Bulls understandably fire a top four coach... and replace him with Fred Hoiberg

It is one of the hardest jobs in sports. Surely, it must be fantastically thrilling to be leading an NBA team in its quest for glory. But the expectations never fail to be unrealistic and the firing trigger never fails to be quick. More times than not the decision to fire a head coach is too quick. Not, it pains me to say, in the case of the Chicago Bulls.

Tom Thibodeau is a great NBA head coach and will find a great job immediately. But the Bulls front office has been at odds with Thibs for some time and now realized, it was time to let him go. The main point of discontent between the coach and management in Chicago was playing time management and training regime. Tom Thibodeau is an old school basketball guy – he goes hard. The Bulls practice harder than just about any team in the league. Then, they play really heavy minutes as Thibs usually keeps his rotation short unless he has a particularly strong bench, which he did this year, but the rotation was still quite top heavy. Just ask the Miami Heat, who when they signed Luol Deng thought they were getting a solid 2008 Lexus – a former all-star, with a great reputation of a being a solid player, and a hard-worker. But just like highway miles on the car of a boring commuter are different than miles of a city kid skidding into every corner, Bulls mileage is different than other NBA teams. At just 30 years of age, Deng is clearly in decline, with his production dropping significantly from his best 2013 season when he averaged 19 pts, 4as, 7reb to a meager 14, 2, and 5 with injuries and missing action being an issue throughout his career. Jimmy Butler who has brilliantly replaced Deng in Thibs' system seems to be on his way to a similar career path as he's averaging close to 40 minutes per game, leading the league in minutes played, since becoming a starter.

The Bulls have had plenty of excuses for not winning the championship, while still providing plenty of reason to support and be proud of the overachieving Bulls who took on the personality of their coach, adopted a 'next-man-up approach, went to work, and delivered solid seasons with playoff excitement every year. And both the players and the coach deserve an massive amount of credit for that.

However, in today's NBA success requires an old school attitude to be supplemented by new school smarts. Tom Thibodeau only provided the former. Recent success of the Spurs and their ultra cautious approach to the strain that the NBA season puts on the body along with the success of teams relying more heavily on analytics make Thibodeau seem like a basketball caveman. He's stuck in his ways to the point that John Paxson and Gar Forman have had enough. The minutes and hard practices are one thing. But he seems to be insanely loyal to his thought process once he's made a decision. Watching the Bulls games this season, one noticed that Thibs was loyal to his rotation to a fault and seemed incapable of making adjustments on the fly that could potentially benefit his team. This was never more evident than when he absolutely blew it in the Cavs series.

In the latter half of the third quarter of a close Game 4, with the Bulls up 2-1 in the series, Lebron picked up his forth foul. With Love and Kyrie unavailable or hobbled, the Cavs coach – Tyronn Lue knew it was crucial to keep him on the floor. Instead of punishing the Cavs for that gamble by any means necessary, Thibodeau put in his boy Joachim Noah who's never been a good offensive player, but in this series actually could have broken the backboard with some of his shots and subbed out Taj Gibson, a much more dangerous offensive player. In an obvious move, the Cavs kept James on the floor, put him on offensively useless Noah, and won a crucial game that the Bulls seemed to be in control of, which would have given them a commanding 3-1 series lead.

Personally I am a big fan of all parties involved here and wish Tom Thibodeau nothing but the best. But he owes his next employer an adjustment. He has to catch up today's NBA. If a consensus top four coach in the NBA gets fired after a 50 win season, that decision should feel controversial – but it doesn't, it almost feels inevitable.

Which brings me to Hoiberg. Every time we discuss a possible coaching change, a crucial point often gets left out of the conversation. Whom will you replace him with? Fred Hoiberg! Wait, what? Why?!

Alvin Gentry was available – an offensive mastermind respected around the league enough to be able to exploit the defensive principles left behind by the previous regime and maximize the team's offensive prowess, of which there is plenty. All while keeping in mind that the team has is relatively older, has been through a lot, needs to be very carefully observed, assessed, and rested, but is surely good enough to win an NBA championship.

I applaud the Hornets for realizing Monty Williams wasn't capable of getting the most out of his team despite an unquestionably, tremendously successful season. The brave firing of Mark Jackson last offseason has set an NBA precedent that it is OK to fire head coaches even after relatively fruitful production. And it seems obvious that the Hornets upgraded. But Bulls' pick of Hoiberg and the Magic's pick of Scott Skiles seem more like cases of nostalgic nepotism, rather than well-thought out decisions.

The team will claim that Gar Forman has known Hoiberg since the latter was a teenager and has had him hand picked to lead the Bulls to the promised land. And Hoiberg, like anyone, deserves a fair shot. My affection for the Bulls will translate to genuine support for the head coach, until we have enough data to make evaluations. However, it seems the Bulls cared first and foremost about having someone on the bench that they can control. While like-mindedness on the management-coach line is generally a good thing, the Bulls may have overestimated its significance and never really entertained a thought that a better coach may be available.

Bulls fans have been though a lot. Having said that the efforts of management to bring a championship-contending team to the city cannot go unnoticed and Pax and Gar deserve credit for that. Let's just hope they'll deserve credit fr this hire. Because if this decision wastes the last productive years of Pau, doesn't translate to the continued development of Jimmy Butler, or worst of all doesn't lead to meaningful success for Chicago's favorite sports son, Derick Rose, an avalanche of criticism will rain upon them.