Oh No-ah

On Wednesday, Jimmy Butler was named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team for the third straight year, but few seem to care.  That's because earlier in the day, a report came out that Joakim Noah had told his teammates he was done with the Bulls, citing "no trust in the front office getting this in the right direction" according to a player.  Later, a second report said Noah and the Bulls were having "positive dialogue" about him re-signing once he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer.  Whatever the case may be, both sides have their work cut out for them.

While Noah's play has steadily declined since winning the 2014 Defensive Player of the Year Award and he even had this past year end prematurely with a shoulder injury, many aren't ready to say goodbye to him.  For some time now, he's been the emotional leader in the locker room.  Away from basketball, the always outspoken Rev. Michael Pfleger lamented the potential loss of Noah in the fight against city violence.  His Noah's Arc Foundation has done great things for the city and hopefully, a departure wouldn't mean the foundation disappears from Chicago altogether.

This is also a sign of the times for Noah and the Bulls.  The disconnect between Noah and the powers that be seemed clear from the beginning of the past season.  One of the first signs was when Fred Hoiberg said Noah voluntarily took himself out of the starting lineup, a claim Noah vehemently denied.  While the player-coach relationship began mending before his season-ending injury, that between Noah and Gar Forman, a Hoiberg ally who reportedly had to deal with Tom Thibodeau instilling an "us against them" mentality on his players before he dismissed him, hasn't recovered.

Another big reason Noah reportedly is fed up with Chicago is Butler, who attempted to seize leadership last season to the chagrin of Noah and others.  If you read the link to the Pfleger story, you'll find Butler being described as "arrogant" and "having a really big head."  A team that was supposed to contend for a championship cannot find itself with a roster power struggle.  Otherwise, you get what the Bulls just experienced.

While I've discussed this point to death by now, what you're seeing is how long and how far the Bulls have to go to return to respectability.  When you have key players looking for ways out, you have problems.  When K.C. Johnson, arguably the most levelheaded Bulls reporter around, is advocating the team trade either Butler or Derrick Rose, you have really big problems.  The question is what's it going to take for a culture change that not only advocates winning, but unity?

Changing the Training Staff

After this past disappointing season ended, Gar Forman and John Paxson insisted they would not blame injuries for the Bulls missing the playoffs.  But upon further evaluation, it appears they've changed their tune to a certain degree.  Just after the Bulls earned the 14th pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, it was announced they were parting ways with director of sports performance Jen Swanson and strength coach Nick Papendieck.

While an offseason move like this might not typically grab the headlines, it's significant in that it might be the latest evidence that the Bulls are more committed to Jimmy Butler than Derrick Rose.  Butler being sent as the Bulls' representative to the Draft Lottery was one thing, but Swanson was brought aboard in 2013 because she helped Rose while he rehabbed from his ACL tear.  It seemed to be a brilliant idea to accommodate the face of the franchise.  Since then of course, Rose has suffered a pair of meniscus tears in his other knee and the team overall has not been totally healthy most of the time, so it might be time to add Butler's input instead.

Eventually, Swanson gave as much attention to Joakim Noah as Rose, apparently alienating players such as Butler and Pau Gasol and causing a rift between those four players.  It didn't help that Swanson was huge on minutes restrictions and recommending Rose skip specific drills.  This and other things seemed to go against the strength and conditioning plan Tom Thibodeau wanted for his team.  Swanson had the front office's support, so it's clear she was absolved of any wrongdoing when Thibodeau was fired.

During Fred Hoiberg's first year though, the Bulls collectively missed 211 games due to illness or injury.  Just before it ended, Blog a Bull wrote a piece on how the team was the most unhealthy in the league and even devoted a whole paragraph to Swanson at a time when few were talking about here.  The Bulls used 25 different starting lineups, their most since 26 in the 2001-02 season, and had their projected regular starting lineup of Rose, Butler, Gasol, Taj Gibson and Mike Dunleavy just six times.  And players were generally unhappy with the rehab programs put in place.

