Is There Trouble Brewing Between Bulls' Thibodeau, Forman?
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 2, 2013 2:25PM
It looks like we now have something to fill the uncomfortable void between the end of hockey season and the beginning of Bears training camp besides bad baseball.
Sports talk radio chatter the past two days has centered on a possible rift between Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau and GM Gar Forman after Tribune Bulls beat reporter KC Johnson reported Forman declined to renew the contract of lead assistant coach Ron Adams, a longtime friend of Thibodeau.
Although general managers have final say on personnel decisions, including coaches, they tend to be hands off and allow their head coaches to tailor their staffs to their liking. The news of Forman’s actions created a nice distraction from what was supposed to be the Bulls’ introduction of draft picks Tony Snell and Erik Murphy to local media Monday.
Forman took questions about his decision to let Adams go after the rookies left, Thibodeau noticeably absent.
"We're not going to agree on everything, but at the end of the day, I think we both have the best interests of the Bulls moving forward," Forman said. "We unite and we move forward."
Tribune columnist David Haugh, citing sources, said Forman decided to let go of Adams after “a pattern of insubordinate incidents since the end of the season concerned Bulls officials enough to relieve Adams of his duties” and that Thibodeau knew the move was coming, but didn’t like it. It marks the first public hints that Thibodeau—arguably the team’s second-biggest star after Derrick Rose—and Forman aren’t on the same page. Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted Monday the relationship between Thibodeau and Forman is the worst coach/GM relationship in the NBA.
Coaches and general managers don’t have to be BFFs in order for a team to be successful. For the Bulls, look no further than the relationship between Phil Jackson and Jerry Krause, who managed to win six NBA titles together before Krause blew up the Jordan Bulls. Forman’s decision to let Adams go could have ramifications beyond pissing off Thibodeau, however.
Adams was reportedly close to Rose and we know how good a job the Bulls did in not making Rose’s recovery from knee surgery a daily issue. As Haugh notes, “Management trusted Thibodeau to find ways to beat teams with more stars and deal publicly with the Rose saga but not to keep his lead assistant he, more than anybody, needs to trust over a long season? Adams must have severely crossed a line or else this defies logic.”