Trouble inside the bullpen
Once upon a time, in a season not too long ago, a team dominated the league with six NBA titles in a span of eight years. Yup, the Chicago Bulls, starring the incomparable Michael Jordan, had their first three-peat from 1991 to 1993. MJ then took his talents to a different ball sport and after a forgettable minor league baseball career, returned to the NBA and then led the Bulls to their second three-peat from 1996 to 1998.
After that era and with the retirement of MJ and the trading of their strong support crew in a salary dump, the Bulls drowned. They slowly returned to significance highlighted when Derrick Rose was drafted in 2008 but he was in and out of sick bay. Then in came Jimmy Butler in 2014 and Chicago looks like a legit contender again.
That was then, this is now. Both Rose and Butler had taken their talents elsewhere and the team began to flounder with dysfunction when Bobby Portis and Nikola Mirotic thought that they were on UFC fight night during practice which resulted in Mirotic’s facial bones broken.
The present Bulls, on paper has a competitive lineup with Portis, Zach LaVine, Jabari Parker, Lauri Markkanen, Robin Lopez, Justin Holiday, Kris Dunn and rookie Wendell Carter, Jr. but as of this writing, the team can only show 6 wins with 22 loses. They occupy the last spot in the Eastern Conference behind Cleveland and second to the last overall.
What gives? Because Chicago is mediocre at best, management fired Coach Fred Hoiberg last week and in his stead comes Jim Boylen. Reportedly, players are not in favor of Boylen’s coaching tactics and that there was a reported plan of boycotting practice by players thru group messages.
During a game against Boston last Sunday, Boylen pulled out his starters midway in the first quarter and then played them a while in the third prior to pulling them out for good. You can’t expect to have a decent fight when you let your starters sit out for long stretches. With the Chicago reserves playing mostly the entire game, it allowed the Celtics to pulverize them and ran away home to Boston with a 56-point victory. The margin of defeat was the largest in the 53 years of the franchise.
Of course, everybody was not happy with that defeat that the team was jeered by the fans at their home court. They were supposed to practice the following day but there was a players-only meeting maybe because of Boylen’s long practice sessions and aggressive style. Afterwards, Boylen, together with team officials talked to the players and management was reportedly supportive of his approach.
Reportedly, compared to Hoiberg who was open-minded, Boylen has a confrontational approach that perhaps shocked and awed the players. He had been Chicago’s assistant coach since 2015 and surely, he knows how the system works. Now that he has complete control of the team, he expects his players to abide by his coaching philosophy.
They lost to the Sacramento Kings yesterday by half of that 56-point Celtic trashing. The desired effect was not there yet, but at least they cut the losing margin at less than 20 points. They play Orlando on Saturday at home at they must play well to win back the cheers or else hear the jeers again from the crowd.
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