The Chicago Bulls have officially missed the playoffs in what amounted to an extremely disappointing season for them. Prior to this season, the Bulls had made the playoffs in seven straight seasons and returned basically their whole team from last year, plus a healthy Derrick Rose.
The only major difference between last season and this season for Chicago was the head coach. The Bulls figured that they had peaked under Tom Thibodeau, so they let him go in favor of Fred Hoiberg and took a step back. Because of the step back, it has been speculated that the Bulls could make some major changes this offseason, including at the head coaching spot.
Throughout the season, Hoiberg has faced a lot of scrutiny, mainly because the Bulls have underachieved, and some of that scrutiny has even come from the players. Jimmy Butler came out early in the season and said that Hoiberg wasn't coaching the Bulls hard enough, and there has been a report that a lot of the players don't believe in Hoiberg as the head coach moving forward.
Despite all of the negatives from Hoiberg's first season as head coach, Bulls executive vice president John Paxson has said that his job is safe. Paxson said that the Bulls are committed to Hoiberg despite his struggles, and they should be. The Bulls fired a very good and successful coach in Thibodeau, so the last thing they want to do is replace him with a coach who only gets one year at the helm.
This was Hoiberg's first year ever being a head coach in the NBA after several years in college, so there was obviously going to be some sort of adjustment period. While the head coach is always going to take some blame, the players need to be blamed here, and so do the injuries that they had to deal with throughout the season.
While Hoiberg is likely to be back next season, he may be coaching a completely different team. GM Gar Forman has said that he needs to keep his options open about any and everything this offseason, and that includes potentially trading Butler, his best player. Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol are also free agents this offseason, so they could be gone. The Bulls could decide to bring back the majority of their players for next year and see how it goes, but they could also decide to blow the whole thing up and go through a full rebuild. Hoiberg is just 43 years old, so he would be able to grow with a young team should it come to that, but he would probably prefer a team that can compete. At least it looks like he will still have a job in Chicago next season.
