Idk if Philly is really ready to pull the plug before they try a new coach first but I would at least make that call and seeI saw a rumor about the Bulls packaging Lauri and Lavine for Simmons... idk
Turning the page, The Next Chapter: The Official Chicago Bulls 2019-20 Season Thread
beenz
Rap Guerilla
Apparently Zach was hot that Boylen leaked the story about him paying his fine this season.
Some Bulls thought Zach LaVine and Jim Boylen would physically fight
Some Bulls thought Zach LaVine and Jim Boylen would physically fight
I would do that trade so fast
Conscious Pilot
Do Better.
I would do that trade so fast
That’s an awful a lot for a Point Guard who can’t shoot or even willing to shoot 3’s and just suffered the same Injury Andrew Bynum did.
Nero Christ
Sniper out now on all digital platforms brev
He can't shoot and is still better than everyone we would give away and has more potential. He is also already a top 5 defender In the league. All you have to is surround him with shooters.
I would do that trade so fast
Hell no
The rise and fall of Jim Boylen, the latest ringleader of the Bulls’ circus
The rise and fall of Jim Boylen, the latest ringleader of the Bulls' circus
I didn’t see this til now but it absolutely destroys Boylen. Like to shreds. Paints him as a contender for WOAT coach. Unreal how much of an a$$hole this guy was. And even worse it was supported by Pax. He needs to not have a voice with the players and should have no influence on our front office. It’s kinda fukked up he’s within the org still close to both Michael & Jerry Reinsdorf. I didn’t hate the idea at first if he was completely removed from any operations, but if he supported & encouraged Boylens tactics then he shouldn’t be around at all right now
Concerns me because it sounds like that’s who has Micahel Reinsdorfs ear and he’s essentially the one making the ownership level decisions for the organization at this point. Michael needs to wake up and attach himself to Arturas. I do think the new regime of AK & Eversley can turn some the perception around. They have to.
The rise and fall of Jim Boylen, the latest ringleader of the Bulls' circus
I didn’t see this til now but it absolutely destroys Boylen. Like to shreds. Paints him as a contender for WOAT coach. Unreal how much of an a$$hole this guy was. And even worse it was supported by Pax. He needs to not have a voice with the players and should have no influence on our front office. It’s kinda fukked up he’s within the org still close to both Michael & Jerry Reinsdorf. I didn’t hate the idea at first if he was completely removed from any operations, but if he supported & encouraged Boylens tactics then he shouldn’t be around at all right now
Concerns me because it sounds like that’s who has Micahel Reinsdorfs ear and he’s essentially the one making the ownership level decisions for the organization at this point. Michael needs to wake up and attach himself to Arturas. I do think the new regime of AK & Eversley can turn some the perception around. They have to.
I would do that trade so fast
Can't give up Zach AND Coby one or the other since Ben needs scoring next to him....but this is something I would entertain
Trot LaRoc
Superstar
Simmons is not a #1
I'm not giving up all that for a player who cant shoot at all. Dude is a tall Rondo...he is talented but not a franchise player imo
I'm not giving up all that for a player who cant shoot at all. Dude is a tall Rondo...he is talented but not a franchise player imo
Illin Degenerate
All Star
4 assets is too much imo, 3 is acceptable. either way the bulls with simmons would be looking at next season as a tank season get a lottery pick and have cap space for at least 2 max free agents. if thats the plan then the assets given up dont really matter though you'd like to hang onto one of the non lavine players.
from a sixers perspective if youre getting offered 4 assets like that i dont see how you can pass it up with you being in cap hell.
Trot LaRoc
Superstar
I wouldnt trade lavine or markennen
Coby white , otto porter , the first round pick , sato and whatever other pieces is a healthy haul,
Not given up to my fo a injury prone guard who kant shoot
I'd trade Lauri before Coby
Moot point anyway bc I'm not a fan of Simmons
Jim Boylen should have been fired back on Super Bowl Sunday.
