Billy D or new coach

[jnrjr79]

33 this year? They got to 39 be because 1/2 the East was in tank mode. Sure he's better then Jim Boylen, but is that really a positive?

I guess I don't get the argument that Billy isn't a solid coach if the Bulls won 6 more games than you think they should have.

They finished the year 10-3. They lost to OKC by 28, Cleveland by 22 and Dallas by 1. There "good" wins were against LA and Miami (who they lost 2 games later in the play in by 19). They beat Denver without Joker. 4 of the last 6 wins were against hard tanking teams (depending on were you think Portland was its 5 of 6).

This is all true, but I don't see how it's relevant. You expected 33 wins. They got 39. The fact that there would be sucky or tanking teams down the stretch is something you already know at the outset of the season.

I'm not saying the Bulls are good - they aren't. But the idea that Billy is somehow underachieving seems like an odd notion to me, and it doesn't seem like you're even saying that, anyway.

[Red Larrivee]

This is not a Billy problem. This is an AK problem. I don't know whether he would bristle at being asked to tank, but AK made it clear he wanted to chase a play-in spot. The coach isn't going to tank if the front office is not aligned.

Yeah, Nick Nurse's master plan of Maxey playing 52 games, George playing 41, McCain (potential ROY) playing 23 games and Embiid 19. The Sixers were forced into a tank.

The Spurs have been awful since 2019 despite trying hard not to. Pop didn't just wake up that season with an epiphany.

The Bulls:
- Traded Caruso
- Traded DeRozan
- Traded LaVine
- Ayo played half of the season
- Williams was awful
- Ball barely played
- Fielded the 8th youngest roster in the league
- Had the worst PITP defense in the league

...and almost won 40 games.

Short of exclusively playing G-League players, what more should Billy Donovan have done to tank? Expecting a coach to not coach is a weird expectation.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

New coach but none of those retreads. Find the next Thibs.

Searching for the next Thibs lands you the next Jim Boylen, Jim Boylan, Fred Hoiberg, or Vinny Del Negro 75-80% of the time. If you have someone you know is solid (Donovan is such a guy), your odds of upgrading meaningfully are very low unless your coach has lost the trust of the players on the roster (clearly not true in this case).

donovan isn't solid, he sucks. this is the worst era of bulls basketball in your life. what has donovan achieved here that boylen hasn't? at least boylen had them playing defense. boylen didn't alienate the best player on the team.

mind you, boylen and hoiberg were similar to billy in that they were college coaches prior. vinny wasn't even an assistant first. analogy does not check out.

[jnrjr79]

New coach but none of those retreads. Find the next Thibs.

Searching for the next Thibs lands you the next Jim Boylen, Jim Boylan, Fred Hoiberg, or Vinny Del Negro 75-80% of the time. If you have someone you know is solid (Donovan is such a guy), your odds of upgrading meaningfully are very low unless your coach has lost the trust of the players on the roster (clearly not true in this case).

donovan isn't solid, he sucks. this is the worst era of bulls basketball in your life. what has donovan achieved here that boylen hasn't? at least boylen had them playing defense. boylen didn't alienate the best player on the team.

mind you, boylen and hoiberg were similar to billy in that they were college coaches prior. vinny wasn't even an assistant first. analogy does not check out.

lol what are you talking about

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/report-some-within-bulls-thought-zach-lavine-and-jim-boylen-would-physically-fight

[dougthonus]

For this premise to be true Billy would need to be a solid coach. Nothing in his time with the Bulls points to that.

Quite the reverse, I think the vast majority of objective evidence would say he's a solid coach. The only thing evidence that he's a poor coach is forum posters complaining, but forum posters are terrible judges of coaches and across all sports and all teams, fans generally always hate the coach if the team is not a contender.

But things in BD's favor:

1: Universally all of the players he coached think he's a great coach
2: He's probably something like +20 vs vegas in his time here (ie, team has outperformed expectations consistently)
3: (my opinion anyway) Listen to him at any interview, and he immediately strikes you as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful

There are things I'm not always thrilled with in terms of what he has done (overplaying Pat / Vuc), but it's hard to really know all the contextual reasons inside the locker room that make those things trues or the direct orders he may be getting from his boss (seems likely with possibly both).

[dougthonus]

33 this year? They got to 39 be because 1/2 the East was in tank mode. Sure he's better then Jim Boylen, but is that really a positive?

