For all the issues that inspired Chicago Bulls management to carry out such a ferocious campaign to discredit Tom Thibodeau – minutes restrictions and personnel disagreements and an inability to simply interact – perhaps the most powerful had been jealousy.

Over and over, those listening to John Paxson and Gar Forman would tell you that Bulls management could never make peace with the praise heaped upon Thibodeau for 60-victory seasons and deep playoff runs. For them, it was too much about the best defense in the NBA, too much about his development of journeymen into rotation contributors, good players into All-Stars, great players into an MVP.

To them, Thibodeau represented a Chicago folk hero who needed to be leveled. Tell them that he was a great coach, and league officials say you'd often hear back from Bulls management that simply, "He's good."

[Slideshow: Coaches sent packing despite winning]

If Thibodeau had only the political savvy to publicly praise his bosses, maybe everyone could've been spared the years of needless acrimony and drama. As Thibodeau joined the Bulls five years ago, a coaching friend told him: "Remember to kiss some babies," a suggestion that he needed to learn to be more of a politician.

View photos The Bulls owe Tom Thibodeau the remaining $9 million on his contract. (Getty Images) More

Thibodeau always believed that it was enough to be a committed coach, enough to win, but the Bulls' climate commanded survival instincts unfamiliar to him.

Finally, team president Michael Reinsdorf and Forman brought Thibodeau into a meeting on Thursday morning and fired him. Finally, the Bulls have the clear path to hire Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg. Forman has been obsessive in his desire to hire Hoiberg, and it will be only a matter of days until the Bulls' make-believe search ends and this back-door process is over.

This time, no one will doubt management hired its man. This time, the coach won't be an object for attack and humiliation. When Paxson didn't like the way Vinny Del Negro managed Joakim Noah's minutes, he charged into the coach's office and laid hands on him.

This time, management had to be far more calculating in crushing the coach's credibility and contributions, both inside and outside the facility. It appeared to be part of a public campaign to dehumanize Thibodeau, picking apart his tactical acumen and portraying him as an uncaring ogre. Players had a sympathetic ear with management and medical staff.

Thibodeau played a part in creating the dysfunction. In his next job, he needs to bring with him some lessons learned, needs to understand better that there can be compromises without destroying your value system.

In the end, management won over owner Jerry Reinsdorf to pay out the $9 million owed on Thibodeau's contract. Reinsdorf has lorded over decades of management-coaching dysfunction – and yet Thursday he was issuing a statement on the firing of Thibodeau as a way to stay true to the organization's "culture." That's been a screwed-up culture for a long, long time. Between Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose, the Bulls were a mess. When Thibodeau arrived, so did the winning – and then, so did the loathing between management and his staff.

On the way into the free-agent meeting with Pau Gasol in July, one witness accompanying Bulls management and Thibodeau marveled at how they could completely ignore each other in the lobby, the elevator up to the meeting, and then show something of a united front in the presentation to the player. Eventually, everyone could no longer fake it.

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