The Longer Jim Boylen Stays Employed, the Worse the Bulls Look
Remember when the Bulls decided they were going to try to do things differently? When Arturas Karnisovas took over the basketball operations and hired Marc Eversley among others, people started to have hope. They were even happier to see Gar Forman fired, and though they would have liked to see John Paxson meet the same fate, him moving into an advisory role was satisfactory. But Jim Boylen remains head coach, and whether it’s justified or not, people are starting to lose patience.
Bulls beat reporters haven’t resisted the need to talk about this. Darnell Mayberry is baffled as to why Boylen still has his job and lays out various reasons that argues against that still being the case. K.C. Johnson brings to light the position Karnisovas finds himself in regarding Boylen, and, big shock, COVID-19’s effect on the NBA has a lot to do with it. And in case anyone forgot, the eight teams left outside the Orlando bubble might have their own set of games over the next couple of months.
Karnisovas is new in Chicago, so he’s still feeling out the city, the fan base and the organization. Hopefully, he knew coming in that people were sick of the status quo. After all, why else would he have been hired? Still, while he has good intentions in giving Boylen the opportunity to convince him not to lower the axe, he really needs to think about what he’s doing from a PR standpoint.
Regardless of what Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf might be telling him, Karnisovas needs to realize that bringing back Boylen would be a huge mistake. The Reinsdorfs can say whatever they want about how much they like Boylen and not wanting to pay two coaches at once. If Boylen remains employed, Bulls Nation’s emotions will range from angry to apathetic. In other words, they will be exactly as they were before.
There is nothing worse for a professional sports organization than to make moves signifying real change and then keep around someone who was seen as a real problem. GarPax lost everyone’s trust a long time ago. Meanwhile, Boylen already was on thin ice with the fan base going into this season, and as it went on, he not only fell through that ice, but went so deep in the water that he would have drowned had his bosses not thrown him a lifeline. In fact, they jumped in to save him immediately.
For this reason, Karinsovas has to make a change for the mere sake of making a change. He can wait to hire a new coach later if he wants, but he needs to fire Boylen right now. Let Nate Loenser be the interim head coach if that eight-team bubble comes along. It’s the only way to convince Chicago once and for all that the new Bulls are not like the old Bulls.
The Bulls cannot afford another season of stagnant development, misused players, broken trust in the locker room, clueless quotes to the media and timeouts in blowout losses. Stop being blinded by Boylen’s earlier work with Rudy Tomjanovich and Gregg Popovich. Just because he assisted Hall of Fame coaches doesn’t make him one in his own right. Look at him for what he is — a coach that no self-respecting organization would put in charge of its roster — and dump him immediately.