I guess I don't get the argument that Billy isn't a solid coach if the Bulls won 6 more games than you think they should have.

They finished the year 10-3. They lost to OKC by 28, Cleveland by 22 and Dallas by 1. There "good" wins were against LA and Miami (who they lost 2 games later in the play in by 19). They beat Denver without Joker. 4 of the last 6 wins were against hard tanking teams (depending on were you think Portland was its 5 of 6).

Everyone trying piles up wins against the bad teams. Coaching is keeping your team motivated to do it instead of getting ready for Cancun. If you're a tank first guy, having the next Jim Boylen might have been preferrable, because at the end of the year, everyone would have been so mad they'd have said F it, given up, and we might be drafting 4 positions higher, but that's not evidence that BD is a bad coach, quite the reverse.

In multiple years, at points where everyone might throw in the towel, he kept the players trying and motivated, that is actual real leadership to be able to do so.

[dougthonus]

donovan isn't solid, he sucks.

The basketball Hall of Fame doesn't think so. Neither do any of the players (including these Bulls players) think so.

this is the worst era of bulls basketball in your life.

It's certainly one of them, and the head coach isn't part of that at all really. If we had Gregg Popovich or Eric Spoelstra or Phil Jackson that would still be true.

what has donovan achieved here that boylen hasn't? at least boylen had them playing defense.

The Bulls have generally had one of the worst defensive rosters in the league and have generally been average on defense under Donovan. So that isn't true. Donovan has consistently beaten vegas predictions of the teams record (ie, the team does better under him than the talent is modeled to do).

boylen didn't alienate the best player on the team.

The whole team hated Boylen. Donovan and LaVine got into it, and Donovan fixed the situation.

mind you, boylen and hoiberg were similar to billy in that they were college coaches prior. vinny wasn't even an assistant first. analogy does not check out.

The point isn't that chasing whomever you think might be "the next guy" usually doesn't work.

[Red Larrivee]

For this premise to be true Billy would need to be a solid coach. Nothing in his time with the Bulls points to that.

Quite the reverse, I think the vast majority of objective evidence would say he's a solid coach. The only thing evidence that he's a poor coach is forum posters complaining, but forum posters are terrible judges of coaches and across all sports and all teams, fans generally always hate the coach if the team is not a contender.

But things in BD's favor:

1: Universally all of the players he coached think he's a great coach
2: He's probably something like +20 vs vegas in his time here (ie, team has outperformed expectations consistently)
3: (my opinion anyway) Listen to him at any interview, and he immediately strikes you as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful

There are things I'm not always thrilled with in terms of what he has done (overplaying Pat / Vuc), but it's hard to really know all the contextual reasons inside the locker room that make those things trues or the direct orders he may be getting from his boss (seems likely with possibly both).

To add to this:

2025: 39 wins (Vegas: 30.5)
2024: 39 wins (Vegas: 37.5)
2023: 40 wins (Vegas: 42.5)
2022: 46 wins (Vegas: 39.5)
2021: 31 wins (Vegas: 29.5)

Over Expectation: +15.5

Sure, every fan can think of a few gripes they have with his coaching decisions. But, at the end of the day he's clearly overachieved as a baseline here. And he was on a 50+ win pace with the most talented team he had here in 2022 before injuries to Ball and Caruso.

[Stratmaster]

Three things can be true at once.

AK has not built rosters that have any cohesion.
The level of talent has been that of a .500 team.
Billy Donovan is clueless.

Three things could be true, but only two of these thing are true, and the one that isn't is the last one on the list.

To say one needs to be fixed, without addressing the other 2, isn't going to make much difference.

Billy is great at getting player buy-in. The players seem to like him. So what? No one in charge of any endeavor is judged based on how well liked they are by the people they manage. That is icing on the cake. But there is no cake here.

What do you think a good coach would have done with this roster that would have had a meaningfully different result than what we did? I don't look at this team and think "oh my god, they left so many wins on the table" or "wow, with a different coach the player development would have been on a whole different track!".

You speak as if Donovan only started coaching the Bulls after the trade deadline last season. I've listed all of my reasons about 50 times in here and you and I have had this discussion more than once. I have also asked anyone to name one thing Donovan has accomplished in his tenure with the Bulls or one thing he has been shown to excel at as a coach and the only answer I ever get is "the players seem to like him". Not his out of bounds plays. Not clock management. Certainly not his player pairings and rotations. Not his game planning (where he almost always gets out-classed). Not his in game adjustments. Certainly not his player development; I mean the ongoing hype of Coby is the only thing anyone can try to use to make that hat fit.

