Chicago Bulls head coach Jim Boylen is going to have a lot of pressure on his shoulders heading into the 2020 offseason since his job isn’t completely safe.
Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic-induced NBA hiatus in the midst of the 2019-20 regular season, the Chicago Bulls haven’t seen much of a slow in their rumor mill of late. Between all the speculation and discussion swirling around the front office personnel at hand for the Bulls right now, it seems like a change is just around the corner.
According to a mailbag piece from K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago on April 2, the Bulls won’t make it necessary for a new voice added to the front office to keep head coach Jim Boylen around heading into next season. That is big news since Boylen is one of the most unpopular NBA head coaches among fans, and likely players too.
Vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman caught a lot of criticism this season, and rightly so. The Bulls were well out of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference standings heading into the All-Star Break. That was also an NBA All-Star Weekend in which the Bulls hosted at their home arena, at the United Center in Chicago.
Here’s more on the question that Johnson answered in this mailbag article on NBC Sports Chicago on Thursday morning.
"I think it depends on the person or people Michael Reinsdorf hires to run a revamped front office. As previously written, Reinsdorf remains supportive of Boylen. If the targeted lead candidate makes clear he or she wants to make a coaching change in the interview process, that wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. In other words, Reinsdorf won’t make a hire with the pre-existing condition that Boylen must be retained. However, Boylen has done pretty much exactly what ownership and management asked him to do upon his hiring. So that’s one reason why Reinsdorf and John Paxson have remained supportive of Boylen."
Bulls president and COO Michael Reinsdorf has a big decision to make whenever the looming offseason begins. It is well known that the Bulls are looking to make a change in the front office, which is a very necessary move at this point in time.
GarPax hasn’t gotten the Bulls anywhere in the third year of the rebuild. The Bulls were about on pace to win the same amount of games this season that they did in the first year of the rebuild. They entered the NBA hiatus with a record of 22-43, despite beating the Central Division foe Cleveland Cavaliers in their final game before the pause on March 10.
Boylen also isn’t a good head coach, at least by the indications we’ve seen so far. That would make two straight whiffs on head coaching hires by GarPax. Boylen carries a record of 39-84 as the Bulls head coach since he was named interim early in the 2018-19 regular season.
Former Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg did make the playoffs once, but he held an overall record of 115-155 in the regular season in his bits and pieces of four seasons in the Windy City. Hoiberg was let go around Christmas 2018, then to be replaced by Boylen as the interim head coach.
The Bulls will be entering the fourth year of the rebuild needing to add a few more pieces to the roster to instill hope that there could still be prominence ahead for this young core. The front office needs a lot of shakeups, though, as does the coaching staff starting with Boylen.