Trailing 15-0 in the first five minutes of any NBA game is a travesty — a lack of urgency and preparation on full display.
Doing it in front of the home crowd at the United Center? An embarrassment.
It happening to a Miami team that eventually beat the Bulls 116-108, however, was a flat-out indictment.
Yet another reminder of what the Bulls organization wishes they could be, strives to be, but has no idea how to become or even where to buy the road map.
Damn right it stung ownership, and maybe that’s the straw that will lead to some much needed changes at the top, as the Sun-Times reported Tuesday.
The Heat have a culture, an elite coach, a two-way superstar, money coming off the books after this season to add and young, talented players that accept criticism rather than run and hide from it. A culture that would be embraced in a city like Chicago.
What do the Bulls currently have? A dumpster fire of dysfunction, kicked out into the middle of the street for all to see.
Rebuild?
How do you rebuild when the foundation is low-budget cement mix stolen off an abandon truck?
So the fact that it has been open season on coach Jim Boylen and the players on the roster in the wake of this dismal start is hysterical. Misguided, but also hysterical.
No one in the house is potty-trained, and yet fans and the media are getting upset that Boylen and Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen go on the carpeted floor wherever and whenever they want.
This organization is built on excuse-making and finger-pointing, and it has been rewarded with job security. So Boylen and the players are supposed to somehow break that trend on their own?
You know why Boylen calls out superstars?
Because former coach Fred Hoiberg didn’t. That irked vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and advisor Doug Collins to no end. When they did get on Hoiberg about being tougher with the roster, the coach went after young players in practice or the eighth man on the bench.
That also helped get Hoiberg fired.
When veteran players like Butler and Dwyane Wade went in on young players privately and publicly, you know what they got? Suspended by the organization, painted as bad guys by the narrative spoon-fed to the media, and eventually elsewhere.
“The culture,’’ Butler said last week, when asked about the difference he has already experienced with his new Miami team. “I feel like everybody plays so hard. And the young guys ask to be led. You tell them something, and they want more.’’
Do you think an executive like Pat Riley would somehow get upset with a vet calling out an underachieving rookie?
So we’re somehow angry that LaVine and Markkanen don’t know how to lead and aren’t learning accountability with the urgency we feel they should?
When general manager in Gar Forman is allowed to operate and thrive with excuses and deception, that becomes your culture.
Welcome to Bulls basketball.
Firing Boylen or trading players changes what exactly?
There are maybe five elite coaches in the NBA today — and one currently not working in Tom Thibodeau — so to think this start is about just Xs and Os is inaccurate. Star players cover up a lot of bad. Heck, David Blatt was an NBA Finals coach with the Cavs and LeBron James, while Steve Kerr was believed to be the second coming until some of that Hall of Fame talent was suddenly stripped away.
This is about having an attractive culture, landing or developing superstars in it, and sustaining it.
Everything else is excuses, finger-pointing and self-survival.
Or simply put, what the Bulls have allowed themselves to become great at.
