Chicago Bulls: 3 biggest disappointments from the 2018-19 NBA season

3. Bulls fire Fred Hoiberg

Coming into the season, former head coach Fred Hoiberg appeared to have the support of the front office. In fact, even before the season began, John Paxson advised that the season would not be judged on wins and losses.

"“You’re not going to hear [general manager] Gar [Forman] and I talk about wins or anything like that,” executive vice president John Paxson told the Chicago Tribune. “But the expectations for us are to see this team come together.”"

With those comments in mind, Hoiberg was going to be given every opportunity to prove that he could be a competent coach at the NBA level. However, it didn’t take very long for that narrative to change once the losses started to pile up.

So, after the Bulls produced just five wins through their first 24 games, the front office relieved Hoiberg of his duties and promoted Jim Boylen to the head coaching seat. Was Hoiberg an elite coach by any means? No.

Did he revamp the offense the way the team had hoped since arriving prior to the start of the 2015-16 season? Nope.

On the other side of the equation, the Bulls never gave Hoiberg the kind of players he needed to implement a pace-and-space offense during the first two years of his tenure. In Year 3, the team went into full rebuild mode, providing Hoiberg with a roster comprised of younger players who had to prove what they could bring to the table on a nightly basis.

Sure, the Bulls got off to a horrific start this season, but that tends to happen when key players are nursing injuries. For the first time since he arrived in Chicago, Hoiberg had the kind of roster he needed to run a faster-paced offense. It’s just a shame he wasn’t given the chance to show what kind of coach he could be with a complement of healthy players to work with.