Skip to content

Hoiberg deserved to go, but Paxson, Forman should be on hot seat

Randy Belice / National Basketball Association / Getty

After a 5-19 start to this season brought his Chicago Bulls head coaching record to 115-155, nobody's going to cry foul over the team's decision to part ways with Fred Hoiberg.

The timing may be surprising given the franchise's prized young big man, Lauri Markkanen, only made his season debut on Saturday, but the results are tough to argue with.

Chicago's lost six in a row and nine games by 15-plus points. The team ranks in the bottom third of the league at both offense and defense.

Overall, the consistent offensive struggles were the most confounding part of Hoiberg's tenure. He was pegged as an innovator at that end of the court, yet oversaw teams that ranked 23rd, 21st, 28th, and now 29th at scoring across four seasons at the helm. Say what you will about the rosters handed to him, but an "offensive coach" with those numbers usually won't see a fifth year.

The big-picture question for the Bulls, though, isn't whether newly promoted head coach Jim Boylen can turn this thing around; it's how much longer the front office led by John Paxson and Gar Forman can keep control of the franchise.

Paxson, the team's executive vice president of basketball operations, has been on the job since 2003 and oversaw a couple of successful runs in the mid-2000s and the first half of the 2010s. Forman's served as general manager since 2009, with the team making seven straight playoff appearances to kick off his tenure. However, their performance in recent years should concern Bulls fans given the duo is still wielding power.

This is a management team that just two years ago thought combining the anemic-shooting trio of Jimmy Butler, Dwyane Wade, and Rajon Rondo - in 2016 - would have Chicago competing for the Eastern Conference crown. That team finished .500 instead, a year after Hoiberg's 42-40 debut campaign. All the while, Hoiberg clashed with Butler, who publicly called for the Bulls to be coached harder, and later said it was always going to come down to a decision between keeping one of them or the other.

Paxson and Forman seemingly chose Hoiberg and a trade package for Butler that netted Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn, and the draft pick that became Markkanen.

The Bulls proceeded to win 27 games in 2017-18, though Markkanen's rookie campaign was somewhat of a revelation.

The front office then gave Jabari Parker $20 million a year (2019-20 is a team option) in free agency, adding a comically poor defender who essentially admitted he isn't paid to play defense to a team in desperate need of exactly that. The results have been painfully predictable, as the Bulls rank 23rd at that end of the floor this season.

Hoiberg never coaxed the absolute best out of his teams in Chicago, and he surely never overachieved or elevated the Bulls' ceiling. Still, look at the rosters manufactured by Paxson and Forman, along with the decisions made above the coach's pay grade, and consider how many others would have done much better.

A management team that consistently puts its coaches in unfavorable situations should probably be on the hot seat at some point. And with the Bulls now on track for a top pick in the loaded 2019 draft - which could expedite their accidental rebuild - it's time for ownership to strongly consider a change at the top.

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox