1. The mutiny
This is by far the worst single moment for Boylen during his run as the Bulls head coach. When he tried to make the practices incredibly difficult, including having his players do push ups, suicides, and wind sprints, there was a predictable reaction from the locker room. This came right after the Bulls parted ways with Hoiberg in favor of Boylen.
The Bulls players formed a mutiny to retaliate against Boylen for his extreme tactics that they felt were unnecessary. And all of his extreme tactics did in fact have little impact on this team. It was just something that wasn’t going to do much for a team struggling through the second year of their rebuild.
One of the first stints of the tough practices on the players happened after the Bulls were completely dismantled by the Boston Celtics to the tune of a 56-point defeat. It didn’t help much as the Bulls still struggled through the month of January. It took until that hot run the Bulls had in February 2019 for the team to really settle in under Boylen’s direction.
The antics of Boylen were largely allowed by the previous front office regime, which made this situation so much worse. But the former vice president of basketball operations John Paxson was unseated for Arturas Karnisovas earlier in the offseason, which is also what sparked the relieving of Boylen as the head coach.