First came the Sun-Times story Friday evening that included an on-record quote from a player about a coach as damning as any in recent memory. And the fact that it came from an end-of-roster player only added to the effect.
Guard Denzel Valentine was asked if the widespread reports of looming front office changes meant that players were tuning out what they believe a lame-duck head coach.
That's a doubly tautological foot in the rear end, confirming the hypothesis implied in the question. Indeed, they have tuned him out. You can watch this happen with your own eyes during timeouts or at any point in which Boylen begins his screaming and clapping from the bench that's now just background noise to players working it out on their own.
This circus has to be over, but we still don't know when the plug will be pulled or even by whom.
The question of a coaching successor then came into focus Saturday with the news that the Brooklyn Nets had parted ways with the well-respected Kenny Atkinson, reportedly due to a rift with stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. To say Atkinson would be an upgrade over Boylen is to head down the road of too many metaphors to count, but the juxtaposition of the two was just asking for it.
Even if the Bulls were the kind of efficient, opportunistic and forward-thinking operation to consider outreach to Atkinson, they can't. Their new front office presence isn't here yet, and we still have only a nebulous idea of how powerful he or she is going to be with longtime executive John Paxson fully expected to stick around in some undefined capacity. A general manager stepping into a job will want to make the coaching hire and not have it be an inheritance forced down from the top that's beholden to a higher or different organizational level. So we'll have to wait.
What's more, around one-third of the jobs around the NBA could come open at some point this offseason, handing leverage to the handful of sought-after coaches. With the Bulls about to be in full flux managerially and coming of yet another season bedeviled by constant serious injuries, it might be a hard sell for whichever new suit is making the pitch. It might just mean a bigger check for the new guy to want to embrace that level of uncertainty.
Most of what we know about the Bulls' search for new leadership has come from leaks and rumors, alongside the occasional news story like the one from NBC Sports Chicago's K.C. Johnson that named the Pacers' nominal general manager Chad Buchanan as a potential candidate. An optimist assumes a targeted strategy is underway to lure the best and brightest minds to Chicago to fix this, one that marginalizes Paxson significantly after enough time in charge.
Pay no attention to the fact that we have no hard evidence of that. Instead, we have a team floating belly-up in the pond, playing out the string of the last 18 games still under the auspices of an all-timer of an overmatched coach, the promise of competitiveness and playoff contention now just a sick joke.
It seems there's nothing the Bulls can do about it until they find the new eyes they trust to get in and get on with it, which is what it is.