pros in 2018.

No one coaches this way any more. The last man who had success with it was Thibodeau, who the organization promptly blasted the moment he was fired. It’s all more proof that John Paxson isn’t cut out for this job in the NBA’s modern era. He should have been fired years ago, and he should be fired again right now.

Paxson has spent 15 years building the worst culture in the NBA this side of the disgusting Dallas Mavericks. The league has passed him by. Fire the coach, sure. Blame the players, of course. The cycle renews itself annually. Until John Paxson leaves, nothing with the Bulls will ever change.

 

[GoldenGlove]

All this passive aggressiveness from the players online towards Boylen is all you need to know.

They not even giving a fukk either with it. @ Zach with the "Thank You" to Coach Nick's video



That locker room has got to be toxic as hell, and I knew there was no way Boylen's antics would work for a full season, the team soured on him quick, and he doesn't ever take any responsibility for how bad they've looked.

There's no question that Boylen should be the first coach fired this year, which is remarkable when you think about it, because how many times has an organization made a coaching change mid-season in consecutive seasons?



That embarrassment will be the main reason they don't get him tf outta here tho.

 

[beenz]

I know this is joe cowley but any truth to this you guys think? I'm sorry, but even if they fired gar, that simply isn't enough. pax need to along with boylen as well.


Sources: Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to turn up heat on GM Gar Forman

Sources: Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to turn up heat on GM Gar Forman
Few executives have been as protected as Forman, but as this rebuild takes two steps back, sources indicate Reinsdorf is becoming less impressed with Forman’s body of work.

By Joe Cowley Nov 26, 2019, 3:08pm CST

Jerry Reinsdorf might be waking up after all, and he’s obviously not in the best of moods.

According to several sources, the Bulls’ chairman is not only livid about the team’s 6-12 start and the continued sinking profile of the organization, but is beginning to focus on the crumbling job security of general manager Gar Forman.

The sources indicated that this is not a recent change of heart from Reinsdorf, but has been evolving after several questionable decisions.

Senior advisor Doug Collins’ opinion is carrying weight in this, as Collins has never been a huge Forman fan.

The genesis of that relationship going south stemmed from former coach Fred Hoiberg, whom Collins immediately had questions about when vice president of basketball operations John Paxson named Collins to the key role in 2017.

Collins was underwhelmed by Hoiberg’s leadership skills, and was openly critical of Hoiberg throughout the Advocate Center in the wake of the Nikola Mirotic-Bobby Portis practice altercation.

While Paxson and the Bulls have all publicly insisted that Hoiberg’s hiring was a group decision, it was no secret that Forman was pushing for Hoiberg almost a year before Tom Thibodeau was fired. In Collins’ mind, the Hoiberg hiring was strike one.

For those that have been keeping score much longer, it was just another swing-and-miss by Forman.

Throw in the mistrust between players and Forman that has been ongoing, and now a rebuild that seems to be filled with severe cracking in the foundation.

Even in the last week, Forman had more missteps that drew attention.

The Bulls honored two-time All-Star forward Luol Deng last week, and that meant a handful of former players in attendance at the game to support Deng in retirement. According to one, Forman was aloof to the group throughout the evening, and that did very little in players changing their opinions on him.

So why Forman and not Paxson, or Boylen for that matter?

Like vice president of baseball operations Ken Williams with the White Sox, Paxson is all but untouchable in Reinsdorf’s eyes. To put it in perspective, Williams once vouched for the hiring of good friend Dave Wilder when Williams was still in the GM role, gave Wilder an open checkbook to sign international prospects, only to find out after a federal investigation that Wilder was extorting money from the organization.

While Wilder served time, Williams was promoted to executive, giving him a pay bump and better parking spot, completely escaping a fireable offense by the standards of most organizations.

Paxson’s done nothing to that extreme.

And what about Boylen? What Boylen has on his side is the others in the organization that agreed to extend his contract for three years. That included not only Forman, Paxson and Collins, but team president Michael Reinsdorf and Jerry, himself.

Boylen is well respected by the entire braintrust, while Forman is not.

What Boylen should be concerned about is his contract. He’s one of the lower-paid coaches in the league, so his dismissal would not require Reinsdorf to eat the dead money he did on Thibodeau and Hoiberg.

Thank Nebraska for the latter.

The Cornhuskers coaching job is paying Hoiberg $2.5 million this season, offsetting half of the $5 million the Bulls owed their former coach in this final year of his contract. Boylen is believed to be in the $1.7 million range, so it wouldn’t handcuff ownership to go in another direction.

That’s a decision down the road. There’s only one seat getting hot right now, and it’s Forman’s.

 

[beenz]

WELL IT SAYS GAR
MADE THE FRED/THIBS MOVE
A YR IN ADVANCE
SO ALL THIS shyt IS ON HIM IMO.
THAT WAS THE DOMINOE
THAT GOT ALL THIS BULLshyt ROLLING.




​

this may be true, but that sure as shyt don't excuse pax who cannot get along with coaches either and is now fukking up what is I believe his 3rd or 4th rebuild under his tenure. also, pax co-signed boylen as well, which alone is fireable.

 

[Stone Cold]

Get rid of them all

 

[Nero Christ]

Bulls upper management is pure nepotism & cronyism & that shyt might work in Corporate America, it doesn't work in the NBA

actual qualified people need to hold these jobs for the team to succeed but Jerry doesn't care about that so us and the team are stuck in purgatory

 

[Buckeye Fever]

As Bulls fans, we don't deserve this.

 

[Trapperman Dave]

As Bulls fans, we don't deserve this.

We? Ain’t you a cavs/bron fan

 

[Cadillac]

Boylen is so bad that I wish he was put in the hot seat instead of Gar
todays news would have me ecstatic.

but instead im saying to myself "forget Gar, fire that egghead cac Boylen"

 

[The G.O.D II]

How fukking embarrassing is this? Not only to have multiple outsiders notice how trash our coach is but the players publicly co-signing it

 

[beenz]

Jalen Rose taking a shyt on boylen at 1:30 here