(Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images North America)
When reports surfaced during the All-Star break that the host team, the Chicago Bulls, would be making some necessary adjustments to their front office, Bulls fans were ecstatic, but also skeptical. Skeptical that the new hire would be powerless under John Paxson’s control. But with the reports from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarwoski and NBC Sports Chicago’s K.C. Johnson that the Bulls already have plans to interview, virtually of course, highly-regarded executives to become the new head of basketball operations, that skepticism has rightfully turned into optimism.
According to Woj, the Bulls plan to talk to Toronto’s Bobby Webster, who helped Masai Ujiri build a championship team, and Denver’s Arturas Karnisovas, who has helped construct a contender in the Western Conference after a methodical rebuild. The Athletic also reported that the Bulls are interested in Pacers GM Chad Buchanan, who has already turned down an interview, and Heat VP of basketball operations Adam Simon.
All of these candidates would be welcomed improvements over Gar Forman, who has acted as the Bulls’ GM since 2009. Whoever they hire will be charged with the tough task of bringing the Bulls, who have won less than 30 games each of the last three seasons (they were on pace for 27 wins before the season was suspended), back to the playoffs.
The first action the new GM should take in order to expedite this process is firing Jim Boylen. The Bulls cannot move forward toward contention if Jim Boylen remains the head coach. A concern that Bulls fans had with the initial report about restructuring the front office was that it seemed like the Reinsdorfs wanted the new GM to strongly consider retaining Boylen as head coach. However, K.C. Johnson reported that “Jim Boylen’s future will be determined by this new hire.”
The Bulls are 39-84 under head coach Jim Boylen and 22-43 this season. To me, this is a more important move than hiring a new GM. Although Forman and Paxson have made plenty of poor decisions, the vast majority of the moves they have made in the last few years have been productive. They have drafted well, adding Markkanen, Carter Jr., and Coby White, all with the seventh pick in the draft the last three years, as well as Daniel Gafford who is looking like a steal in the second round. They traded Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis for Otto Porter Jr. who, although he has a hefty contract and was injured most of this season, is a solid wing on both sides of the ball. Porter Jr. is a significantly better player and fit for this team than either Parker or Portis, and the Bulls couldn’t have predicted that he’d miss almost all of this season due to injury. GarPax also added quality roleplayers in Tomas Satoransky and Thaddeus Young this offseason. Their roster may not be perfect or close to competing for a championship, but a decent coach should definitely be able to get more than 30 wins out of them in the horrible Eastern Conference.
It is also easy to see from watching Bulls games why they have been terrible under Boylen, which isn’t always the case when a seemingly good roster underperforms. Although their offense has been the bigger issue, I want to start with their defense. On the surface, it may look like the Bulls had a decent defense or even a great defense when Kris Dunn was healthy. However, don’t be fooled by their defensive rating which was in the top ten for the majority of the season.
The way Boylen wants the Bulls to defend the pick-and-roll is ineffective in the NBA. In the video below, Markkanen and Satoransky trap the ball-handler, LaVine, the weak-side corner defender, helps on the big who set the screen until Markkanen can recover. This leaves Porter Jr. playing 1-on-2. This is how they defended every pick-n-roll, and too many times when the Bulls are defending the pick-n-roll they are scrambling to help on the perimeter. This is why they gave up the fourth highest EFG% at 54.6% and the sixth most open shots at 30.7% (NBA.com). (You can watch the rest of the pick-n-rolls from early in this season to see how they defend others. They are more successful when the offense has another player near the lane and a Bulls defender can help on the big and stay on his man at the same time.)
The only reason why the Bulls had a good defensive rating was because they forced the most turnovers in the league thanks in part to Kris Dunn’s individual defense, which is why their defensive rating declined after he got hurt. Boylen’s scheme trades open shots for turnovers, and it was clearly an ineffective trade-off. This was painfully obvious to anyone that watched Bulls games, but Boylen refused to alter his defensive scheme.
Offensively, the Bulls were a disaster. They were 29th in offensive rating (105.8), 26th in true shooting (54.7%), tied for 23rd in 3P%, and at the bottom of the league in many other offensive categories including frequency of open shots, illustrating the flaws of Boylen’s system.
Boylen’s offensive shortcomings are evident in the way he has used Lauri Markkanen this season. This season, Markkanen has been used significantly more as a floor-spacer who threatens defenses with his ability to catch-and-shoot. As you can see from the chart below, Markkanen has taken more catch-and-shoot shots in 2019-20 than any of his previous two seasons, and significantly more than last year.
(NBA.com)
His role change is also evident when examining how long he held the ball on touches this year versus previous years. This year, according to NBA.com, 73.1% of his touches were two seconds or less, which is up from 58.3% the year before. Although he is more efficient on shots where he holds the ball for less time (i.e. catch and shoot), Markkanen’s ability to take defenders off of the dribble adds versatility, opening up the rest of his game.
The amount of total shots Markkanen took also decreased, which I believe is due to his role as a floor-spacer. This season, he attempted 11.8 field goals per game, which was down from 15.3 attempts the year before and 12.7 his rookie season. His efficiency and offensive rating are pretty much the same, he is just less involved, which is a byproduct of Boylen’s offensive system.
Another issue with Boylen remaining the Bulls’ head coach is that he hinders their ability to draw the interest of free agents in the future. At the end of last season, The Athletic conducted player polls on a variety of questions, including “Which coach, aside from your own, would you not want to play for?” Jim Boylen was the second most popular pick at 21.1%. (He was behind only Tom Thibodeau, who is not currently coaching in the NBA and received 34.6% of the votes.) If the Bulls want to get the most out of their young roster and become major players in free agency, the Bulls need to move on from Jim Boylen.
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