His dismissal would have been as justified then as it was Friday, the morning upon which the inevitable finally arrived.
It was Feb. 2. The Bulls were in Toronto, putting the finishes touches on a 27-point loss.
Boylen went viral for a familiar reason to Bulls fans: a late-game timeout. His team trailed by 25 and only 64 seconds remained. Boylen, as he became fond of doing, couldn’t help but extend his team’s misery. He called timeout just so he could drill his second unit on a set play out of the huddle. His go-to man: Bulls two-way player Adam Mokoka, the French and G-League sensation making his fifth appearance in an NBA game. Raptors broadcaster Jack Armstrong was apoplectic.
But that’s not what truly went wrong.
A far more egregious coaching decision was made less than four minutes earlier. That’s when Boylen re-inserted Bulls rookie center Daniel Gafford for the first time since the first quarter. Gafford had rolled an ankle. He returned to play the final 4:26 with a pronounced limp. It was coaching negligence in plain sight.
Gafford missed the next three games because of his ankle. It was after that third game, a tumultuous Tuesday night at Washington, that Boylen awkwardly revealed what many in and around the Chicago Bulls organization now say is their former coach’s true colors. Instead of simply saying Gafford was still recovering, Boylen skirted a string of questions about his young player’s health. Admitting to Gafford’s injury would have been admitting to a mistake nine nights earlier.
That was never the Jim Boylen way.
Despite declaring in his first week on the job back in December 2018 that “Nobody is going to make more mistakes than I do,” Boylen rarely took responsibility for them. His two-year tenure was described by multiple people within the organization as toxic. One person labeled it a “nightmare.” Another, “a circus.”
But in a business built on relationships, it should come as no surprise that it was Gafford — while playing video games online — who last month gave the most candid assessment of Boylen.
“He all right,” Gafford told his audience when asked if he likes Boylen. “I don’t like him a lot. But he OK. He’s got some things he can work on. Got some things he can get better at, as a person and as a coach. I’m not gonna hate on him. I’m not going to hate the man. But, you know … ”
From his rigid on-court systems to his no-nonsense off-court policies, Boylen tried to be in total control of the team. Finally, after two decades as an NBA assistant, it was his show, to be run his way. But he couldn’t get out of his own way.
Boylen had contentious relationships with multiple players, unusual run-ins with opposing coaches and tactics that agitated fans and broadcasters alike. His personality was tough to absorb, abrasive and for some, hard to believe.
In a statement announcing his decision to fire Boylen after a “comprehensive evaluation,” new executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas called him “a great human being.”
Others say they saw Boylen for who he is, a bullshytter, a bully, a sycophant. His greatest success as Bulls coach was simply getting the job.
In nearly two seasons in charge, Boylen netted the Bulls a 39-84 record and a laughingstock reputation around the league. The Bulls find themselves looking for a new coach while preparing for another draft lottery.
‘First impressions last a lifetime’
The Boylen era of Bulls basketball started with “shock and awe” and somehow snowballed from there.
Boylen was promoted to replace Fred Hoiberg, who was fired on Dec. 3, 2018 in large part because the management team, led by John Paxson, believed players were being coddled too much and had grown indifferent to losing. Boylen, an assistant under Hoiberg since 2015, was now empowered to run the team his way.
Boylen brought far more bluster than Hoiberg. He spoke with conviction, passionately and persuasively. But from the beginning, he sabotaged his coaching efforts with his public comments. The first-year NBA coach routinely name-dropped championship-winning coaches he had previously worked for: Gregg Popovich and Rudy Tomjanovich in the NBA and Tom Izzo at Michigan State. Without anything close to their credentials, Boylen’s continued mentions of them became off-putting.
There also was his reliance on pithy lines and buzz words to convey his passion. Rarely did an interview session go by without Boylen falling back on some variation of “Bulls across the chest,” “pure heart,” “soul” or “spirit.”
