Jim Boylen has reached a full week as the full-fledged coach of the Chicago Bulls in the immediate wake of Fred Hoiberg's firing last Monday. With this move comes praise, criticism and a keen eye reserved only for the man at the spotlight of this team's fate throughout the season.
The Bulls' front office has already given its vote of confidence for Boylen for next season, doing so quickly during his introductory press conference. However, there are always positives, negatives and downright head-scratching actions that come with having such a strong presence at the helm.
Here is the good, the bad and the ugly of Jim Boylen's first week as head coach, which was incredibly eventful.
The Good
To understand what Jim Boylen represents requires to first understand his origins. A former All-North Atlantic Conference honoree at the University of Maine as a player, Boylen went straight from being a highly decorated college player to being an understudy for Michigan State's legendary coach Jud Heathcote. Boylen soaked in five years of his old-school teachings before joining the Houston Rockets in 1992 and earning two championship rings during a decade-long tenure with the team.
Boylen's brash yet deliberate style of coaching is a reflection of his upbringing into the coaching world, studying under the tutelage of no-nonsense minds like Heathcote and Rudy Tomjanovich, two legends known for their imprint on the game at two vastly different levels of the sport.
Boylen has spent 20 years at the pro level and 11 as a college coach, giving him a wide perspective of how to manage teams, but his first shot at a pro head coaching job in the NBA came with a very short notice (about 12 hours before the team informed Hoiberg he was fired), leaving reason for plenty of growing pains and little time for planning.
Boylen is hoping to bring a culture reset for this young team and instill work ethic and discipline, values that are indispensable at the pro level and ones this roster has yet to equally acquire across the board.
The 53-year-old's methods are sincere and straight forward — work hard, compete at both ends, don't complain and we'll live with the results — a message that so far has rang clear to the media, but has been met with resistance by the players.
Young ones like Lauri Markkanen, Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and Wendell Carter Jr. will benefit greatly from learning these lessons early in their careers, but only if they're receptive to the message.
For at least one day, everything operated smoothly when Boylen's Bulls earned a hard-fought 114-112 victory over the streaking Oklahoma City Thunder, thanks to a terrific team effort led by Markkanen and LaVine.
The Bad
Boylen's methods are perhaps seen as archaic in today's modern era of the NBA, seen as the Jurassic version of what has been proven to work with some of the league's most successful franchises.
The Bulls are young and all well under 30 years of age (except for in-house “dinosaur” Robin Lopez) and haven't been very receptive to Boylen's two-plus-hour practices, constant review of their turnovers and defensive mistakes.
Boylen isn't wrong for this. In fact, the Bulls likely deserve all the hell that is coming their way, given their lackadaisical effort at the defensive end of the ball and ill-advised shots on offense. Yet players in their young 20s, who have grown under the AAU pamper bed, are hardly equipped to receive the harsh truths of their inept play on the floor.
The native Michigander has a no-bulls**t mentality and has transmitted that message very clearly to his players, but it hasn't been met with acceptance or respect by some of the leading faces on the roster.
While Boylen is hoping to instill a Gregg Popovich-like culture after spending two seasons under him with the San Antonio Spurs, he doesn't have the clout nor the unequivocal support like Popovich does across the board.
Most importantly, Boylen, despite his 30-plus years in the coaching profession, is only a rookie coach in the league pulling moves that only well-cemented coaches would dare to take out of the bag in today's league.
The Ugly
Things soured after Chicago's historic 133-77 loss to the Boston Celtics, only a day after that big win over the Thunder, which was Boylen's first win and the team's best win of the season. Having his name attached to the worst loss in Bulls history, Boylen promised a harsh practice to follow the very next day, despite his players coming off back-to-back outings over Friday and Saturday.
That was met with plenty of resistance, with players even planning a potential mutiny of practice, discussing the best way to express their unified disagreement with Boylen's coaching antics — first over text on Saturday night, and then in person during two different meetings at the practice facility.
To pile it up even more, Boylen had already flexed his muscle twice in front of the players, making wholesale substitutions less than five minutes into the first quarter, as Boston jumped to a 17-0 lead after Chicago went 0-for-11 from the floor.
If once wasn't enough, the new coach pulled the plug on his starters again in the third quarter, forcing them to sit the last 21 minutes of the game, one stamped with shame all across the board.
None of the Bulls' starters played more than 20 minutes on Saturday, which would make them able to take the practice floor the next day to correct their mistakes — but that is simply unheard of in today's era of player care, and most importantly … player control.
Boylen is sadly a good coach stuck in yesteryear's tactics, tricks that likely endear him to a fan base tired of mediocrity and futility, but make him the enemy of a young roster that hates accountability, even less when it happens so visibly in front of fans and the local media.
***
This is hardly Boylen's fault, as he was hired to be the balancing act of a milder Fred Hoiberg, who played the part of tactician, while Boylen was the enforcer for this young team.
For the second straight time, the Bulls' front office did not orchestrate a coaching search and went with the first candidate available, looking only for change without first looking out for the right fit and getting a round peg for a square hole.
The Bulls will benefit from this rough patch with Boylen, but one thing has been made pretty evident through one week of work under him — change will come with plenty of growing pains for both parties, as they both tune into a working relationship. This is an adjustment that will have its share of headaches throughout a long season.
If the Bulls choose to move on from Boylen at the end of the season and actually search for a new coach, they will have plenty of good choices moving forward.
Follow Us
Subscribe