No word on if he plans to do pushups with the players during the Friday shootaround, but you better believe that “Boot Camp’’ Boylen will be back.
For how long? As long as Bulls coach Jim Boylen feels it will take for this roster to understand that toughness is not a part-time job or a volunteer activity.
With 20 games left and fading playoff hopes still in the background, the message from Boylen in the wake of Wednesday’s 115-108 loss in Minnesota was simple: “We’ve got to be tougher.’’
A line in the sand that Boylen doesn’t see has much wiggle room.
Asked if guys could lose playing time if they continue to show a softness that Boylen doesn’t embrace, the coach doubled down.
“Yeah, we need to play our minutes with more force and more energy,’’ Boylen said. “When you’ve been out and you come back, the speed of the game is tough. And you obviously had a little bit of thought about yourself — ‘How am I going to get going? What am I going to do?’ That’s part of this process. What I’m talking about is you’ve got to play your minutes with force, whether you haven’t played in two months … play hard, compete, rebound the ball. That’s all I’m talking about.’’
That’s the balancing act that Boylen has to walk the next six weeks, however.
Lauri Markkanen missed more than a month with a pelvis injury, Otto Porter Jr. missed 17 weeks with a left foot fracture, Wendell Carter Jr. was dealing with a right ankle injury for almost two months, and just when all three were back on the court together Zach LaVine missed the last two games with an injured quad.
Boylen insisted several times that he understood that.
Toughness, however, should be the fabric of this roster, missed time or not.
“That will work itself out,’’ Boylen said of the team getting back to some cohesiveness. “We’ll practice, our rotations will become more firm as we get healthier and guys’ minutes go up. That will happen. But when you do play you minutes you need to play them with more physicality. Again, we’ve got guys coming back, NBA games are hard, I get it … I get it. But it’s not who we’re going to be.’’
Now, the danger in all of this.
Players aren’t naïve, especially NBA players.
The entire Bulls locker room knew the stories to come out of the All-Star Break. The Sun-Times first reported that the front office was headed for a new look, and with that new look could be a general manager that comes in and wants to bring in his own coach and coaching staff.
So while Boylen wants to turn the heat up on his roster — sort of like he did last December when he took over for Fred Hoiberg and went back to suicide sprints and heavy practice time — it will be easier for players to tune him out if they feel he has just over a month left on the job.
That’s why it will be interesting to see how far Boylen is willing to push in order to get this group to fully understand his brand of basketball.
Both COO Michael Reinsdorf and vice president of basketball operations John Paxson fully backed Boylen earlier this season, but that was months ago and under different circumstances.
Unless either one of them come out in the next few weeks and give Boylen a public vote of confidence, yes, “Boot Camp’’ Boylen might be back, but that doesn’t mean the players will have 100 percent interest in participating.