“He uses those words because he wants the players and the entire organization to care,” Bulls president and COO Michael Reinsdorf told The Athletic in a 2019 interview. “He wants everyone to care as much as he does. His give-a-shyt factor is really high. He really cares.”
Over time, that would stand as the best compliment anyone could give Boylen — excelling at the job’s most basic requirement.
Too much of what Boylen implemented felt gimmicky to players and team personnel. He immediately — and famously — commanded long, high-intensity practices consisting of wind sprints and military-style push-ups. He made it his mission to instill more discipline and dedication into the Bulls’ culture.
“I can’t emphasize enough,” reserve guard Ryan Arcidiacono said in Boylen’s first week, “we’re doing a lot of running.”
Boylen’s initial preferred style of play didn’t do him any favors in the court of public opinion or in the win-loss column. He switched from Hoiberg’s high-paced attack to a slower, low-scoring brand of defensive basketball. The Bulls reached 100 points only four times in Boylen’s first 15 games. Their 99.5 offensive rating in that stretch would have ranked five points per 100 possessions worse than the New York Knick’s league-worst offense.
“We have to crawl before we walk, and we’ve got to walk before we run,” Boylen said.
Boylen continued his mission undeterred, showing little regard for shaming his players along the way. He called out everything from their conditioning to their toughness to their talent. Following a franchise-record 56-point home loss to Boston on Dec. 8, 2018, Boylen responded to a postgame question of whether he was concerned that his decision to make wholesale substitutions twice would embarrass his players.
“I think your play is embarrassing,” he said. “Me subbing them is me saving them, maybe. Maybe we saved them.”
It was Boylen’s third game as an NBA head coach. It also was the game that prompted players to organize and nearly boycott the next day’s practice, which uncharacteristically was scheduled following the second game of a back-to-back.
“There’s been a little shock and awe here,” Boylen said the following day from a practice that never happened. “That’s the way I felt it needed to happen. First impressions last a lifetime. I don’t think anyone in here thought we were going to ease into this thing. That’s not my personality. That’s not how you affect change.”
The Bulls wanted a coach who would hold players accountable. Boylen never figured out how to do so without incessant public lashings. He established a leadership council consisting of veteran players. It only made him more of a target. Less than two weeks into Boylen’s tenure, other young players began openly mocking his methods. Following a 19-point road win against the Bulls inside the United Center on Dec. 10, 2018, Kings players were overheard poking fun at the Bulls’ lengthy practices. Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox went on a podcast a month later and laughed at Boylen’s coaching, insisting he too would have rebelled.
Boylen’s problems with his own players began long before that.
‘Something’s obviously wrong’
It’s a distant memory now, but an untenable situation with former Bulls forward Jabari Parker commenced on Dec. 13, 2018 — five games into Boylen’s tenure and only five months after Parker was introduced at a press conference as the Bulls’ prized free-agent acquisition.
The two were partners when Boylen was second in command to Hoiberg. When Boylen got promoted, Parker got benched. Two months later, Parker was traded to Washington along with Bobby Portis for Otto Porter Jr.
“To see that relationship go sour, not from my end but from his, was just bad because you trust a guy,” Parker said.
In a league-wide player poll conducted by The Athletic later that season, Boylen earned the second-most votes among respondents who answered a simple question: “Which coach would you least like to play for?” Newly named New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached the Bulls from 2010-15, garnered the most votes.
Chicago’s on-court product certainly wasn’t compelling anyone to flock to the Bulls. They went 2-15 in January 2019, including a stretch in which they lost 14 of 15 from Dec. 30, 2018 to Jan. 29, 2019. Those losses were by an average of 13.9 points.
During that stretch, following a 14-point home loss to Miami, Zach LaVine delivered the first of many curious comments that consistently emerged from the team’s postgame locker room. The Bulls were off to a 5-17 start under Boylen and frustration was mounting.
