OKC Thunder vs. Chicago Bulls, 2019-20 team preview
Chicago Bulls Weaknesses:
Coaching:
Not since Tom Thibodeau’s exit has Chicago found the perfect marriage of coach, roster compilation and style. In his fourth year, Fred Hoiberg finally had the type of roster he was initially hired to coach. Unfortunately, a poor start and the injury to Markkanen sealed his fate.
Jim Boylen was hired as the interim coach (and later extended as the full-time coach). His tenure began fraught with drama. In his first week at the helm, Boylen embarrassed his starters making wholesale changes and benching the unit not once, but twice in a game the Celtics were dominating. The fact this was the second night of a back-to-back was ignored by Boylen who wanted his players to return to the United Center for a full practice the following day.
What followed was a rumored revolt which was barely avoided although ultimately cooler heads prevailed with first the players and then the players and coaching staff meeting to resolve the issues.
At the heart of Boylen’s old school tenets were his desires for the team to show more grit and fight. That message didn’t fall on deaf ears as the team literally tried to deliver ‘the fight’ in Oklahoma City in the teams’ second meeting last season.
As per The Jump video above Boylen was quoted post-game as saying:
"“That’s all we’ve been talking about, is fighting for each other. We talk about being a pack of wolves, man. I thought we had some of that. I liked the look in our guys’ eyes when that happened. It bonded them a little bit.”"
The concerning part of this is Boylen was seemingly condoning getting into the altercation. In fact, he personally got into the fray grabbing Jerami Grant around the neck.
Seemingly, Boylen is mired in the days of yore with his old school coaching techniques. Upon assuming the helm he immediately stated his team would be a defensive squad and yet despite so much offensive talent they excelled at neither end finishing 25th and 29th respectively.
The question is whether Boylen has the ilk to coach in the modern NBA. After the Raptors won via Nick Nurse demonstrating how to adapt on the fly and utilize different concepts one has to ask the question of whether this extremely young troop would be better served by an equally young and modern day coach. Given the brain trust in Chicago doesn’t like to spend money only to fire people it’s unlikely Boylen will be leaving any time soon.
Style of play:
Following up on the above, the style of play for the Bulls should feature plenty of transition ball with emphasis on pace. The fact they ranked 20th in pace last season is mind boggling given the dynamics of the squad. At least offensively there were scapegoats given the lack of a bonafide starting point guard to initiate the offense.
Defensively, the situation is even more perplexing given the talent on the squad and the sheer number of players who can defend multiple positions, offer length and switchability.
As the Bulls prepare for another year with so much talent on the roster the main style issues will be finding inside scoring and consistently delivering a team defensive effort committed to utilizing their length and speed to stop the opposition in transition, on the perimeter and in the paint. They have the personnel capable of doing it — but again it will come down to whether Boylen can get buy-in and adequately adapt on a nightly basis.