The Chicago Bulls’ season is over. As the 10th-seed in the Eastern Conference with a horrid 22-43 record, they weren’t invited to the 2019-20 season’s return in Orlando, Florida. This will be the team’s third-straight losing campaign and the fourth time in the last five years where they didn’t qualify for the playoffs.

Much of the blame has been casted on second-year coach Jim Boylen, a career assistant who was part of three championship teams (’94 Rockets, ’95 Rockets, ’14 Spurs) and was thus expected to bring the Bulls back into contention. He took over the team midway in the 2018-19 season.

Boylen wasn’t able to do much last year and the struggles continued this season, so it wasn’t long before the growingly frustrated Bulls fans became hostile – props to Boylen for staying cool.

Being the team’s star and all, Zach Lavine is often getting asked about his embattled coach. He recently did an interview with Chicago writer Sam Smith, and had to address the coaching situation yet again.

“I’m going to keep saying the same thing that I always have. It’s not for me to judge somebody. I think he goes out there and does his best. I don’t think anyone in this organization or the NBA goes out there and tries to fail. Sometimes it’s out of your power, your win-loss record or what happens in games. I know for a fact he tries, he’s does his best, and as a player that’s all you can ask for sometimes. As a player I try to go out there, follow the lead, go out there and do my job, and decisions on things like that I leave that up to higher management. That’s not my role in the organization. I think you knew I was going to answer that correctly.”

Say what you want about the overly safe answer, but you have to admit that Lavine worded it perfectly. It might be the nicest thing he has said about Boylen.

As you know, the two have had a rocky relationship. The continuous losing is a factor, but it’s mostly because Boylen is – for a lack of a better term – a hard-ass, which is only bad because he doesn’t have the coaching skills and accolades to back it up (at least not yet).

You can even find a compilation of good ‘ol Jim being a tough cookie. Some of his greatest hits is his response as to why swingman Denzel Valentine is getting in and out of the rotation, where he blankly said “Because I said so.” Nice.

Then there’s also this strange habit of calling timeouts whenever the game is out of reach. One during a 25-point blowout against the Toronto Raptors with only 1:04 left and one where they were down 10 and only 30.3 seconds left. Lavine was really annoyed and mouthed an expletive.

To be fair, Boylen did offer a good explanation for his actions, claiming that he wanted to try plays for his young players, and that he’ll never stop coaching just because it’s a blowout.

What’s weird, however, is he doesn’t know that he needs to call a timeout when one of his player is injured.

Well, what’s at least encouraging is the Bulls have a new Vice President of Basketball Operations in Arturas Karnisovas, who helped build the current Denver Nuggets. We’ll see if he’ll make the change that the fans are itching for.