[Stratmaster]

For this premise to be true Billy would need to be a solid coach. Nothing in his time with the Bulls points to that.

Quite the reverse, I think the vast majority of objective evidence would say he's a solid coach. The only thing evidence that he's a poor coach is forum posters complaining, but forum posters are terrible judges of coaches and across all sports and all teams, fans generally always hate the coach if the team is not a contender.

But things in BD's favor:

1: Universally all of the players he coached think he's a great coach
2: He's probably something like +20 vs vegas in his time here (ie, team has outperformed expectations consistently)
3: (my opinion anyway) Listen to him at any interview, and he immediately strikes you as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful

There are things I'm not always thrilled with in terms of what he has done (overplaying Pat / Vuc), but it's hard to really know all the contextual reasons inside the locker room that make those things trues or the direct orders he may be getting from his boss (seems likely with possibly both).

See. "The players like him"

Respectfully, judging a coach with a 5 year tenure as competent by comparing him to Vegas odds at the start of an NBA season may be the most ridiculous thing I have seen yet. So if a team was predicted to win 10 games every season and they win 13 instead that makes the coach great? Seriously? The coach has no responsibility for making the team actually improve year over year? Man, I wish you had been my boss. You make AKME and Reinsdorf look like task masters.

[Jcool0]

For this premise to be true Billy would need to be a solid coach. Nothing in his time with the Bulls points to that.

Quite the reverse, I think the vast majority of objective evidence would say he's a solid coach. The only thing evidence that he's a poor coach is forum posters complaining, but forum posters are terrible judges of coaches and across all sports and all teams, fans generally always hate the coach if the team is not a contender.

But things in BD's favor:

1: Universally all of the players he coached think he's a great coach
2: He's probably something like +20 vs vegas in his time here (ie, team has outperformed expectations consistently)
3: (my opinion anyway) Listen to him at any interview, and he immediately strikes you as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful

There are things I'm not always thrilled with in terms of what he has done (overplaying Pat / Vuc), but it's hard to really know all the contextual reasons inside the locker room that make those things trues or the direct orders he may be getting from his boss (seems likely with possibly both).

To add to this:

2025: 39 wins (Vegas: 30.5)
2024: 39 wins (Vegas: 37.5)
2023: 40 wins (Vegas: 42.5)
2022: 46 wins (Vegas: 39.5)
2021: 31 wins (Vegas: 29.5)

Over Expectation: +15.5

Sure, every fan can think of a few gripes they have with his coaching decisions. But, at the end of the day he's clearly overachieved as a baseline here. And he was on a 50+ win pace with the most talented team he had here in 2022 before injuries to Ball and Caruso.

Why are you ignoring the fact 12 of the Bulls 18 wins since February were against teams tanking or missing there best player or a clearly messed up Kings (Bulls west) team? Is that good coaching that they beat up on bad teams and were able to exceed there win projection? Is it good coaching Bulls were the 6-7th in the draft lottery a month ago? Is it good coaching Giddey and White ppg jumped 10 since the Lavine trade? Is it good coaching Matas would have 10+ ppg in the 1st half only to get benched for long stretches in the 2nd? Is it good coaching vets could make a million mistakes and still get 30 mpg? Is it good coaching to lose to Cleveland, OKC and Miami by a combined 69 points in the last week of season? Is it good coaching to beat Toronto, Portland, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia to end the year? Is it good coaching in 5 seasons with Chicago he has made the playoffs once going 1-4 & lost the last 3 seasons in the Play In?

[Red Larrivee]

Why are you ignoring the fact 12 of the Bulls 18 wins since February were against teams tanking or missing there best player or a clearly messed up Kings (Bulls west) team? Is that good coaching that they beat up on bad teams and were able to exceed there win projection? Is it good coaching Bulls were the 6-7th in the draft lottery a month ago? Is it good coaching Giddey and White ppg jumped 10 since the Lavine trade? Is it good coaching Matas would have 10+ ppg in the 1st half only to get benched for long stretches in the 2nd? Is it good coaching vets could make a million mistakes and still get 30 mpg? Is it good coaching to lose to Cleveland, OKC and Miami by a combined 69 points in the last week of season? Is it good coaching to beat Toronto, Portland, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia to end the year? Is it good coaching in 5 seasons with Chicago he has made the playoffs once going 1-4 & lost the last 3 seasons in the Play In?

