Rozner: Bulls' only hope is housecleaning

This is the kind of stretch that gets people fired.

It takes on a certain smell, gives off a stench as the rats bail and the deck chairs slide from side to side.

When you act like the Bulls do before, during and after defeats, when players are giggling like kids during intros and barely participate in warm-ups, you get people fired.

When you lose three straight to the likes of the Knicks and Magic late in the season when you're trying to earn the final playoff spot, and you embarrass yourselves like this, you get people fired.

And when you make a mockery of everything your head coach tries to do, you get people fired.

But this being a Jerry Reinsdorf-owned team, it's possible nobody gets fired because he puts loyalty above all else and he doesn't overreact to a miserable season the way most owners would.

This time, however, he should react.

The Bulls are an unmitigated disaster and there is precious little hope for the future, which is exactly why this is the time to clean house.

This is a team in need of a complete rebuild, a top-to-bottom scrubbing.

So why wait?

With a teardown necessary, get rid of everyone now and let the new guys begin the process immediately.

The longer you wait, the harder it gets. The last thing you want now is current management making decisions, signing players and making it even more difficult for the next group to get this moving down the correct path.

And while it's tough to feel sorry for a guy guaranteed $25 million over five years, Fred Hoiberg was put in a difficult spot that became worse when Jimmy Butler cut his legs out from under him in December.

If he had a leg to stand on before that, it was essentially over when management didn't stick up for the coach and punish the player.

Of course, they fired a highly qualified coach because he couldn't get along with his bosses, and rather than figure out a way to help him function with other humans, they hired a guy they could push around.

You think players don't see that when it happens?

So Hoiberg probably never had a chance, but when Butler ripped him publicly, that was pretty much the end.

So now what?

What's happened to Hoiberg is far from fair. Then again, convincing him to leave $20 million at Iowa State for a dead end in Chicago was never a good idea, and his leaving Iowa State for this mess was equally bad.

And the decision to fire Tom Thibodeau stands as much in the way of a rebuild now as anything else. It would take the Bulls admitting that mistake in order to get rid of everyone, including a coach not even through the first season of a five-year contract.

It would take admitting that the John Paxson era has produced five lonely playoff series victories in 13 years, and that this is a luxury liner headed the wrong way and in need of a very slow, very long turn.

And it's not as if there's a wealth of talent to build around.

Derrick Rose will be day-to-day as long as he has an NBA career. Jimmy Butler is paid as an NBA superstar, even though he's not. And the rest of the group consists of spare parts and broken-down veterans.

In a very weak Eastern Conference, the Bulls are on the outside of the playoffs looking in, after a summer in which management talked about reaching the NBA Finals with a new coach and modern offensive philosophy.

The players haven't bought in and the coach consistently answers questions by saying he has no answers.

The answer is a housecleaning, though that's unlikely.

Maybe Paxson should simply resign if Reinsdorf won't make a move, but that's not a wise wager, either.

It will probably just be more of the same - and not much reason for hope.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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