Why the Bulls decided to fire Hoiberg
The problem wasn't wins, losses or injuries, John Paxson said Monday. It was a lack of spirit.
Paxson explained why the Bulls made the surprising decision to fire head coach Fred Hoiberg. Hoiberg's tenure ended 24 games into his fourth season, despite missing four key players for nearly the entire season.
“What we're lacking is kind of an energy and a spirit about our team, and we need to get that back,” Paxson told a large group of reporters at the Advocate Center. “It's not as simple as saying we would have gotten that with healthy players. It wasn't going to be that simple. It was more than that.”
Lead assistant Jim Boylen replaced Hoiberg and was not given an interim tag. Paxson said he hopes Boylen will continue to coach the Bulls next season and beyond.
Boylen's first game as an official NBA head coach will be Tuesday at Indiana. The 20-year NBA assistant did fill in for an ailing Hoiberg last season on April 1 and beat Washington 113-94 at the United Center.
It seemed logical to wait until Hoiberg had a full roster before making any sort of decision on his future. Lauri Markkanen played his first game of the season Saturday in Houston, while Kris Dunn and Bobby Portis should be back in a week or so.
But Paxson decided not to give Hoiberg a chance to work with the full roster. He wanted a change and basically made a pre-emptive strike. Hoiberg's contract is fully guaranteed through next season at a reported $5 million per year.
“We need to find a spirit to our group that's been missing and missing for quite some time,” Paxson said. “You have to be able to get your identity across to your team and we just have felt that we're not playing the style with the force that we want our group to play with.”
Hoiberg played in the NBA for 10 years and was a successful coach at Iowa State, but had no NBA coaching experience when he joined the Bulls. Boylen has won three NBA championships as an assistant coach, with Houston in 1994-95 and San Antonio in 2014.
“I think I'm a little more passionate in-game coach than maybe Fred is,” Boylen said. “That might be one difference you will see. You might see a different style of play at the offensive end.”
Paxson took on some tough questions. Management clearly emphasized losing last season, when the Bulls began Year One of a rebuild and wanted another high draft pick. Maybe that's when players became nonchalant about losing games.
“I understand the question. I don't necessarily buy that,” Paxson said. “We did what we felt we had to do last year. You look at Philadelphia, they lost for a long time. They didn't lose their spirit. And so I understand, but I think we need to address the energy level in this organization.”
Paxson and general manager Gar Forman fired a successful head coach in Tom Thibodeau, who made the playoffs five times in five seasons, with their plans clearly set on hiring Hoiberg as the replacement. So if Hoiberg didn't work out as coach, shouldn't the failure be shared by management?
“We gave Fred opportunities. And he did a lot of good things for us,” Paxson said. “But I'm tasked with, Gar is tasked with, looking at the underlying things in an organization. And if you don't think competitive spirit is important for an organization or basketball team, then you're wrong. And we were lacking that.”
When Hoiberg was hired in 2015, he talked about following the Golden State game plan of playing at a fast tempo with an emphasis on 3-point shooting.
He didn't have the type of players to use that style during his first two seasons with the Bulls. When the roster changed with the rebuild in 2017, the goal was clearly to lose and land a high draft pick. Now this season brought a rash of injuries. So it's hard to say Hoiberg got a fair chance to show what he could do as a head coach.
The highlight of Hoiberg's tenure was the 2017 playoffs when the Bulls won the first two games on the road in a first-round playoff series against top-seed Boston. That advantage ended quickly because Rajon Rondo broke his hand late in Game 2 and the Bulls lost four straight without him.
There was never much doubt about Hoiberg's basketball knowledge. Getting the players to buy in and execute his plan was probably his biggest weakness. Jimmy Butler hinted at that right away when he complained that Hoiberg needs to coach him harder two months into the 2015-16 season. After being traded to Minnesota, Butler said the Bulls chose Hoiberg over him, which isn't really true.
Paxson and Forman saw a chance to begin a rebuild and warned Bulls fans to prepare for a slow, gradual climb back to playoff contention.
There was no hurry to make a judgment on Hoiberg, but Paxson did anyway. Boylen becomes the sixth full-time head coach in the 15 years since Paxson replaced Jerry Krause as director of basketball operations. Paxson has grown impatient before.
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