The Bulls lost, at home, by 20 points last night to the fifth worst team in basketball. Somehow that wasn’t even the most embarrassing part of Jim Boylen’s day.
Boylen joined 670 The Score’s Mully and Haugh show yesterday morning, the only radio show that members of the Bulls organization ever appear on due to Mully’s propensity to ask softball questions.
Here’s a link to the interview, listen at your own risk. Some highlights:
When asked about people questioning his ability to relate to modern day NBA players, Boylen responded:
“Well I go back to the competitive part….. Wear Bulls across our chest, be more intense, more committed, more physical and take more ownership”
Great, buzzwordy-with-no-real-substance start, Jim.
When asked about how he feels his offensive system/style of play is translating to the modern NBA, he responded:
“i really think our pace has picked up*, we had 30 three point attempts the other night which I think is a really good number for us**”
- The Bulls have dropped from 16th in pace under Hoiberg to 26th under Boylen
- If the Bulls averaged 30 3-point attempts a night, they’d be ranked 20th in the league. They are currently 26th with 26.6 attempts per game.
His answer, unfortunately for Bulls fans, didn’t stop there.
“I feel in my heart that 45 might be too many for this group, but 25 isn’t enough. I don’t have a stat that correlates to, ‘If we take this many, what our chances of winning are.’ I haven’t done that. I’m sure we can figure that out.”
It’s 2019, NBA teams don’t need to base their statistical gameplans off of their interim coach’s feelings. It’s well known that the Bulls have the smallest scouting staff in the league, do they have the smallest analytic department too?
Stop yet Jim? Nah, he kept going.
I don’t want an iso type team… “I’d like to iso from the post more, you know, with our back to the basket, make people guard us, get the ball into the paint. If those are old school things, well, then they are.”
Yes, Jim, they are! Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan aren’t on the roster. If you isolate through Robin Lopez one more time, which I’m sure you will, whatever awful things that happen to your team on the court are completely deserved.
After yesterday’s embarrassing loss, Boylen had little other than this to say:
Jim Boylen on #Bulls: "Our grit and toughness needs to be better."
— Cody Westerlund (@CodyWesterlund) January 24, 2019
my eyes just rolled out of my head https://t.co/HmOkcceLuc
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) January 24, 2019
Same Tom, same.
Last week after they lost by 30 to Denver, Boylen had a quote that featured six gotta-play-harder references.
That doesn’t work, man. This isn’t high school or some mid-major college. These are exceptionally talented professional millionaire athletes. Despite their inexperience, they are smart enough to know running suicides at practice with more effort is going to be the magic fix.
“Something’s obviously wrong” Zach LaVine said after this weekend’s blowout loss to Miami. “We weren’t losing (by) double digits earlier in the season. We might have been losing, (but) we didn’t have a full roster. So I don’t know. We’re a better team now and we’re getting blown out. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
It’s taken 24 games for the players to figure out the problem. Unfortunately there are 34 games left until we know if Boylen’s bosses have figured out the same.
