Jerry Reinsdorf, the Chicago Bulls’ longtime owner, was just selected as part of the Class of 2016 for the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Reinsdorf will need to live up to that Hall of Fame status if his team is going to move forward next season and beyond.
What does the future hold for the Bulls after a season which — even with all their injuries — was a completely unacceptable failure? Before entering into a discussion of that question, you have to read this recent report from K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. So much is going on in that story.
It’s worth taking a pregnant pause just so you can read it…
*pregnant pause*
*waits*
*breathes*
Okay, you’ve read it. Let’s move forward…
The move toward Joakim Noah and away from Pau Gasol is something of a plot twist — not so much the move away from Gasol, but certainly the move toward Noah, whom many felt was a goner in the Windy City.
The idea of keeping Noah in Chicago is not unreasonable, but it will carry consequences the Bulls must adjust to: First, Noah’s accumulation of mileage in his nearly decade-long career — he pushed himself very hard when the Bulls overachieved during Derrick Rose’s injury-plagued seasons — means he can’t expect to be an extended-minute player at this stage of his career.
If, as reported in the Chicago Tribune article, Noah was displeased about a more limited role on the team under coach Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls have to be straight with Noah. They can’t offer assurances he’ll regain minutes to the levels he’s expecting (and used to). If they do indeed want him back, they can’t be evasive or hesitant in telling him that his minutes will be limited. The Bulls need Noah in shorter bursts — when his energy can have more of an effect, without the risk of bodily breakdown — and they need him for his leadership in the locker room. Playing him 30 or more minutes a night would not seem to do him — or the team — any favors.
Also consider this about the decision to retain Noah and jettison Gasol, assuming the Bulls follow that path: Such a decision would move Chicago toward a Tom Thibodeau template, not a Fred Hoiberg template. Hoiberg was ostensibly hired so the Bulls would become more of an offense-first team and less of a defense-first team. The retention of Noah doesn’t work in concert with a Hoiberg-based identity. The Bulls could keep Noah, but not to the extent that he gobbles up major minutes (30 or more per night). It’s just one of many decisions the Bulls have to make, and it is very much connected to Reinsdorf, who has a front-office problem to resolve.
John Paxson (left) and Gar Forman (right).
If Noah is John Paxson’s guy and Pau Gasol is Gar Forman’s guy, a decision to retain Noah would raise fresh questions about the number of voices in the room and the messages being sent by the administrators to the coach and the players. A season as humbling and miserable as this one — so soon after the decision to push Thibodeau out the door — demands a significant acknowledgment that current methods are not acceptable. Reinsdorf has to be a little more interventionist right now not just because the 2016 season turned into a mess, but because the coach bearing GarPax’s fingerprints — Hoiberg — clearly did not get through to his players.
Keeping Noah would be an acknowledgment that the locker room needs its foremost leader next season, but that’s not enough. Reinsdorf won’t sack Hoiberg after only one season, but the coach’s relationship with both players and management has to be reshaped. The culture within the organization would need to be refreshed, and that goes to the very top of the hierarchy.
So much uncertainty pervades the franchise right now, and that’s why Reinsdorf must knit together the various personalities under his tent, taking them from their separate silos and lending cohesion to the new structure in which they’ll operate.
The Noah-Gasol decision is part of this. Mending the GarPax dynamic is part of this. Either embracing Hoiberg in a new way is part of this. Making a decision about Jimmy Butler — whose relationship with Hoiberg this past season was noticeably uneasy — is part of the reality the Bulls face as well.
The Windy City needs the winds of change, an aggiornamento which will substantially refresh the franchise. If Hoiberg really is seen — and trusted — as the guy to lead the franchise to new heights in the coming years, the roster has to be radically remade.
The Bulls’ offense has withered on the vine too many times over the past few years for the roster to receive nothing more than tweaks on the edges. If Hoiberg truly owns Reinsdorf’s trust, the Bulls must get off their dime and begin a new era in earnest.
One can see how many decisions — hugely important, not merely peripheral ones — the Chicago Bulls face in an unexpectedly long offseason.
We will soon see how all the principals handle them, starting with the Hall-of-Fame owner-to-be. The Bulls need a Hall-of-Fame response to these problems if they want to rediscover championship glories not experienced since a man named Michael pumped in that jump shot in Salt Lake City on June 14, 1998.
