Just a year ago, Gar Forman shied away from rebuilding, fearing for his job. Now, he has embraced a rebuilding period for the Chicago Bulls in order to buy himself more time.

About a year ago, the only “r”-word Gar Forman was willing to use in regards to his team was “re-tooling”. “Rebuilding”, after all, could send the Chicago Bulls down a long road of failure that he might not see through to the end.

What a difference a year makes.

After fighting the rebuilding process for as long as he could, Forman has embraced it at last. Luckily for him, and unluckily for everyone who wants to see him lose his job, he may have done so just in time to save his skin, at least for the immediate future.

A Change of Heart

When asked about the Bulls’ prospects of successfully tanking in an Eastern Conference that is rapidly becoming awful, Forman expressed no regrets about the franchise’s current direction. Via Bulls writer K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:

“It’s always hard when you have had a level of success, and then you’ve got to take a step back and go in a new direction,” Forman said. “We know it’s going to be a process and there’s going to be ups and downs within that process. But we think the trade gave us a step in the right direction, where we got three young players who we really like. And we continue to keep a great level of flexibility.”

For the first time in a while, Forman’s vision regarding the Bulls’ future generally makes some sense. It’s certainly a far cry from him signing Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo just after proclaiming that the Bulls had to get “younger and more athletic”.

And it’s far better than his insistence last year that stagnant mediocrity was better than starting fresh. Here’s what Forman said about the Bulls’ direction last offseason, according to NBA.com:

It was just our sense we didn’t want to rebuild where we become possibly a lower lottery team long term. We’ve studied the history of the NBA. When you make a move to go that direction, it can sometimes take six or seven years to get out. So we feel we’re in the process of improving our basketball team, that we’re getting younger, that we’re getting more athletic.

Sounds like someone thought that a rebuild would almost certainly cost him his job. The irony is that, when faced with the possibility of the Chicago Bulls self-destructing anyway, rebuilding became his best chance of surviving, for now, as the team’s GM.

How Safe is Forman?

Of course, we can’t completely assume that Forman’s job is safe even with the decision to rebuild. Rumors have surfaced that, while Paxson remains safe, Forman could become a casualty of front office reshuffling.

According to that report by Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times, Forman’s reputation for being “less than honest” has rubbed players like Jimmy Butler the wrong way, which is troubling.

Also, not that we really need to, but let’s go back through some of his decisions, shall we? Not trading Pau Gasol last year when he had the chance? Signing Wade and Rondo when they would not get the Bulls realistically closer to winning a championship? Trading for Cameron Payne? Giving up a 2017 second-round pick for straight cash? That’s a pretty cringeworthy list of recent accomplishments.

That said, hitting the reset button on the Chicago Bulls saved Forman from the reckoning that was coming. What if he’d tried to run back his “Three Alphas” experiment? When it inevitably failed to deliver a title and the Bulls lost Butler in free agency in 2018, imagine how hopeless the Bulls’ future would’ve been then.

Instead, Forman reached for the rebuild he long tried to avoid. And though his future isn’t certain, pitching the promise of hope for the Chicago Bulls’ future may have bought him time. In my mind, that gives him way better odds to keep his job than the alternative would have.

Now his superiors have to decide whether or not they buy what he’s selling.