It's the modern NBA. Most games, you're playing teams at less than full strength or a tanking team. You can do this exercise with literally every team in the league to discredit their wins. You play who's in front of you and that's it. The regular season has never been as meaningless as it is today in the grand scheme of things. Because every team plays under this reality, it's a non-factor in analysis.

This team is not that talented, and they're wildly flawed. They can lose to anyone, but they can't beat everyone. There's an obvious limit to how competitive they can be, and Donovan stretched that further than anyone thought was possible this season. I don't know how people are trying to diminish that like it was some obvious or expected outcome.

Nobody's saying Donovan has a job for life here. We're just saying that given the limited and minimal impact a coach has on a team, and how much he's overachieved in that capacity, removing him is not going to move the needle.

[dougthonus]

You speak as if Donovan only started coaching the Bulls after the trade deadline last season. I've listed all of my reasons about 50 times in here and you and I have had this discussion more than once. I have also asked anyone to name one thing Donovan has accomplished in his tenure with the Bulls or one thing he has been shown to excel at as a coach and the only answer I ever get is "the players seem to like him". Not his out of bounds plays. Not clock management. Certainly not his player pairings and rotations. Not his game planning (where he almost always gets out-classed). Not his in game adjustments. Certainly not his player development; I mean the ongoing hype of Coby is the only thing anyone can try to use to make that hat fit.

The team has outperformed modeled expectations in 4 of 5 years.
The team has consistently played hard and not dropped the rope (maybe the #1 thing your coach can do)
He's well liked by players and gets them to buy into their roles
Despite having some of the worst defensive personnel in the NBA, he's generally put out a solid defense
He completely refit our offense this year so isn't stuck in just one system

Seems like a good player development coach to me generally speaking, certainly not a below average one by any stretch. I don't think he's at any particular deficit in preparation or adjustments either, he has to work with what he has on the roster (which has not been a lot).

Most of those complaints you have aren't grounded in any particular fact except that they are words people say without any real basis of comparison and are usually based on the results of an individual event while ignoring that in the grand scheme of things his results are well above expectations during his tenure so people are only grading the negative events.

But again, as I said, fans are terrible at judging coaches. Of all sports, all teams, and all fanbases, the amount of times the fans think their head coach is "average" or "decent" is almost none. If the team is not on an upwards trend they more or less hate the coach.

And sure, we've had this discussion many times. You keep saying he sucks, and I will keep pointing out I disagree with that assessment and why. If you don't want to discuss it, then don't bring it up in a public discussion forum about the topic.

[dougthonus]

See. "The players like him"

Respectfully, judging a coach with a 5 year tenure as competent by comparing him to Vegas odds at the start of an NBA season may be the most ridiculous thing I have seen yet. So if a team was predicted to win 10 games every season and they win 13 instead that makes the coach great? Seriously? The coach has no responsibility for making the team actually improve year over year? Man, I wish you had been my boss. You make AKME and Reinsdorf look like task masters.

I missed the point where BD won 13 games when predicted to win 10. He won an average of 5 games over Vegas predictions per year with absolute trash rosters that aren't fit for the modern NBA. He consistently had his players buying in and playing hard even when times were down and convinced them to sacrifice for the team in situations where players would traditionally start trying to get theirs.

There's also the fact that he's a HOF coach, but sure, you can think he's stupid. What do the vast majority of the players whom have played for him or the basketball HOF know? You want to say it's time for a change, go ahead, but when you say he's awful and clueless, it's really an outlier opinion not shared by any experts and not backed up by any factual evidence, but one shared primarily by fans whom are frustrated with the team and think a head coach can make a way bigger difference than they really can.

[dougthonus]

Why are you ignoring the fact 12 of the Bulls 18 wins since February were against teams tanking or missing there best player or a clearly messed up Kings (Bulls west) team? Is that good coaching that they beat up on bad teams and were able to exceed there win projection? Is it good coaching Bulls were the 6-7th in the draft lottery a month ago? Is it good coaching Giddey and White ppg jumped 10 since the Lavine trade? Is it good coaching Matas would have 10+ ppg in the 1st half only to get benched for long stretches in the 2nd? Is it good coaching vets could make a million mistakes and still get 30 mpg? Is it good coaching to lose to Cleveland, OKC and Miami by a combined 69 points in the last week of season? Is it good coaching to beat Toronto, Portland, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia to end the year? Is it good coaching in 5 seasons with Chicago he has made the playoffs once going 1-4 & lost the last 3 seasons in the Play In?

