Chicago Bulls Offseason Grades: The Jim Boylen Extension

Buckle up Bulls Nation, our Ryan Borja is going to talk about the Bulls offseason and grade their decisions.

The Bulls finished with a woeful 22–60 record in the 2018–19 season and headed into this offseason with high priorities to improve the roster. The Bulls had $23 million in cap space and used all of it to improve the roster. Along with two draft picks, a few re-signings and extending their head coach, the Bulls offseason is pretty much complete.

Bulls brought back:

Head coach Jim Boylen, Ryan Arcidiacono, Shaquille Harrison

Bulls additions this offseason:

Thaddeus Young, Tomas Satoransky, Luke Kornet, Coby White, Daniel Gafford, Adam Mokoka.

Bulls losses this offseason:

Robin Lopez, Walt Lemon Jr., Wayne Selden Jr., Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Brandon Sampson, Rawle Alkins

The details on Boylen’s extension are unclear. But using KC Johnson’s article, I will assume it is a 3-year extension. I also assume the extension will start this season, replacing his remaining year on his last contract. And there could be a team option on year 3.

Jim has a strong vision on where he wants to take this team, and he has done a great job establishing the culture that we want this organization to stand for as we continue to progress. He has tremendous passion for developing young talent, is a strong communicator and a good fit for this team. The organization is confident in the direction that he is taking our players, and we are committed to him.” — Chicago Bulls Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson Bulls Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson

The Bulls went 17–41 under Boylen as head coach, a position he took after the firing of Fred Hoiberg last December. Hoiberg was 5–19, so technically Boylen did have a better winning percentage. The Bulls played their best stretch of basketball under Jim Boylen, but they were healthier under Boylen as well.

It might not be fair to judge Boylen on wins and losses as the Bulls weren’t a good team last season, healthy or not. When Bulls Vice President of Basketball Operations John Paxson fired Hoiberg, this main reason was a lack of competitive spirit. While I’m not sure how to judge competitive spirit, one thing you can do is look at the numbers and see if there was a clear difference under Hoiberg vs Boylen.

NBA.com Boylen Top, Hoiberg bottom

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything that stands out to a large degree when looking at the numbers, besides maybe wins and loses. Considering the injuries Hoiberg dealt with, I wouldn’t say the win-loss record was that significant.

Besides both records are bad and overall should be considered unacceptable. The only way to know is to be there during practices and in the locker room, which Paxson was. He seems to be convinced he saw enough to commit to Boylen. With Boylen getting a 3-year deal with a possible team option in the third year, it seems to be the Bulls are giving him the next two seasons to get this team going in the right direction.

The Bulls as of now won’t have significant cap space next offseason, so fair to say this team will be the team not only this upcoming season but the following as well. These are Boylen’s guys, his team.

I imagine the front office is demanding one thing from Boylen, and that is that he gets the most that he can out of this young core. With the way the roster is set up, the Bulls’ success will heavily rely on development.

Boylen needs to get players like Markkanen, Carter Jr, LaVine, and White to live up their potential. But mainly reach the expectations of the front office.

I like Boylen’s hard-nosed, “old-school” style(besides the finger push-ups), at least for this current Bulls team. Young players need structure and they need to be held accountable, and Boylen will do that. I imagine that is the clear difference between Boylen and Hoiberg that Paxson really valued.

Boylen, however, struggled at times with game strategy and management, which is concerning as the Bulls need to start winning as well as developing. Winning helps development and keeps NBA players playing for the team versus playing for themselves which so often happens during an NBA season.

Perhaps Boylen realized “Xs and Os” isn’t a clear strength of his, which is why he hired Chris Fleming to be his lead assistant. Fleming is known around the NBA for being a strong tactician. That hire helped me accept the Boylen commitment.

Bringing in someone to help Boylen with the weaknesses that he showed last season. Fleming is also coming from another young team in the Nets last season, who made the playoffs last season after missing out for so many years. You can easily see the parallels between last year’s Nets and this year’s Bulls. The ‘18-’19 Brooklyn team came together quickly with a collection of young talent that won games and had fun.

Boylen didn’t show much last season to the point where I can get really excited about this, but I love that they hired Fleming. Boylen has qualities I want out of a coach who is responsible for such a young team and I like that he adapted his style last year.

Speeding up his offensive attack is what I am referring to, when at first he had the Bulls playing at a slower pace. A lot of coaches are too stubborn to do such a thing midseason, granted it was the front office(his boss) that talked him into it.

I rather have had Boylen coach through his last season to see what you have versus extending him now.

This idea of not having coaches coach in a “lame duck” season is so silly to me. So what if he has one year left. You saw head coach Mike Malone in Sacramento do a good job with his team with just one season left on his deal. This idea that coaches need that security makes little sense to me, as coaches get fired all the time even with multiple years left.

Head coaches in the NBA are always performing under pressure. Look at Hoiberg. Their job is never guaranteed the next day so ultimately, why should coaching for that extension be that big of a deal?

GRADE: C