Rozner: Hoiberg just latest in succession of Bulls victims
The Bulls fired their head coach Monday morning.
All together now … yawn.
It's something of a seasonal tradition on West Madison, but this time the Bulls didn't pull the trigger on Christmas Eve, as was the ultimate gift for Tim Floyd and Scott Skiles, relieved of their duties and relieved to be done with the misery.
Fred Hoiberg beat the clock by three weeks and now he, like so many Bulls coaches before him, can collect a paycheck without concern for collecting victories and without wonder for when the hammer will fall.
He doesn't know how lucky he is.
Regardless, he's just another notch on the 16-year belt of boss John Paxson, who - if you're keeping score at home - has fired Bill Cartwright, hired and fired Scott Skiles, hired and fired Vinny Del Negro, hired and fired Tom Thibodeau, and hired and fired Fred Hoiberg.
Now he has promoted assistant coach Jim Boylen, not to be confused with Jim Boylan, the latter hired to be interim coach after Skiles had finished his Christmas shopping in 2007.
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Boylen - pronounced "Boylan" - is supposedly not an interim coach, but he should get comfortable with the idea that he's not particularly long for the job, something Hoiberg should have accepted and expected when he accepted the position and expected something else.
If he didn't know the day he signed his contract, he certainly had to know two months into his first season when Jimmy Butler chopped his legs out from under him, saying that Hoiberg had to "coach harder."
That was at best the beginning of the end.
But one mistake does not excuse another. Hiring the wrong coach does not excuse leaving him in the job to avoid the inevitable questions about management's inability to build a winning team.
And in a way, you have to admire Paxson for firing a coach when he knows each time he does it that Bulls Nation is going to turn its lonely eyes to him.
After finally committing to a full rebuild, the Bulls have some pieces in place, and by the end of this season - assuming health - they should have some idea of just how many spots on the puzzle remain empty.
If Paxson truly believes the Bulls are headed in the right direction and Hoiberg was making no gains as a coach or with this group, then he did the right thing.
The problem for Bulls fans is they've seen the movie so many times and it's not like "The Hangover," which you can't pass on whenever it shows uncensored on cable.
It's more like a hangover - lowercase - which repeats over and over and somehow results the same way each time, always surprising with that fire ax in the back of your head, the decision to load up on sliders a constant reminder.
It's not that anyone has an allegiance to Hoiberg. It's that Bulls management has had an inability to get along with its coaches at nearly every turn, eternally unsatisfied with direction, minutes, scheme, process or progress.
And it's not like Hoiberg had a chance with injuries and - essentially - four different rosters in four years, not one of them what you would call "championship caliber."
So what's to be expected of Boylen and what can he do that Hoiberg, your latest and greatest, didn't do?
"We still believe in the direction we're going. We believe in the young players we have and we expect them to raise their competitiveness as we make this change," Paxson said Monday afternoon when he faced the media. "You can have a team that plays hard every night no matter who you put out there.
"That's energy and passion right there. You have to get your guys to buy in and be connected. If you don't think competitive spirit is important for an organization and basketball team, you're wrong.
"We were lacking that and I told the players that earlier today. We need a voice and someone who can at least try. You can see how guys compete and how they respond. We felt we were not seeing that and a change was needed."
The temptation, always, is to wonder how Paxson and Gar Forman remain in their jobs, but it's a waste of ink on a day when a decent and classy individual has lost his job and another has been charged with fixing a young group that has some potential.
Hoiberg didn't deserve this and now you could argue the same for Boylen, who has a toughness about him that will more resemble Thibodeau and Skiles than the hand-holding of Hoiberg or Del Negro, as the Bulls continue a long tradition of going from soft-spoken to hard-nosed whenever they deem change is necessary.
Once the Bulls get their team back on the floor, Boylen must get results or he will be looking down the barrel.
The effort of this team has been pathetic this season and that's on the players, not on the coach. If they change now because they cost a coach his job, that will be more of an indictment of their character, not Hoiberg's.
But that's the nature of the business and Hoiberg knew that when he took the job.
Especially with the Bulls.