Armed with five fewer championship rings than Popovich — under whom he coached in San Antonio before landing with the Bulls — Boylen won’t come close to surviving the rest of the season if he persists with a non-stop taskmaster approach in Chicago.

A lighter hand is the preferred touch in the modern game. Practices are becoming less and less frequent as teams increasingly prioritize player health and rest over tactical instruction. I’ve heard numerous coaches share stories about the great caution they are forced to exercise when it comes to assembling film clips of player mistakes — lest anyone feel singled out or, worse, picked on.

Connecting with players and trying to perpetually instill them with confidence are the priorities. Think Golden State’s Steve Kerr, New Orleans’s Alvin Gentry and the Clippers’ Doc Rivers.

Chicago has to recognize this. My sense is that Boylen is merely trying to deliver the sort of culture change that the front office wants, but an occasional respite will have to be worked in. The oft-critcized management tandem of John Paxson and Gar Forman, whose curious string of personnel moves throughout Hoiberg’s tenure has flummoxed many, surely understands that deep down.

Natural as it might have been for the Bulls to replace the famously rigid Tom Thibodeau with the more player-friendly Hoiberg, it surprised no one that they turned to the more Thibodeau-like Boylen to succeed Hoiberg. But Boylen has made Thibodeau look like a softy by calling for extra wind sprints to punctuate practice sessions, issuing public critiques of his players’ conditioning and subbing out all five starters at one time — twice — in the Boston loss.

It has been suggested that Boylen, beyond knowing that his bosses supported him challenging the group more than Hoiberg ever did, felt even more license to do so because he knew all of these players previously as an assistant on Hoiberg’s staff.

Unfortunately for Boylen, I’d argue that the opposite is true. Boylen would likely have found his players more receptive to the three long practice sessions he wedged in amid Chicago’s three games last week if he were a legit newcomer.