I think the majority of the things you are mad at are really about roster construction and players rather than coaching.

[jnrjr79]

Quite the reverse, I think the vast majority of objective evidence would say he's a solid coach. The only thing evidence that he's a poor coach is forum posters complaining, but forum posters are terrible judges of coaches and across all sports and all teams, fans generally always hate the coach if the team is not a contender.

But things in BD's favor:

1: Universally all of the players he coached think he's a great coach
2: He's probably something like +20 vs vegas in his time here (ie, team has outperformed expectations consistently)
3: (my opinion anyway) Listen to him at any interview, and he immediately strikes you as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful

There are things I'm not always thrilled with in terms of what he has done (overplaying Pat / Vuc), but it's hard to really know all the contextual reasons inside the locker room that make those things trues or the direct orders he may be getting from his boss (seems likely with possibly both).

To add to this:

2025: 39 wins (Vegas: 30.5)
2024: 39 wins (Vegas: 37.5)
2023: 40 wins (Vegas: 42.5)
2022: 46 wins (Vegas: 39.5)
2021: 31 wins (Vegas: 29.5)

Over Expectation: +15.5

Sure, every fan can think of a few gripes they have with his coaching decisions. But, at the end of the day he's clearly overachieved as a baseline here. And he was on a 50+ win pace with the most talented team he had here in 2022 before injuries to Ball and Caruso.

Why are you ignoring the fact 12 of the Bulls 18 wins since February were against teams tanking or missing there best player or a clearly messed up Kings (Bulls west) team? Is that good coaching that they beat up on bad teams and were able to exceed there win projection? Is it good coaching Bulls were the 6-7th in the draft lottery a month ago? Is it good coaching Giddey and White ppg jumped 10 since the Lavine trade? Is it good coaching Matas would have 10+ ppg in the 1st half only to get benched for long stretches in the 2nd? Is it good coaching vets could make a million mistakes and still get 30 mpg? Is it good coaching to lose to Cleveland, OKC and Miami by a combined 69 points in the last week of season? Is it good coaching to beat Toronto, Portland, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia to end the year? Is it good coaching in 5 seasons with Chicago he has made the playoffs once going 1-4 & lost the last 3 seasons in the Play In?

Because it’s totally irrelevant. Every team will play bad, injured, and/or tanking teams over the course of the season, and this is built into the win/loss projections.

[Jcool0]

To add to this:

2025: 39 wins (Vegas: 30.5)
2024: 39 wins (Vegas: 37.5)
2023: 40 wins (Vegas: 42.5)
2022: 46 wins (Vegas: 39.5)
2021: 31 wins (Vegas: 29.5)

Over Expectation: +15.5

Sure, every fan can think of a few gripes they have with his coaching decisions. But, at the end of the day he's clearly overachieved as a baseline here. And he was on a 50+ win pace with the most talented team he had here in 2022 before injuries to Ball and Caruso.

Why are you ignoring the fact 12 of the Bulls 18 wins since February were against teams tanking or missing there best player or a clearly messed up Kings (Bulls west) team? Is that good coaching that they beat up on bad teams and were able to exceed there win projection? Is it good coaching Bulls were the 6-7th in the draft lottery a month ago? Is it good coaching Giddey and White ppg jumped 10 since the Lavine trade? Is it good coaching Matas would have 10+ ppg in the 1st half only to get benched for long stretches in the 2nd? Is it good coaching vets could make a million mistakes and still get 30 mpg? Is it good coaching to lose to Cleveland, OKC and Miami by a combined 69 points in the last week of season? Is it good coaching to beat Toronto, Portland, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia to end the year? Is it good coaching in 5 seasons with Chicago he has made the playoffs once going 1-4 & lost the last 3 seasons in the Play In?

Because it’s totally irrelevant. Every team will play bad, injured, and/or tanking teams over the course of the season, and this is built into the win/loss projections.

Chicago's SOS was #28 since February. W/L projections are calculated before the season. They don't factor in anything but what happens the year before and off season.

