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?
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