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The Chicago Bulls shocked absolutely nobody today when they officially announced that they had fired Tom Thibodeau as head coach of their team.
Thibodeau had a stellar run with the franchise, winning approximately 65 percent of his games in his five years there while also winning Coach of the Year in his first season during the 2010-11 campaign.
With that said, to me, Thibodeau was essentially Terrence Fletcher from ‘Whiplash’ — always screaming at his players to try to get the best out of them, and pushing them to play to their maximum potential even if they were absolutely exhausted. Unfortunately for both he and the Bulls, this never resulted in a championship, or even an appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals. Like another terrific short-term coach who coached the Bulls at one point, Doug Collins, Thibodeau eventually made his players numb to his hollering, as he seemed to treat every match, even a meaningless regular season game, like it was the most important game that had ever been played in the sport.
You have to love his intensity, but ultimately frown at his inability to achieve any sort of balance in both his rotations and his attitude towards his players. It has been reported numerous times over the years that many consider him to be a good guy, but a taxing person to work for who has made the game miserable for some players who have been on his teams.
Thibodeau will definitely get another head coaching job in the NBA, as he should. There is no questioning his genius basketball mind and his defensive schemes that have routinely frustrated oppositions over the years. He is obsessed with basketball, and wants to be the best coach he possibly can be, which he obviously believes can be done by going hoarse yelling at his players while playing them 40-plus minutes per game.
As said, I think he is one of the best basketball gurus in the game today, but he must learn to achieve balance in both his personality and rotations going forward. He should start by not screaming at the top of his lungs at his guys all the time, and he should stop playing them for excessive minutes in blowout losses that they have no shot of winning.
His time with the Bulls was an intriguing run to say the least, and I really do hope he can learn from his time there. Wherever he coaches next, he must consider changing his ways a little bit so that he does not end up wearing his next team out as well. If he does this, I firmly believe it will help him stick with an organization for a long time with better results.
Dan Schultz is a Senior Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on twitter @dschultz89. “Like” him on Facebook and add him on Google.