In short, Swanson was brought aboard to keep Rose happy, but alienated others within the organization and played a key role in the stockpiling amount of injuries in the process.  This is not somebody who should be employed by a major professional sports team under any circumstance.  She might have been better served as one of Rose's personal trainers, but by becoming an official team employee, she (likely inadvertently) brought in an influence that wasn't in the best interest of most other players on the roster.  To her credit, she did bring in an individual training program, something the Bulls should have done years ago, but that wasn't enough to save her job.

With a Rose influence out of the picture, the Bulls have signaled they are reevaluating how to keep players healthy and in shape how they see fit and not how the former MVP does.  If they hire a member of Butler's training staff who's rumored to be on the list of replacement candidates, does that mean Butler is now the player with the biggest stranglehold on how things operate?  How can they do that while still putting together a competitive team, which might not even be possible for the foreseeable future?  Have they learned nothing from Swanson's tenure?

The fact that we're even asking these questions shows how big of a mess everything is.  The stars are unhappy with each other despite insistence of the contrary, the supporting cast isn't strong enough, the coaching is inadequate and there's no long-term plan we really know of except that Butler is part of it.  Is there any wonder why the organization is slipping into irrelevancy in their city?  With other teams winning or looking up, the Bulls are looking way down.

This offseason is going to have to be big if they want people to start paying attention to them again come late October.  That's their best hope short of tearing it down and starting over, which they won't do.  People are sick of bad basketball and the turmoil that comes with it.  The question is are the Bulls sick of it enough that they think they need big changes to be made?

Fourteenth

Has it really been over a month since I last blogged?  Look, don't blame me for the team I write about for missing the playoffs and not doing anything meaningful in the time since.  The only thing that made any waves was the imminent departure of Benny the Bull's performer.  Luckily, something more notable has finally happened.

Jimmy Butler was sent to represent the Bulls in Tuesday's NBA Draft Lottery, blue suit and all.  But there was little chance the team would move beyond the 14th position, which is exactly what happened.  The Sacramento Kings retained the eighth position, meaning their pick will not go to the Bulls this year.  In fact, the entire board held true to form, so the Philadelphia 76ers get to select first, likely either LSU's Ben Simmons or Duke's Brandon Ingram.

With the Bulls right on the border of the lottery selections, the likely remaining field isn't impressive for the most part compared to the cream of the crop.  NBADraft.net currently has them taking Malik Beasley, a 6-5 guard out of Florida State who was one of the top freshman scorers in the ACC this year.  USA Today projects them taking Notre Dame guard Demetrius Jackson, who would provide support for Derrick Rose at point guard after the Bulls didn't get it last year due to getting Bobby Portis.  DraftExpress sees them selecting Timothe Luwawu from France who has played both guard and forward in the Serbian League.

If the Bulls really wanted to, they could try and trade up to get Providence's Kris Dunn or Oklahoma's Buddy Hield.  They would probably have to trade too much in return though.  Or they don't have the assets to pull off such a huge deal.  But I'm not a general manager, so I'll just leave up to the professionals.

That we're even talking about this under the circumstances shows the dire state the Bulls are in.  Short of having the same luck they did in 2008 when they got the top pick and selected Rose, they weren't going to be celebrating the lottery's results.  Meanwhile, it's a reminder that every fan has a right to be disenchanted by what they've become.  Of the five major teams in Chicago, they're the furthest away from competing for a championship.

Stranger things have happened though, so don't rule out any craziness that would suddenly make everyone interested in this team again.  It's difficult to predict right now, but what they have going for them is that they've been far from boring this decade.  They tend to grab headlines frequently.  Hopefully, the next one is for all the right reasons.

On a side note, I speculated for a few weeks on what would happen if either Gar Forman or John Paxson represented the Bulls and Tom Thibodeau represented the Minnesota Timberwolves.  It would be even funnier if those two were assigned to seat next to each other.  I know that whole thing was just a pipe dream, but it was fun to imagine.  Hey, you gotta make your own fun in these trying times.