“I mean, something’s obviously wrong,” LaVine said. “We weren’t losing (by) double digits early in the season. We might have been losing, (but) we didn’t even have a full roster. So I don’t know. We’re a better team now and we’re getting blown out. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
A 5-5 record in February 2019 proved to be the high-water mark of the Boylen era. It’s where his lone three-game winning streak comes from. It’s also where you’ll find Lauri Markkanen’s greatest success, the month in which he averaged 26 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists over 10 games. Boylen loosened the reins and transitioned to an offensive system predicated on playing with more pace. He allowed Markkanen to be a playmaker in transition, and it worked.
But by March of that season, widespread injuries hit and the home stretch was nothing more than a race for the right to select Zion Williamson. As the team flopped and criticism grew louder, however, Boylen developed a habit of blocking his own television broadcasters’ view of games while coaching from the sidelines. It was the most subtle micro-aggression imaginable. And in spite of it all, Boylen continued to receive unwavering support from management and ownership.
“We’re at a really good place with our head coach in terms of the direction we’re headed,” Paxson said at the end of the 2018-19 season, which Boylen finished at 17-41. “I still believe given a really good offseason with this draft pick we have coming, and with our ability to get some veteran players in here alongside these young guys, we can make a substantial leap. And I did tell the players … I think our goal next year has to be to be in that hunt. We want to be in that hunt again.”
Paxson closed the year with a most modest goal for the 2019-20 season.
“Get relevant again,” he said.
Five months later, Boylen opened the season with a drastically different desire.
“We want to get to the mountaintop,” he said.
The coach was given even more autonomy. And the gimmick ideas continued to flow. He ordered a customized Chicago Bulls punch clock to be installed in the team’s training room, complete with each player’s name printed on adjacent punchcards. He printed up T-shirts with cheesy motivational sayings. He brought in a customized WWE-style championship belt to crown the offseason’s one-on-one champion. Each was supposed to inspire. Each turned the Bulls into a punchline.
The Bulls started 5-10 this season, one game ahead of last year’s pace through 15 games. There were fourth-quarter collapses, second-half meltdowns, repeated trouble with late-game execution and downright bad losses to inferior teams.
But it was in the team’s 16th game, a home date against Miami on Nov. 22, that Boylen lost whatever was left of his credibility with certain players. It was the night he singled out LaVine. Boylen subbed for his best player only 3 minutes, 26 seconds into the game. The Heat had jumped to a 13-0 lead. Boylen said LaVine was responsible for three egregious defensive mistakes.
“Zach LaVine got 13 points scored on him, I guess,” LaVine said. “Or was it the starting five? I don’t remember.”
LaVine was angry after the game and there was a minor concern among members of the traveling party that things could turn physical between the two prior to the team flight to Charlotte. A pregame meeting before the Bulls took on the Hornets the next day helped smooth out the tension. LaVine responded with a career-high 49 points, including 13 made 3-pointers and a miraculous game-winner with 0.8 seconds left. Still, LaVine’s agent asked for a sit-down with Boylen three nights later in San Francisco, the night before the Bulls played at Golden State. The air still wasn’t clear, and it never would be again.
On the surface, the relationship between Boylen and LaVine appeared to be improving when LaVine offered to pay one of his coach’s fines the previous March. After a double ejection on the coaches following a sideline quarrel with L.A. Clippers coach Doc Rivers in 2019, LaVine explained he wanted to stick up for his coach.
“I didn’t feel like he deserved it,” LaVine said days later. “So I wanted to stick up for him. He sticks up for us a lot. I feel like he hasn’t got enough credit for that. We’re not winning and he’s still coaching us hard. We’re going somewhere. I appreciate that.”
What LaVine didn’t appreciate, according to a person familiar with the situation, was Boylen leaking the gesture to the press. What was intended as an olive branch quickly turned into a publicity stunt orchestrated by Boylen to make himself look good.
