Despite All His Rage, Tom Thibodeau Is Still Just a Rat In a Cage

Sports hurt more than they should. As leisure-time activities go, they wallop us in the gut with greater force and frequency than, say, gardening. You sink into the couch after a long day at the TPS report factory to watch a basketball game, and what was meant to be a pleasant diversion, it quickly becomes apparent, is going to be a thoroughly enervating experience. Your team is having one of those nights: careless on offense, sluggish on defense. You think, as their deficit deepens, about how you would be in a better mood if you had chosen to commune with the backyard petunias instead.

Chicago Bulls fans are being visited by this feeling more regularly than they are accustomed to. If one thing has defined the Tom Thibodeau era Bulls besides cruel injury luck, it has been a defense that resembles an immortal's immune system. This season, with a bunch of new players and a finally-healthy-seeming Derrick Rose, the Bulls are sporting a league-average defense and are currently suffering through one of the more disorganized spells of basketball they've played in years. Nine of the Bulls' past 11 opponents have scored at least 100 points against them. Chicago is 5-6 over that span. They sit fourth in an underpowered Eastern Conference they had designs on winning at the season's outset.

The players are frustrated. Derrick Rose told reporters on Monday that "everybody needs to be on the same page. Until then, we're going to continue to get our ass[es] kicked." Taj Gibson called the team's defense "unbearable" after a loss to the Magic last week, and Pau Gasol, in a typically Gasol-ian moment of emotional honesty, said "I am upset. I am upset. We've given away too many home games against teams that we shouldn't. That has to stop."

At least Rose, Gibson, and Gasol can function as their own recourse. If they can get themselves on track, success will follow. Less able to affect change is their boss: a balding man in a suit dancing along the sidelines, waving his arms as if he might at any moment acquire telekinetic powers and be able to move his players into the places they need to be. Tom Thibodeau looks frantic and exhausted when his team is up by 20. If the Bulls don't pull out of this swoon soon, one fears for the integrity of his stomach lining.

There are two types of coaches, broadly speaking: those who control what they can and try not to worry about what they can't, and those for whom their limited agency is a source of constant agony. Thibodeau falls into the latter category. He doesn't seem to get angry with his players so much as he gets angry that he cannot inhabit their minds and bodies simultaneously, so they can perfectly execute his vision. He's like if Michelangelo had a gout flare-up and was forced to instruct someone else to paint the Sistine Chapel's ceiling in his stead. Each brush stroke kills him a little bit.

The notion of coach-as-fan-avatar has been around since the first time a fan noticed he had more in common with the dumpy tactician on the sideline than the superhumans on the court. Because of that identification--and because of sports being one of the few arenas in our culture in which it is permissible to fly into high dudgeon over something that's not particularly important--fans have tended to lionize coaches who publicly and demonstrably chew players out. They apparently want coaches to hurt players for the pain the players have inflicted upon them. This explains why someone like Bobby Knight would be, not just put in charge of college kids for decades, but praised for the way he made men of them. It also explains the stature of Jim Harbaugh, Sir Alex Ferguson, Roy Williams, and Earl Weaver.

A thing to like about the NBA is that it's a player's league, which means bullying coaches get run out of town. You can be fiery, but only up to a point. Tom Thibodeau stands directly on top of that point, and this makes him an ideal avatar for the humanistic fan. He very nearly cares too much, but he doesn't sell out his players or embarrass them. He chooses carefully when to needle them in the press and when to protect them. He is passionate without spilling into ragefulness; he is demanding without being impossible. He seems to understand that he is a dyspeptic middle manager, not a god. This doesn't make the failures and mistakes hurt any less, but it does hold the respect of his players.

Thibodeau during an in-progress loss is a sight to behold. He calls out defensive instructions as if his team is about to be struck by an oncoming car, and he puts in an aerobic workout that threatens to drench his blazer in sweat. By the end, he is wet and red. He looks like a Bulls fan feels.