[dougthonus]

Chicago's SOS was #28 since February. W/L projections are calculated before the season. They don't factor in anything but what happens the year before and off season.

The schedule gap between teams is low enough that it doesn't really matter. This isn't the NFL where you are playing 3 teams in your division twice, and not playing half the teams in the league at all. The biggest difference in your SOS is based on what conference you are in (all 15 EC teams had easier SOS than all 15 WC teams) and how good your team is, because you play the opposite conference less and don't play yourself.

The Bulls were in a 3 way tie for 6th hardest schedule in the East, so they were absolutely center of the middle of the EC for SOS. The gap between the hardest and easiest schedule in the NBA would imply 1.4 wins. The gap between the Bulls and the hardest schedule is an implied 1 win. The gap between the Bulls and the league average would imply a difference of .328 wins.

It just doesn't matter that much. One could argue that the gaps should be better because WC teams are undercounted because they beat up on each other, but it wouldn't affect the Bulls vs other EC teams nor would this be information that people wouldn't have already predicted pre-season.

In comparison, in the NBA the gap between the easiest/hardest schedule is 1.8% winning percentage. In the NFL it was 14.5%. The gap between easiest and hardest in the NFL implied a 2.5 games difference on a 17 game season vs 1.4 wins on an 82 game season.

[Jcool0]

Chicago's SOS was #28 since February. W/L projections are calculated before the season. They don't factor in anything but what happens the year before and off season.

The schedule gap between teams is low enough that it doesn't really matter. This isn't the NFL where you are playing 3 teams in your division twice, and not playing half the teams in the league at all. The biggest difference in your SOS is based on what conference you are in (all 15 EC teams had easier SOS than all 15 WC teams) and how good your team is, because you play the opposite conference less and don't play yourself.

The Bulls were in a 3 way tie for 6th hardest schedule in the East, so they were absolutely center of the middle of the EC for SOS. The gap between the hardest and easiest schedule in the NBA would imply 1.4 wins. The gap between the Bulls and the hardest schedule is an implied 1 win. The gap between the Bulls and the league average would imply a difference of .328 wins.

It just doesn't matter that much. One could argue that the gaps should be better because WC teams are undercounted because they beat up on each other, but it wouldn't affect the Bulls vs other EC teams nor would this be information that people wouldn't have already predicted pre-season.

In comparison, in the NBA the gap between the easiest/hardest schedule is 1.8% winning percentage. In the NFL it was 14.5%. The gap between easiest and hardest in the NFL implied a 2.5 games difference on a 17 game season vs 1.4 wins on an 82 game season.

Bulls beat mostly bad teams during the resurgence, it doesnt matter if it's 1.2%, 2.7%, 657% better than the NFL, NBA or NHL bad is bad. If you want to think Billy is a good coach because he can coach Bulls teams from a top 10 lottery team to the Play In each year. Have at it. I can also give you NBA players are way more import then coaching. So Billy isn't the Bulls biggest issue. But he probably should of been fired based on what he has done here.

[dougthonus]

Bulls beat mostly bad teams during the resurgence, it doesnt matter if it's 1.2%, 2.7%, 657% better than the NFL, NBA or NHL bad is bad. If you want to think Billy is a good coach because he can coach Bulls teams from a top 10 lottery team to the Play In each year. Have at it. I can also give you NBA players are way more import then coaching. So Billy isn't the Bulls biggest issue. But he probably should of been fired based on what he has done here.

The Bulls were going to play those teams though, and we knew that before the season started, and most teams records are inflated against bad teams (and everyone in the East played the same bad teams). I think it was the Knicks whom had like an 0-for against the top 8 playoff teams or something like that. It's unlikely there is anything particularly unique about the Bulls record in terms of quality wins.

The Bulls had 15 wins against teams whom were better than .500. That's 3 more wins than the Pistons, Magic, and Heat, and tied with the Knicks, which is literally 50% of the teams above them in the East.

What has he done here that you think deserves him being fired (specifically)?

Sometimes teams just want to make a change, I definitely wouldn't be pissed or ranting if we wanted to make a change from BD, but I look at the landscape, and I'd be shocked if the next coach is better. That would change if BD loses the team because the #1 trait you need to be a good coach is player buy-in and once you lose that, it doesn't matter what skills you have, you are now lousy in this situation. That said, clearly not an issue here at this point in time and so on ability, I'm not sure who you think is a clear upgrade, but I don't see anyone I'd label that way.