Bulls Rumors: Paxson, Hoiberg, Butler, Carlisle
Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said the team benefited from a five- to 10-minute talk by executive vice president John Paxson, according to Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com. Several players said Paxson’s address helped them get focused again after a difficult week that included a three-game losing streak and an incident where Jimmy Butler publicly questioned Hoiberg’s coaching style. “Look, John was a tough, tough guy,” Hoiberg said. “… Our guys really respect John and it was good that he sat in there and again that’s what we did a lot in those three days we had off. It wasn’t just time on the practice floor, but we spent time in the film room just talking things out and John was a big part of that.”
There’s more news tonight out of Chicago:
- Paxson would have preferred that Butler address the coaching situation privately, writes K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune. In a Friday morning interview on radio station WSCR-670 AM in Chicago, Paxson said the team needs to get beyond any lingering dispute between the player and coach. “My feeling is that as long as it’s been addressed, which it was, and the parties are there to move on, it will be OK,” Paxson said. “When you lose and our schedule not getting any easier, it’s very easy for anyone to point fingers. But the reality is what you have to do and what you have to understand is if you’re not in this thing together, then you might as well not be in at all.”
- Despite hitting some bumps in his first NBA coaching job, Hoiberg has a big supporter in Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, Friedell writes in another post. Their relationship began when Hoiberg played for the Pacers in the late 1990s and Carlisle worked as an assistant under Larry Bird. “Fred’s been in the NBA if you count his playing years, his management years … 15, 16, 17 years,” Carlisle said. “… I wouldn’t paint this [picture] that he’s some newcomer. … The job I see him doing [with the Bulls] is a very strong one. I wouldn’t believe the hype.”
- Last week’s incident with Butler indicates a leadership void in the Bulls’ locker room, contends Steve Aschburner of NBA.com. The columnist says Butler’s attempt at leadership seemed “forced or rushed,” but injuries and declining production have pushed Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah out of leadership positions, while Pau Gasol is “too cerebral and mature” and may opt out of his contract this coming summer.
Latest On Bulls, Tom Thibodeau
2:18pm: Forman once more denied any issues with the coach, as he told reporters, including Johnson (All Twitter links). “While as an organization we try to avoid responding to rumors, there is absolutely no basis to this recent speculation,” Forman said. “We are very proud of what the team and our players have accomplished to this point in the season, and we will not allow anything to detract us from our ultimate goal. The focus of the entire organization from top to bottom is on winning basketball games.”
2:04pm: The tension between the front office and Thibodeau appears to be higher than ever, tweets Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com.
9:18am: The relationship between Tom Thibodeau and the Bulls front office is “beyond repair,” several league sources believe, and many people around the NBA wouldn’t be surprised to see the sides mutually part ways this summer, reports K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. Still, the Bulls don’t have any plans to make a coaching change this season, Johnson cautions.
Thibodeau is under contract through 2016/17, though a source told Chris Sheridan of SheridanHoops recently that the Bulls wouldn’t mind simply eating the rest of his roughly $11MM in salary if they were to let him go. Executive VP of basketball operations John Paxson feels “lukewarm at best” toward the coach, Sheridan hears, but more recently Paxson publicly backed Thibodeau with a strident response to criticism of the coach. GM Gar Forman dismissed the idea that Thibodeau’s job is in jeopardy, as Forman told Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times last week.
Rumors of tension between Thibodeau and Bulls management date back more than a year, and the Knicks, among other teams in the past 12 months, eyed the former Coach of the Year in case he shook free from Chicago. Still, at the beginning of this season there was more talk around the Bulls that the team would end up giving Thibodeau a raise than that the sides would part ways, as USA Today’s Sam Amick reported then.
Thibodeau’s hard-charging style is a challenge for his players, and while many of them have publicly backed their boss, some have felt as though he goes too far, according to Sheridan. The Bulls are in a disappointing fourth place in the Eastern Conference, but they’re only a game and a half behind the second-place Raptors and are coming off a signature overtime win against the Warriors.
Eastern Notes: Hornets, Draft, Bulls
The Hornets‘ top priority this offseason is finding players who can shoot from the outside, writes Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer. Charlotte GM Rich Cho said, “I think shooting is hard to find – especially mid-range shooting. You don’t see a lot of kids practicing that. Shooting is at a premium now because a lot of teams want to take threes instead of long twos, just from an efficiency standpoint. In an ideal world you want a shooter who can also really defend. But in the real world, there’s not a lot of that.”
More from the east:
- In a separate article, Bonnell examines the Hornets‘ top-10 franchise assets, which include the presence of Al Jefferson, Coach Steve Clifford, and abundant cap space.
- Bonnell also writes that the Hornets need frontcourt depth and a backup point guard. If the team uses a first round pick on a point guard, the names to watch, according to Bonnell, are Elfrid Payton, Zack LaVine, and Shabazz Napier. In the frontcourt, possibilities would be Aaron Gordon, Adreian Payne, or Jusuf Nurkic.
- The Bulls first round draft choices have been a series of hits and misses, writes K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune. In the article he looks back at the 10 first rounds of the John Paxson–Gar Forman era.
