johnnyvann840 wrote:chitowndish wrote:I agree Boylen isn't smooth when he talks but he is genuine and the players do see that and buy into it. Lavine paid his fine, Butler still gets together with him and Carter credited him for being a great mentor before he ever became head coach and I think these things all mean something because it's above and beyond normal support. I think this is because someone being genuine and hokey comes off as better to the people going to war with the guy and lame to people on the outside looking in where being polished but not being trustworthy plays better to the media and fans but the players see through it instantly. I was one that trashed Boylen's leadership when he started because it seemed like he was name dropping and throwing people under the bus but while I get that people aren't into his spirit talk, he did get that team to buy into things and above and beyond just listening to their coach they genuinely seem to like and support the guy. The other impressive thing as someone pointed out in the press conference is White and Gafford both knew exactly what roles they had, Boylen did a great job explaining what they were in front of everyone and the players seemed to know what they can bring to the team and what they need to work on and seemed to have bought into it which was pretty impressive that quickly. Leadership is something that I thought was a massive weakness of the guy but it's been pretty impressive how he turned it around and I honestly feel like this is a strength of his. Will he eventually wear on guys like Thibs I don't know but for now I do think this is pretty impressive.
Coaching wise I think Boylen is a good coach because the multiple ball handler offense was a case where he realized that Dunn pounding the ball was killing us, he saw that we had the personnel to implement this kind of offense because we had a lot of good passers and decision makers and then he was able to effectively implement it mid season. A lot of coaches try and fit the team to the system and I think this is a case where he fit the system to the team and it worked. It worked really well too that was some of the best basketball I've seen the Bulls play in a while it was really fun to watch and everyone was feeding off it and everyone was staying involved. They shut the team down after Feb but I think that was pretty clearly to tank they just started pulling people out of the rotation. Boylen gets a lot of flack for playing slow but he did exactly what he said he was going to do, he said the team was horribly conditioned so he had to just get them into shape, he said they couldn't run basic plays so they would have to walk before they ran while he taught them and then he implemented the multiple ball handler offense which worked great and then they shut it down. I think the guy can coach but I guess we'll see.
Not sure what the players bought into last season was good or bad, though. I mean, they won 22 games and they were the single worst Bulls team in 18 years.
That's basically averaging their performance under Hoiberg, while Boylen tried to implement a new system and while the team was tanking and trying to blame it on the guy that actually had the team playing well in Feb. After Feb they started pulling players which I don't put on him and he turned that team around before they started tanking. It took him some time to turn it around but that's understandable given he was given the team mid season and he was right the team was in horrible shape and couldn't run basic plays which he did turn around. You can average the whole year and ignore the trend but I don't think that is going to result in the right conclusion on the guy.