It’s been well over two years now since the contemptible nickname “GarPax” has pervaded the minds of Chicago Bulls‘ fans. As the head honchos leading Chicago’s front office, the duo of John Paxson and Gar Forman wasted over a decade of incredible basketball talent with their abysmal managerial skills. Now that the two are out of the picture and the Bulls have returned to their winning ways of years past, now is a good time to revisit just what happened to the members of the GarPax era Bulls after their dismissal from the team.
For the sake of this trip to the past, we’ll be focusing on the 2018-19 Chicago Bulls roster, since it’s the one that in my opinion represented those grim tanking years the best. The Bulls would post a miserable 22-60 record that year, making it Chicago’s worst performance since 2002 and the fifth-worst season in 57 years of franchise history.
That year was the year we saw head coach Fred Hoiberg get fired and the United Center see a historic drop in attendance. When attendance and jersey sales finally started to affect his bottom line, owner Jerry Reinsdorf finally paid attention to the front office malpractice going on in his team and fast-tracked an evaluation of GarPax that would ultimately conclude with the pair being let go in 2020.
It’s only been two years since the Chicago Bulls released managerial duo GarPax, but the casualties of their tenure have already started piling up.
Given that we’re focusing in on the 2018-19 campaign, that means any player that joined the roster in the last three seasons does not qualify as a “GarPax-era” player. That includes Coby White, who was drafted by GarPax but only played one season under their not-so-watchful eye.
That season was also Jim Boylen’s first as head coach of the team, an unfortunate experiment that makes Billy Donovan look less of a notorious playoff choker and more like an angel sent from the heavens. Boylen would be released after less than two seasons with the Bulls after posting an embarrassing 39-84 record and the second-worst winning percentage of any head coach (who coached for at least 100 games) in Chicago Bulls history.
Boylen may no longer be associated with the team, but the stench he and GarPax left in their wake has persisted as the Bulls work their way back towards a respectable position in the NBA.