Some more looks at the season:

The Bulls are 4-7 without Butler for the season. 3-7 in this stretch.

The Bulls are 5-4 without Rose.

The Bulls are 9-13 when McDermott has to play 25 or more minutes.

The Bulls are 6-8 when Moore has to play 25 or more minutes.

The Bulls are 17-13 when Gibson has to play 25 or more minutes.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

It doesn't matter, it only matters that Brooks be talented, not that he is managed well. If he was talented him running off the floor in front of the "coach" would be unremarkable. It'd probably be the most talented instance of insubordination we've ever seen.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

The Bulls scored 72 points in the final game that Tom Thibodeau ever coached for them. 42 of those were scored over the final 3 quarters. These 72 points were scored even though they had the complement of a full roster. They also were scored while the team was "fighting" for their season and "fighting" to save his job. They were blown out with the game pretty much decided by halftime, yet everyone is pretty much in agreement that Thibodeau would be able to all of a sudden whip the likes of Etwaun Moore, Aaron Brooks, Mike Dunleavy, Justin Holiday, Cameron Bairstow, Tony Snell, etc. Into shape.

His mere presence would be able to majestically take this collection of bums to heights previously unseen. His presence, sheer will, and tireless work ethic alone is sufficient enough to make this collection of stiffs into a winning playoff level team.

Why couldn't this same force of presence not prevent a fully rostered Bull team from scoring only 72 points against Cleveland. Why couldn't this same force of presence prevent the Bulls from being blown out during the deciding game against Cleveland? Why couldn't this same force of presence not defeat a Cleveland team playing without Kevin Love. Why couldn't they defeat a Cleveland team where Irving played on 1 leg literally? Why couldn't they defeat Cleveland even as LeBron James played terribly if you go purely off statistics. Never seemed to have a problem quoting statistics before so why start now?

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There's nothing mysterious or mythological about it. It's called coaching. Thibodeau's track record overwhelmingly suggests he would have this current depleted Bulls team playing better, and certainly more competitive defensively, than they currently are. Just give up on the Hoiberg thing already. It's impossible to argue that he's been an improvement over Thinodeau at the current moment.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Thibodeau had the luxury of having two all stars in Deng and Noah. He also had Boozer, who I would take over Gibson in a heartbeat.

Thibs has never coached a team as bad as this for any extended stretch of time. Never ever. There are a lot of Thibs apologists, but they are really stretching it if they think he would work his magic. He will have his chance to coach a team with this level of talent soon. If he chooses not to, then it will say a lot about what he believes that he is capable of.

The appeal to ignorance argument doesn't quite cut it either. We really don't know what he could do with this team. This is worse than any collection of players that he has had to coach.


I conveniently provided Pop's record his first season. I asked a relevant question and it was customarily ignored. He won 17 games his first season and 56 his second.

Which factor coaching or talent was responsible for the 39 game increase in wins? Fairly simple question.

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You're simply wrong like you have been a number of other times regarding objective facts. Thibs teams were notoriously injury depleted, not just Rose. Whether he had a hand in exacerbating the health issues is up for debate. That they often had injury issues is not.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If someone wants to go down the road of blaming coaches for injury, one could argue that Fred Hoiberg did not prepare this team enough physically for the regular season and that is why so many players have trouble staying on the court. After all, this team has had far more injuries than any Thibodeau team.

I wouldn't go down that road, because it is stupid.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

The Bulls have missed 3-4 out of their top six guys for most of this season.

People keep talking about how they wouldn't have laid down if Thibs was the coach but conveniently ignore the fact that they laid down in the last game of the Cleveland series. Thibs did more with less, but he never had to coach this level of talent and that includes the Augustin era.

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Which person has blamed Thibs for injuries? I haven't and have never cried about the minutes thing either. They are professional athletes and thus should be conditioned to play 40 minutes if need be.

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You don't read posts like you don't watch games.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I wish that this assessment were actually based in fact. Trust me.

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Hey at least the Bulls have a coach who placates Paxson and Forman's egos. Can you imagine how much worse this team would be if the coach was someone who dared disagree with their brilliant moves?