His dismissal would have been as justified then as it was Friday, the morning upon which the inevitable finally arrived.
It was Feb. 2. The Bulls were in Toronto, putting the finishes touches on a 27-point loss.
Boylen went viral for a familiar reason to Bulls fans: a late-game timeout. His team trailed by 25 and only 64 seconds remained. Boylen, as he became fond of doing, couldn’t help but extend his team’s misery. He called timeout just so he could drill his second unit on a set play out of the huddle. His go-to man: Bulls two-way player Adam Mokoka, the French and G-League sensation making his fifth appearance in an NBA game. Raptors broadcaster Jack Armstrong was apoplectic.
But that’s not what truly went wrong.
A far more egregious coaching decision was made less than four minutes earlier. That’s when Boylen re-inserted Bulls rookie center Daniel Gafford for the first time since the first quarter. Gafford had rolled an ankle. He returned to play the final 4:26 with a pronounced limp. It was coaching negligence in plain sight.
Gafford missed the next three games because of his ankle. It was after that third game, a tumultuous Tuesday night at Washington, that Boylen awkwardly revealed what many in and around the Chicago Bulls organization now say is their former coach’s true colors. Instead of simply saying Gafford was still recovering, Boylen skirted a string of questions about his young player’s health. Admitting to Gafford’s injury would have been admitting to a mistake nine nights earlier.
That was never the Jim Boylen way.
Despite declaring in his first week on the job back in December 2018 that “Nobody is going to make more mistakes than I do,” Boylen rarely took responsibility for them. His two-year tenure was described by multiple people within the organization as toxic. One person labeled it a “nightmare.” Another, “a circus.”
But in a business built on relationships, it should come as no surprise that it was Gafford — while playing video games online — who last month gave the most candid assessment of Boylen.
“He all right,” Gafford told his audience when asked if he likes Boylen. “I don’t like him a lot. But he OK. He’s got some things he can work on. Got some things he can get better at, as a person and as a coach. I’m not gonna hate on him. I’m not going to hate the man. But, you know … ”
From his rigid on-court systems to his no-nonsense off-court policies, Boylen tried to be in total control of the team. Finally, after two decades as an NBA assistant, it was his show, to be run his way. But he couldn’t get out of his own way.
Boylen had contentious relationships with multiple players, unusual run-ins with opposing coaches and tactics that agitated fans and broadcasters alike. His personality was tough to absorb, abrasive and for some, hard to believe.
In a statement announcing his decision to fire Boylen after a “comprehensive evaluation,” new executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas called him “a great human being.”
Others say they saw Boylen for who he is, a bullshytter, a bully, a sycophant. His greatest success as Bulls coach was simply getting the job.
In nearly two seasons in charge, Boylen netted the Bulls a 39-84 record and a laughingstock reputation around the league. The Bulls find themselves looking for a new coach while preparing for another draft lottery.
‘First impressions last a lifetime’
The Boylen era of Bulls basketball started with “shock and awe” and somehow snowballed from there.
Boylen was promoted to replace Fred Hoiberg, who was fired on Dec. 3, 2018 in large part because the management team, led by John Paxson, believed players were being coddled too much and had grown indifferent to losing. Boylen, an assistant under Hoiberg since 2015, was now empowered to run the team his way.
Boylen brought far more bluster than Hoiberg. He spoke with conviction, passionately and persuasively. But from the beginning, he sabotaged his coaching efforts with his public comments. The first-year NBA coach routinely name-dropped championship-winning coaches he had previously worked for: Gregg Popovich and Rudy Tomjanovich in the NBA and Tom Izzo at Michigan State. Without anything close to their credentials, Boylen’s continued mentions of them became off-putting.
There also was his reliance on pithy lines and buzz words to convey his passion. Rarely did an interview session go by without Boylen falling back on some variation of “Bulls across the chest,” “pure heart,” “soul” or “spirit.”
