The old man might be waking up after all, and he’s obviously not in the best of moods.
According to several sources, Bulls board chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is not only livid about the team’s 6-12 start and the continued sinking outside optics of the organization, but is beginning to turn his attention to the job security of general manager Gar Forman if the ship keeps taking on water.
The sources indicated that this is not a recent change of heart from Reinsdorf, but has been more of an accumulated bucket of questionable decisions. A bucket that could be near the brim.
Senior advisor Doug Collins’ opinion is carrying weight in this, as Collins has never been a huge fan of Forman’s.
The genesis of that relationship going south stemmed from former coach Fred Hoiberg, who Collins immediately had questions about when vice president of basketball operations John Paxson named Collins to the brain trust back in 2017.
Collins was underwhelmed by Hoiberg’s leadership skills, and was openly critical of Hoiberg throughout the Advocate Center in the wake of the Nikola Mirotic-Bobby Portis practice altercation.
While Paxson and the Bulls have all publicly insisted that Hoiberg’s hiring was a group decision, it was no secret that Forman was pushing for Hoiberg almost a year before Tom Thibodeau was fired. In Collins’ mind, the Hoiberg hiring was strike one.
For those that have been keeping score much longer, however, it was just another swing-and-miss by Forman.
Throw in the mistrust between players and Forman that has been ongoing, and now a rebuild that seems to be filled with severe cracking in the foundation, and well, every cat has its nine lives.
Even in the last week, Forman had more missteps that didn’t go unnoticed.
The Bulls honored two-time All-Star forward Luol Deng last week, and that meant a handful of former players in attendance at the game to support Deng in retirement. According to one, Forman was aloof to the group throughout the evening, and that did very little in players changing their opinion on him.
So why Forman and not Paxson, or Boylen for that matter, as well?
Like vice president of baseball operations Ken Williams with the White Sox, Paxson is all but untouchable in Reinsdorf’s eyes. To put it in perspective, Williams once vouched for the hiring of good friend Dave Wilder back when Williams was still in the GM role, gave Wilder an open checkbook to sign international prospects, only to find out after a federal investigation that Wilder was extorting money from the organization.
While Wilder served time, Williams was promoted to executive, giving him a pay bump and better parking spot, completely escaping a fireable offense by the standards of most organizations.
Paxson’s done nothing to that extreme.
And what about Boylen? What Boylen has on his side is the others in the organization that agreed to extend his contract for three years. That included not only Forman, Paxson and Collins, but team president Michael Reinsdorf and Jerry, himself.
Boylen is well respected by the entire brain trust, while Forman is not.
What Boylen should be concerned about, however, is his contract. He’s one of the lower paid coaches in the league, so his dismissal would not require Reinsdorf to eat the dead money he did on Thibodeau and Hoiberg.
Thank Nebraska for the latter.
The Cornhuskers coaching job is paying Hoiberg $2.5 million this season, offsetting half of the $5 million the Bulls owed their former coach in this final year of his contract. Boylen is believed to be in the $1.7 million range, so wouldn’t handcuff ownership to go in another direction.
That’s a decision further down the road. There’s only one seat getting hot right now, and it’s Forman’s. Maybe long past due.
