As the Chicago Bulls carry on with their rebuild, they will also have to incorporate a new head coach mid-season following the firing of Fred Hoiberg after a 5-19 start.
Chicago has since hired Jim Boylen as their lead man, a coach with plenty of experience as an assistant but stepping into his first head coaching role. Following a loss to the Indiana Pacers in Boylen’s first game as head coach, he was not happy with how his team played down the stretch. Boylen told the Chicago Tribune that conditioning is currently one of the first issues he will work to address.
“I’m really disappointed in our conditioning,” Boylen said. “It’s going to change.”
It’s one thing to ask a team to play a different style of basketball. Getting players physically up to speed to play it is something else, and it’s unrealistic to expect that overnight.
A young team with a lack of veteran leadership, the Bulls will need Jim Boylen to bring about a change to the losing culture that has developed in Chicago over the past couple of years. Being out of game shape is one of the primary things Boylen is hoping to take care of.
Their lack of conditioning was evident even in Boylen’s first game at the helm, as the Bulls simply ran out of gas in the fourth quarter against Indiana and took a narrow loss. Hopefully, Boylen is able to work out at least some of the issues that have plagued the Bulls in recent years, as they look to continue developing their young talent in what is amounting to another lost season.