“He uses those words because he wants the players and the entire organization to care,” Bulls president and COO Michael Reinsdorf told The Athletic in a 2019 interview. “He wants everyone to care as much as he does. His give-a-shyt factor is really high. He really cares.”
Over time, that would stand as the best compliment anyone could give Boylen — excelling at the job’s most basic requirement.
Too much of what Boylen implemented felt gimmicky to players and team personnel. He immediately — and famously — commanded long, high-intensity practices consisting of wind sprints and military-style push-ups. He made it his mission to instill more discipline and dedication into the Bulls’ culture.
“I can’t emphasize enough,” reserve guard Ryan Arcidiacono said in Boylen’s first week, “we’re doing a lot of running.”
Boylen’s initial preferred style of play didn’t do him any favors in the court of public opinion or in the win-loss column. He switched from Hoiberg’s high-paced attack to a slower, low-scoring brand of defensive basketball. The Bulls reached 100 points only four times in Boylen’s first 15 games. Their 99.5 offensive rating in that stretch would have ranked five points per 100 possessions worse than the New York Knick’s league-worst offense.
“We have to crawl before we walk, and we’ve got to walk before we run,” Boylen said.
Boylen continued his mission undeterred, showing little regard for shaming his players along the way. He called out everything from their conditioning to their toughness to their talent. Following a franchise-record 56-point home loss to Boston on Dec. 8, 2018, Boylen responded to a postgame question of whether he was concerned that his decision to make wholesale substitutions twice would embarrass his players.
“I think your play is embarrassing,” he said. “Me subbing them is me saving them, maybe. Maybe we saved them.”
It was Boylen’s third game as an NBA head coach. It also was the game that prompted players to organize and nearly boycott the next day’s practice, which uncharacteristically was scheduled following the second game of a back-to-back.
“There’s been a little shock and awe here,” Boylen said the following day from a practice that never happened. “That’s the way I felt it needed to happen. First impressions last a lifetime. I don’t think anyone in here thought we were going to ease into this thing. That’s not my personality. That’s not how you affect change.”
The Bulls wanted a coach who would hold players accountable. Boylen never figured out how to do so without incessant public lashings. He established a leadership council consisting of veteran players. It only made him more of a target. Less than two weeks into Boylen’s tenure, other young players began openly mocking his methods. Following a 19-point road win against the Bulls inside the United Center on Dec. 10, 2018, Kings players were overheard poking fun at the Bulls’ lengthy practices. Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox went on a podcast a month later and laughed at Boylen’s coaching, insisting he too would have rebelled.
Boylen’s problems with his own players began long before that.
‘Something’s obviously wrong’
It’s a distant memory now, but an untenable situation with former Bulls forward Jabari Parker commenced on Dec. 13, 2018 — five games into Boylen’s tenure and only five months after Parker was introduced at a press conference as the Bulls’ prized free-agent acquisition.
The two were partners when Boylen was second in command to Hoiberg. When Boylen got promoted, Parker got benched. Two months later, Parker was traded to Washington along with Bobby Portis for Otto Porter Jr.
“To see that relationship go sour, not from my end but from his, was just bad because you trust a guy,” Parker said.
In a league-wide player poll conducted by The Athletic later that season, Boylen earned the second-most votes among respondents who answered a simple question: “Which coach would you least like to play for?” Newly named New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached the Bulls from 2010-15, garnered the most votes.
Chicago’s on-court product certainly wasn’t compelling anyone to flock to the Bulls. They went 2-15 in January 2019, including a stretch in which they lost 14 of 15 from Dec. 30, 2018 to Jan. 29, 2019. Those losses were by an average of 13.9 points.
During that stretch, following a 14-point home loss to Miami, Zach LaVine delivered the first of many curious comments that consistently emerged from the team’s postgame locker room. The Bulls were off to a 5-17 start under Boylen and frustration was mounting.
