If he is not fired , then i am leaving the bulls…
At last, they succeeded. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to state that John Paxson had had enough.
Before nine in the morning on Monday, the Bulls fired head coach Fred Hoiberg. Paxson did not handpick Hoiberg. Gar Forman made this choice. However, one that Paxson, Forman’s supervisor, approved.
In a statement, Paxson stated, “I felt this was the right choice for our organization at this time. Decisions like this one are never easy to make.” “After carefully considering my options, I decided to take this action with the growth of our team as a whole in mind. As a club, I think it’s critical that we take unwavering steps in the right direction and develop the necessary habits to properly position our athletes for success both now and in the future. Fred has been a constant member of our team, and I want to thank him for his work and dedication.
Paxson elevated Jim Boylen, aka Mike Quade, to head coach in Hoiberg’s place.
Everyone agreed three and a half years ago that Hoiberg was an excellent option to take over for the stern Tom Thibodeau, whose productive five-year career was cut short by LeBron James.
Hoiberg was affable, offensive-minded, pleasant, and less like to yell “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST” thirty times during a game than Thibodeau did. You wouldn’t tremble in terror if you encountered him in the Advocate Center corridor.
Back on May 1, 2014, I think I was the first person to link Hoiberg and the Bulls in paper. It was at that point that Thibodeau was connected to the Lakers job posting. Although I didn’t see it occurring, I wrote: “I believe the Bulls would contact Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg first if I were completely incorrect and this rumor develops into a conflagration. In Chicago, the former Bull is a highly esteemed figure. Tim Floyd brought in former Iowa State assistant manager Gar Forman to work here.
That information came from talks with Forman, who told me that Hoiberg was not going to be dropping out of college anytime soon, but still thought he was fantastic. Forman is someone I like, but I knew who to trust.
By then, Thibodeau—a tremendously brilliant coach with a belligerent personality and a demeanor that irritated a lot of people inside the organization—had lost the support of the front office.
The Bulls fired Thibodeau in May 2015 with one of the most amateurish press statements I’ve ever seen, even though you can’t dispute with what he accomplished with both full squads and ones without Derrick Rose. I won’t recap everything here, but remember this Forman quotation, which was the highlight of the release. (Thibodeau’s Coach of the Year honor was not mentioned.)
Forman stated, “We have had some success with Tom as our head coach over the last five years. He was a good fit for our team and system when he was hired in 2010.” However, when we considered the future and assessed how our team and the company could keep developing and getting better, we concluded that a shift in strategy was required.
A little accomplishment! Since his departure, the Bulls have had “a lot of failure.” Hoiberg’s record as head coach was 115–155.
By that point, everyone knew Hoiberg was the coach-in-waiting and the Bulls still had the nerve to say they were going to do a nationwide search for a new head coach. Less than a month later, it was official and Hoiberg was the new coach. Some search, right?
Much like when Jerry Krause lured Tim Floyd from Ames to Chicago to be Michael Jordan’s next coach, the premise of that promise immediately turned flat.
When Thibodeau came to Chicago, he had a young, hungry team. A healthy team. They stayed around the Berto Center most of the summer and Thibodeau put them through the paces, building the foundation for what would become a 62-win team, the top seed in the NBA playoffs and the most enjoyable Bulls team since the Jordan heyday.
