Jim Boylen expressed confidence publicly that he believes his job as head coach of the Chicago Bulls is safe. However, rumors behind the scenes are that he has expressed serious concern about his uncertain status following the dismissal of John Paxson as Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations. Most viewed Paxson as Boylen’s biggest protector inside the building. With him out, that safety net is gone.
Arturas Karnisovas is the man in charge now and he almost certainly has plans for completely overhauling the things from top to bottom. That could include the coaching staff. Hence why Boylen is so nervous. The problem for him is he isn’t likely to get an answer anytime soon. According to Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times, Karnisovas is placing his focus on building his new front office.
“As of Saturday, Karnisovas had no definite plans to meet with coach Jim Boylen, according to a source. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Expanding the front office is priority No. 1, but the NBA can announce a shutdown of the regular season at any point, and it would only be fair to let Boylen and his staff know if they need to start looking elsewhere or will be returning.
This will be Karnisovas’ decision. He will listen to input, but he has no allegiance to the current coaching staff.”
Jim Boylen did nothing to warrant keeping his job
The truth is there is no argument to make that Boylen deserves to keep his job. In two seasons running the team since taking over for Fred Hoiberg, he is 39-84. During that time the Bulls have seen no players outside of Zach Lavine take any notable steps forward in their development. Lauri Markkanen actually regressed in a big way. He averaged 18 points and seven rebounds in 2018-2019. Through the suspension of league play, he was averaging just 14 points and five rebounds in 2019-2020.
Several reports indicated he is not happy with Boylen and wishes to go elsewhere if the man stays in charge. One can imagine Karnisovas is going to have talks with everybody in the organization before making a decision. The truth is Boylen did nothing to show people he’s good at his job. His player development is questionable and his game management is even worse. People generally saw him as a puppet of Paxson. One that wore out his usefulness when the latter lost his job.