- The Bulls are offering players with non-guaranteed contracts in most of their trade talks, writes Johnson in a separate article. Johnson mentions Mike James, Ronnie Brewer and Louis Amundson as the players the team has been trying to include. If some or all of them were needed to acquire Arron Afflalo, this could limit the Bulls’ preferred scenario of acquiring Carmelo Anthony via sign-and-trade discussions with the Knicks, notes Johnson.
Bulls Notes: Thibodeau, Forman, Pittman, James
We’ve heard for months about some potential discord between Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau and the team’s front office, but Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports went into more detail over the weekend, as our Chuck Myron outlined on Sunday. On the heels of Wojnarowski’s report, vice president of basketball operations John Paxson took exception with the idea that the relationship between Thibodeau and GM Gar Forman was heading toward a boiling point.
“We’re so far past that,” Paxson told Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. “To continue to try and keep it going, I don’t know what the agenda is…. If you’re really going to say something like that, then go on the record, be a man, put your name out there. Don’t hide behind that stuff. But from our perspective, from our seat, we’re doing great. The relationship is healthy.”
Here’s the rest of the latest out of Chicago:
- While he acknowledged that the Bulls brass hasn’t always been on the same page when it comes to certain decisions, Paxson continued to downplay the idea that there’s any lingering disharmony: “No matter what you do in this business, when you’re making decisions, whether it’s based on personnel or anything like that, you’re going to have ideas, different opinions, and that’s what we do. We sit in a room and talk these things through. The thing is, right now we’re all on the same page, and there are no hidden agendas from Gar, myself and Tom.”
- Within the same piece, Cowley cites a source who says there was some friction when Thibodeau assistant Ron Adams was let go. However, both Thibodeau and Forman “were over it in like a day,” according to the source.
- Before he accepted a camp invite from the Bulls, Dexter Pittman received offers from the Hawks and Spurs, he tells Shams Charania of RealGM.com. Pittman also spoke to Charania about his new offseason workout regime, and how he feels it’ll help his chances of earning a roster spot in Chicago.
- Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com takes a look at veteran guard Mike James‘ quest to land a roster spot with the Bulls.
Central Notes: Bulls, Robinson, Cavs, Handy
- Aggrey Sam of CSNChicago.com figures Nate Robinson has played his last game for the Bulls. Derrick Rose, Kirk Hinrich and Marquis Teague will all probably be around to play point guard, and Robinson's performance will likely make him too pricey for Chicago.
- Bulls GM Gar Forman addressed the specter of a missed season for Rose with Adam Fluck of Bulls.com, and in spite of an offseason of personnel decisions ahead, Forman identifies simply getting healthy as the team's primary goal this summer.
- Bulls president and COO Michael Reinsdorf praised the work of Forman and executive VP of basketball operations John Paxson, as Fluck passes along in a separate piece.
- If the Cavaliers wind up picking third, their current position in the pre-lottery order, Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer expects the team to target a small forward, and take a backup big man with the 19th selection.
- Boyer also reports in her piece that the Cavs have hired Phil Handy, an assistant coach with the Lakers, to serve as an assistant under head coach Mike Brown. The Cavs have yet to make an official announcement.
- Former Cavs assistant Nate Tibbetts joined the Blazers staff this week, a move one executive classifies as a "home run hire" for Portland, notes Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal. The Bobcats had been interested in Tibbetts for their head coaching job.
Central Notes: Morway, Bucks, Hamilton, Hammond
There's plenty of news out of the Central Division today, with the Bulls on the brink of elimination against the Sixers while the Pacers are in command against the Magic. The latest updates are at the top:
- Pacers GM David Morway responded to Friday's news that the Blazers are interested in him for their GM position, telling The Oregonian's Jason Quick that he's "flattered" but "right now I'm focused on the playoffs and focused on our team.'' He could also be in line for a promotion in Indiana if president of basketball operations Larry Bird steps aside, but Morway said no interview has been scheduled with Portland and he'll evaluate his options at a later date. (All Twitter links).
- Though Forbes ranks the Bucks as the NBA's least valuable franchise, there's little reason to worry that Milwaukee will go down the same path as Seattle did with the Sonics, writes Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- Richard Hamilton, who's strugged in three straight losses, hasn't been giving the Bulls what they expected when signed him before the season, as Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com writes.
- In a roundup of candidates for the Blazers GM job, Sam Amick of SI.com says multiple sources have told him the Bucks have denied GM John Hammond permission to interview for the position. Last month we heard about the mutual interest between Hammond and the Blazers, but Friday's joint press conference between Hammond and Bucks owner Herb Kohl seems to indicate that the Bucks will be keeping their GM.
- Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star sat down with commissioner David Stern to talk Pacers and other topics. Stern says he's not concerned about the team's lagging attendance, which ranked 26th in the regular season this year.
- John Paxson, vice president of basketball operations for the Bulls, recently underwent surgery to try to correct a heart arrhythmia, according to an ESPN.com report. Paxson said in a statement released by the team that the procedure has been planned for over a month. The news of his health trouble came out in comments made by Sixers coach Doug Collins after today's game.