Good riddance.
The Indiana Pacers blasted the Brooklyn Nets 129-105 on Sunday evening. The win allowed the Pacers to clinch a playoff spot after a gruesome Paul George injury set them back last season. The win also eliminated the Chicago Bulls from playoff contention, keeping them out of the playoff party for the first time since 2008, the season that put them in the position to draft Derrick Rose.
I feel like this is the way the season should have turned out for the Chicago Bulls. On paper, this team is wonderfully talented, but power struggles, injuries, and a lack of identity or cohesion took this team from being a contender in the Eastern Conference to mediocre.
The Bulls needed a season like this. Since the beginning of the Thibodeaux era, it seemed like this team was constantly running on fumes. One key player would be injured, and the next man up would have to play out of his mind just to pick up the slack. Eventually, almost every year the team would meet the wall that is LeBron James and fall apart. It seemed all the people with power - the star players and more importantly the front office - felt it was Thibodeaux's fault, and he was let go. This season showed the Bulls fans and its organization that the problem wasn't the departing coach, but was everyone else around him.
Fred Hoiberg thought he was coming from Iowa State and into a cushy job. Little did he know he would be faced with more injuries, a star player looking to assert his dominance, a former MVP that played well but not quite to his old self, and a big man that would rather fill stat-sheets and enjoy the nightlife than actually play defense. Unlike Brad Stevens, this college coach responded to the adversity by being essentially mute, rarely holding his players accountable and rarely asserting himself on the sidelines (only one technical all season).
So the Bulls season, with a half-week left, can really be summarized with one word: meh.
This was hopefully a humbling season for players, and this summer should be one that sees a sciesmic shift in the roster and the culture. The Bulls had 91% roster continuity between the 2014-15 season and this year. That can not happen again.
Preferably I would like to see Gar Forman and John Paxson removed from their positions, but owner Jerry Reinsdorf is notorious for being loyal-to-a-fault towards his front office staff. In reality, I would find their removals welcomed but shocking.
At head coach, I am 50-50 on Fred Hoiberg. He failed as a coach this season. However, if the roster is retrofitted correctly, he could have players that are more than willing to listen to him and follow the schemes that made him mildly successful at Iowa State. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind seeing him let go and replaced by a coach with NBA bench experience (head or assistant) or high-performing college experience. All I know is this coach and this current roster cannot co-exist if the Bulls want to be a factor in the East again.
Public enemy #1 for me is Pau Gasol. While his stat sheet and his fill-in All-Star Game appearance says otherwise, I feel like he has been a waste this season. His effort was wildly inconsistent over the course of the season, and he was non-existent on defense. He basically became Carlos Boozer 2.0 in 2015-16, after a season where he was a fairly useful presence upfront in Thibodeaux's final season. Luckily, there are rumors that he may not be looking to return to the team next year, which would be just fine with me.
The other big decision that needs to be made is the choice between keeping Derrick Rose or Jimmy Butler. These two have had major friction with each other as there seemed to be a power struggle for who is The Man in this town. Derrick Rose is the hometown kid, the #1 overall pick, the former MVP. But when Rose's ACL sidelined his career, Jimmy Butler stepped into the power vacuum. 2016 saw them muscling for the chance to have the voice on this team. Neither won, and combined with Hoiberg's voicelessness, the Bulls lost their identity. At least in the past, the team had the identity of defensive scrappers under Thibodeaux.
So the choice has to be made, Rose or Butler? Butler is an outstanding two-way All-Star, but he was a little too ball-dominant for a Hoiberg system that necessitates ball movement. If the Bulls choose Butler, would he be willing to move the ball around a little more while becoming the player voice of the team? Rose on the other hand has had a decent year. He's not back to his MVP self, and probably never will be, but he was absolutely starter-worthy. If the Bulls keep Rose, the question will be how many more years he can provide serviceable output? My guess is that the Bulls will keep Butler, as he has more upside and - more importantly - guaranteed money on their books than Rose does.
It's going to be a cruel summer for the Bulls, or at least it should be. This team should not be the same next year as it was this year. The 2016 Bulls represented a lack of effort, a lack of identity, and a lack of team cammraderie. The glue that was the hard-chargin' Tom Thibodeaux had to be removed in order for the public to see that this team was truly a house of cards. The summer of 2016 will show what Jerry Reinsdorf truly expects from his basketball franchise, and if fans should care about them moving forward.
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