FRONTOFFICE METHODS AREN’T WITH THE TIMES
Limiting coach’s say on personnel may be setting Bulls back
MINNEAPOLIS — Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg always has said the lines of communication between him and the front office have been great.
But make no mistake: Roles are very much defined in the Bulls’ organization. Coaches coach, and the front office handles personnel.
The Bulls’ acquisition of guard Michael Carter- Williams is just the latest example of that.
Hoiberg was hired because of the space- and- pace offensive system he used at Iowa State. And while Hoiberg has been given some bigname players since the Bulls failed to make the playoffs last season, Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and Carter- Williams don’t exactly fit into his vision. Still, he’s willing to change the system to suit the personnel.
The bigger question, though, is whether the Bulls are going backward in their style of building a team and failing to take into account Hoiberg’s needs.
No coach knows how the Bulls’ front office operates better than Tom Thibodeau. And few know both sides of the NBA coaching coin better than Thibodeau. He went having little to no say about personnel matters while he coached the Bulls to having the final say as the coach and president of basketball operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
‘‘ I think every situation is different,’’ Thibodeau said when asked Tuesday how important it is for a coach to have the final say in personnel decisions. ‘‘ In Boston, working with [ president of basketball operations] Danny [ Ainge] and [ coach] Doc [ Rivers in 2007- 10], everyone was involved with personnel decisions. Everyone was encouraged to give their opinion. I think the important thing is to make sure that everyone does have a voice. It could be a video guy, it could be an assistant coach, it could be a scout.’’
Thibodeau had a voice early in his tenure with the Bulls, but it was increasingly ignored as the lines of communication with the front office broke down.
If the Bulls’ front office would have listened to Thibodeau, they might have drafted Draymond Green and Gorgui Dieng instead of Marquis Teague and Tony Snell, might not have dismantled the Bench Mob and might have added free agents to the roster.
‘‘ The most important thing for me [ taking the Timberwolves’ job] was the alignment,’’ Thibodeau said. ‘‘ Towork with a group of people that shared a common belief system and what goes into winning. When you put competitive people together, you may not necessarily agree on every decision, but once you decide on what you’re going to do, everyone has to align andmove forward.’’
Given the chance to question how the Bulls make their personnel decisions, Thibodeau took the high road and said: “Well, I think there’s no one way to do anything. There’s a lot of good ways to do it.’’
But is the better scenario to allow the coach to have final say in personnel matters?
‘‘ I think you see it more in football,’’ Thibodeau said. ‘‘ I think it’s come into basketball more, but . . . in traveling around last year and looking at a lot of different teams, the one thing you see is the growth of all the organizations, as far as how many people there are. So there’s a lot of information that you’re getting, and I think that helps you make the right decisions.’’