The 2016-17 Chicago Bulls are done, focus on the real problem

The season ended on Friday night. The Boston Celtics finally looked like the No. 1 seed, and the Chicago Bulls, in turn, finally looked like the flailing No. 8 seed that they were this whole time.

Recency bias. That’s what you’re feeling. The Bulls pushed the Celtics to six games, you reason to yourself. They were up 2-0, they should have won this series. But that simply isn’t true.

This season was chaotic and frustrating for everyone in the Chicago fan base. Those, like myself, who lobbied for a rebuild, were constantly frustrated by the team’s ability to tread water – without a good point guard, with bench issues, with major inconsistencies from power forward and no real young prospects on the roster. Those who believed the additions of Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo were going to push the team into Eastern Conference contention – it took wins over the worst teams in the league on the final days of the season to secure the very last spot in the playoffs.

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A lot of people tried to convince themselves that making the playoffs was a win. It was, but only for Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf. That was a very difficult position to be in for everyone else. The series against Boston was always going to be a loss, but the playoff revenue trickled in. Hell, they even got an extra game, Game 6, out of a series that had no business lasting longer than four games.

There are a lot of questions about what Chicago can do, should do during the offseason. We will get to those. For now, this is an acknowledgement of the team that was and how the Bulls defied every expectation set for it – good and bad.

The only other thing I have to say right now – shame on every single one of you that watched at home, or sat in the United Center on Friday night and dared to chant, “Fire Hoiberg.” You’re an embarrassment and we don’t want you here. Not because Hoiberg is amazing, but because of the arrogance and pure idiocy that you represented so tastelessly.

Here, Brad Stevens has the perfect response:

This Bulls team overachieved most win projection models by as much as six or seven wins, and at least three games on all of the models I saw before the season started. This team stole two games from the best regular season team in the East, in a playoff series. They overachieved. For all his shortcomings, this cluster of a roster isn’t on him.

If you’re angry, frustrated, or just plain old done with this team – point that at Reinsdorf, Gar Forman and John Paxson. This is on them, 100 percent. They don’t have a great sense of what they are doing and the new model that Reinsdord and GarPax have seemingly embraced is just what the Herb Kohl ownership group did with the Milwaukee Bucks for years and years. Constant mediocrity, setting the playoffs as the barometer of success, even if you get run out of the first round over and over. The Bulls have no Ben Simmons, no Joel Embiid, no Karl-Anthony Towns – but Forman did want to trade for… Jahlil Okafor?

Hoiberg has to answer questions like this after winning two games with an 8-seeded team:

It’s time for Forman to face these questions.

The fact is this – if Gar gets released, Hoiberg probably becomes a casualty of that move. That may, or may not, be fair to Hoiberg. But if you’re calling for anyone’s job, focus it on the guys who left Hoiberg stranded with a roster he never asked for. Focus it on the guys who stay cashing checks, but never answer any questions.

The 2016-17 Chicago Bulls are done, but don’t let that disappointment turn you against the symptom when it’s the disease that needs to be cured.