It hasn’t exactly been the life preserver that was offered up just a few months earlier.

The Bulls front office of VP of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman seemed poised to get Fred Hoiberg the necessary tools to help the first-year coach improve going into Year 2, whether it was players that better fit his system or a more loyal supporting staff.

Even with a source confirming a report on Sunday that the Bulls have agreed on a two-year, $28 million deal for veteran point guard Rajon Rondo, that life preserver has been more of a heavy rock with a rope tied around it.

Start swimming, Fred.

The Rondo deal, which cannot be made official until July 6, appears to make sense on the surface because of the fact that Rondo led the NBA with 11.7 assists per game this past season.

Derrick Rose’s decision making was a problem most of the season, and 4.7 assists per game in an offense built on pacing and ball movement wasn’t getting it done.

But Rondo is also 30 years old, and if Hoiberg thought Jimmy Butler gave him some headaches at times, well, Rondo is a bottle of aspirin waiting to happen.

Playing on four teams now in less than two years, Rondo is far removed from the player that helped the 2008 Celtics win a championship. He’s had fiery relationships with coaches Rick Carlisle and George Karl since last season, as well as being punished by the NBA for calling referee Bill Kennedy an anti-gay slur.

The other side of the Rondo coin, however, is the term soft has never been in his job description. The Bulls were looking to add toughness, and help seems to be on the way in that department.

“We’re in this with Fred,’’ Paxson insisted in his season-ending state of the union address. “It’s our responsibility to help him along that way. And that’s looking at everything we do from top to bottom.’’

The timeline for that top to bottom cleaning started with the dismissal of mascot Benny the Bull, a new strength and fitness coordinator, trading Rose to the Knicks, drafting Denzel Valentine, and then letting Joakim Noah join Rose in the “Big Apple.’’

Meanwhile, rumored changes to the coaching staff never happened, while Rose, Noah and Pau Gasol have been turned into Robin Lopez, 34-year-old Jose Calderon, Rondo, and the unproven talent of Jerian Grant and Valentine.

“We still believe Fred has a bright future,’’ Paxson continued. “He’s going to have to devote a lot of time and energy to determining what he wants to be as a head coach and how he wants his teams to play. And we have to give him the resources to do that. And we will.’’

The jury was still out on that one.

The belief at the start of the offseason was another assistant would join Jim Boylen on the defensive end, meaning that assistant coach Randy Brown would be moved back to the front office where he was an assistant GM under Forman.

Several players had trust issues with Brown because of his close ties with Forman, and thought his presence in the locker room was more of eyes and ears for Forman than an actual benefit to helping Hoiberg.

Noah was in the forefront of that, and maybe his departure has them feeling they no longer need to remove Brown from that situation.

The good news is one player did say that Hoiberg has been in his office almost daily watching film, but the coach did that last summer as well.

That didn’t end so well.