“I mean, something’s obviously wrong,” LaVine said. “We weren’t losing (by) double digits early in the season. We might have been losing, (but) we didn’t even have a full roster. So I don’t know. We’re a better team now and we’re getting blown out. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
A 5-5 record in February 2019 proved to be the high-water mark of the Boylen era. It’s where his lone three-game winning streak comes from. It’s also where you’ll find Lauri Markkanen’s greatest success, the month in which he averaged 26 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists over 10 games. Boylen loosened the reins and transitioned to an offensive system predicated on playing with more pace. He allowed Markkanen to be a playmaker in transition, and it worked.
But by March of that season, widespread injuries hit and the home stretch was nothing more than a race for the right to select Zion Williamson. As the team flopped and criticism grew louder, however, Boylen developed a habit of blocking his own television broadcasters’ view of games while coaching from the sidelines. It was the most subtle micro-aggression imaginable. And in spite of it all, Boylen continued to receive unwavering support from management and ownership.
“We’re at a really good place with our head coach in terms of the direction we’re headed,” Paxson said at the end of the 2018-19 season, which Boylen finished at 17-41. “I still believe given a really good offseason with this draft pick we have coming, and with our ability to get some veteran players in here alongside these young guys, we can make a substantial leap. And I did tell the players … I think our goal next year has to be to be in that hunt. We want to be in that hunt again.”
Paxson closed the year with a most modest goal for the 2019-20 season.
“Get relevant again,” he said.
Five months later, Boylen opened the season with a drastically different desire.
“We want to get to the mountaintop,” he said.
The coach was given even more autonomy. And the gimmick ideas continued to flow. He ordered a customized Chicago Bulls punch clock to be installed in the team’s training room, complete with each player’s name printed on adjacent punchcards. He printed up T-shirts with cheesy motivational sayings. He brought in a customized WWE-style championship belt to crown the offseason’s one-on-one champion. Each was supposed to inspire. Each turned the Bulls into a punchline.
The Bulls started 5-10 this season, one game ahead of last year’s pace through 15 games. There were fourth-quarter collapses, second-half meltdowns, repeated trouble with late-game execution and downright bad losses to inferior teams.
But it was in the team’s 16th game, a home date against Miami on Nov. 22, that Boylen lost whatever was left of his credibility with certain players. It was the night he singled out LaVine. Boylen subbed for his best player only 3 minutes, 26 seconds into the game. The Heat had jumped to a 13-0 lead. Boylen said LaVine was responsible for three egregious defensive mistakes.
“Zach LaVine got 13 points scored on him, I guess,” LaVine said. “Or was it the starting five? I don’t remember.”
LaVine was angry after the game and there was a minor concern among members of the traveling party that things could turn physical between the two prior to the team flight to Charlotte. A pregame meeting before the Bulls took on the Hornets the next day helped smooth out the tension. LaVine responded with a career-high 49 points, including 13 made 3-pointers and a miraculous game-winner with 0.8 seconds left. Still, LaVine’s agent asked for a sit-down with Boylen three nights later in San Francisco, the night before the Bulls played at Golden State. The air still wasn’t clear, and it never would be again.
On the surface, the relationship between Boylen and LaVine appeared to be improving when LaVine offered to pay one of his coach’s fines the previous March. After a double ejection on the coaches following a sideline quarrel with L.A. Clippers coach Doc Rivers in 2019, LaVine explained he wanted to stick up for his coach.
“I didn’t feel like he deserved it,” LaVine said days later. “So I wanted to stick up for him. He sticks up for us a lot. I feel like he hasn’t got enough credit for that. We’re not winning and he’s still coaching us hard. We’re going somewhere. I appreciate that.”
What LaVine didn’t appreciate, according to a person familiar with the situation, was Boylen leaking the gesture to the press. What was intended as an olive branch quickly turned into a publicity stunt orchestrated by Boylen to make himself look good.