Fixing Fred Hoiberg’s Coaching Misfires with the Bulls

Rookie head coach Fred Hoiberg inherited a team in which the Bulls front office believed could win last year. In the regular season, the Bulls were 9-1 against the Toronto Raptors, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder; three of the contending teams in the conference finals. Where did Hoiberg go wrong and how can he do better this coming year?

Fred Hoiberg came into the league touted by GarPax as a 180-degree change from the slower defensive grind of Tom Thibodeau’s tenure.

In the college ranks, Hoiberg went back to his alma mater Iowa State and turned a middling basketball program into one of the top college offenses that regularly beat top tournament teams with NBA-styled offenses using unheralded, but talented players who bought into his pace-and-space system.

With the Bulls in the pros, Hoiberg stumbled onto something he probably never encountered: players entrenched into a slower pace who could not adapt to a faster style. That forced his hand to adapt to whomever was available and running old plays from Thibodeau’s walk-up, isolation-heavy offense.

In fairness to Hoiberg, a lesser coach would have evaporated towards the end of the season if he was as bad as every snooty sports media pundit says he was. Hoiberg actually won some games with his bench core and you can look at the plays from the videos that showed how good Hoiberg’s smarts are at times.

When the Bulls run Hoiberg’s stuff, they get good opportunities.

When Hoiberg had to babysit Jimmy Butler and Pau Gasol by running more isolations and pick-and-rolls in the half-court, the Bulls stall and bog down.

Here are a few things that Hoiberg could tighten up next season to make sure this past season doesn’t happen again.

Next: Bulls must improve rim protection over the summer