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Tom Thibodeau and Jeff Hornacek return home to Chicago and Phoenix, coaching new teams

Jeff Hornacek and Tom Thibodeau let loose. (Getty Images)
Jeff Hornacek and Tom Thibodeau let loose. (Getty Images)

Tom Thibodeau and Jeff Hornacek both failed to win a championship as coach of the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns, but Thibodeau did win an NBA Coach of the Year Award, while Hornacek came in second back in 2013-14. And any NBA head coach will tell you that the Coach of the Year Award is as respected and as sought-after as the prize for taking your team all the way to an …

… none of this is even close to true. Thibs and Hornacek had their relative batches of professional success at both outposts, but with no rings to reflect upon their respective returns to Chicago and Phoenix on Tuesday feel a bit lackluster. Whereas other returning championship coaches would get the Christmas Day, nationally-broadcast treatment in front of a flickering fire, Thibodeau and Hornacek’s new outfits from Minnesota and New York will have to entertain us on a random mid-December Tuesday in contests that won’t move the dial much.

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Whether or not these two circled the calendar upon taking their new jobs is up for anyone’s guess, but given what we know about either head coach it seems like a long shot. A move unlike Thibodeau’s character, as he’s usually too focused on getting this breakfast nailed perfectly that he’s often too distracted from even admitting he’ll ever eat another lunch in his life. And Hornacek? He seems a little too grounded to be obsessed with getting one back on the team that let him go.

Thibodeau was bounced from the Bulls in the spring of 2015, while Hornacek received the same treatment from Phoenix midway through 2015-16. Thibs’ 6-18 Wolves will take on Chicago’s 13-10 crew in Illinois on Tuesday in an ESPN-aired affair, while Hornacek’s surprising 14-10 Knicks will meet up with the lowly 7-17 Suns on local TV.

The 2011 NBA Coach of the Year, who led the Bulls to repeated top regular season records in 2011 and 2012 before injuries and a whole spate of teachable moments swung hard, seemed as pleased as usual with being the focus of something that is only tangentially related to having to close out properly on shooters.

Not that he’ll have to fret about that as much with these Bulls, ranked last in the NBA in three-point attempts, makes and percentage. Though with Thibs, you’ll imagine he’ll find a way. From Jerry Zgoda at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“I spent five great years here,” said Thibodeau, the NBA Coach of the Year that first season. “It’s a team that has great history and tradition and fan base. It’s a great basketball city and sports town. That part is great. The building itself is a great building to play in. I’m looking forward to it.”

Which is to say, for Thibs, “not good enough.”

Any leftover, well, anything from his time spent working with Bulls bosses John Paxson and Gar Forman?

I would want to talk to Jerry Reinsdorf too, were he not currently stuck in his Arizona den watching old VHS tapes of Bobby Thigpen’s finest hours. We should recall that the Bulls owner decided to see Thibodeau on his way via an NBA-owner-level petty press release after five playoff runs under his tight command:

“The Chicago Bulls have a history of achieving great success on and off the court. These accomplishments have been possible because of an organizational culture where input from all parts of the organization has been welcomed and valued, there has been a willingness to participate in a free flow of information, and there have been clear and consistent goals. While the head of each department of the organization must be free to make final decisions regarding his department, there must be free and open interdepartmental discussion and consideration of everyone’s ideas and opinions. These internal discussions must not be considered an invasion of turf, and must remain private. Teams that consistently perform at the highest levels are able to come together and be unified across the organization-staff, players, coaches, management and ownership.

“When everyone is on the same page, trust develops and teams can grow and succeed together. Unfortunately, there has been a departure from this culture. To ensure that the Chicago Bulls can continue to grow and succeed, we have decided that a change in the head coaching position is required. Days like today are difficult, but necessary for us to achieve our goals and fulfill our commitments to our fans. I appreciate the contributions that Tom Thibodeau made to the Bulls organization. I have always respected his love of the game and wish him well in the future.”

In the same press release, Gar Forman referred to Thibodeau having “some success” as Bulls coach, insulting those who for five years watched the man win 65 percent of his games with what was essentially an injury-decimated roster for four of his five seasons.

Tom Thibodeau, near the end. (Getty Images)
Tom Thibodeau, near the end. (Getty Images)

With just Taj Gibson, Jimmy Butler, and Nikola Mirotic left over from his time on the Bulls, Thibodeau isn’t exactly returning to Chicago to take on a roster full of familiar faces. Gibson, a longtime sixth man, actually starts now, while Mirotic was merely a rookie during his lone year with Thibodeau.

Butler went from fringe rookie to franchise cornerstone under his time with Tom Thibodeau. This season, his second under new Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg, has seen him jump in some metrics into a top-three standing among the NBA’s elite. Without a chance to take on a Thibodeau-led team in 2015-16, he’s champing at the bit for Tuesday:

“I would say it’s another game, but I think everybody knows how I feel about Thibs,” Butler said. “I respect the s— out of the guy and what he’s trying to do [in Minnesota].

“He was here for the beginning stages of my career, I’ve gotten better since then and I want to show him what I’m capable of.”

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Gibson, a coach’s dream who spent too many years in back of Carlos Boozer in the Bulls starting lineup, had this to say about the coach that would let him finish games with the starting unit:

“I hope he gets a nice ovation,” Gibson said. “Nobody can change the times here. We played a lot of great basketball for a number of years, short-handed, too. So you got to give him his just due, even though it might be hard for some people to do that.”

All well and good, but at some point there will be a game to play. And while the Bulls have been maddeningly inconsistent from game to game this season, Thibodeau’s Wolves have been the same from quarter to quarter. In ways that can’t be argued away after pointing to the precocious nature of the team’s rotation, largely made up of players who were born around the same time free AOL CDs started showing up in the mail.

Derrick Rose, a former star under Thibodeau currently working in New York, can’t imagine his former coach being happy with the turnout so far. From Jon Krawczynski at the Associated Press:

”He’s probably driving himself crazy,” Rose said. ”A lot of late nights. His staff is probably having a lot of late nights, too. But it all comes with just trying to win. He’s a winner at heart. He wants to win every game. That’s the crazy thing about him. Some games you’re going to lose, but he’s probably up late nights and driving himself crazy a little bit.”

The deepest Thibodeau fell into a hole in Chicago was the 9-16 run that started his 2013-14 campaign, the first year with Rose working tentatively after major surgeries on both knees.

At 6-18, Thibs has to Thibs:

”I’m going to keep coming. I don’t go away,” he vowed. ”I’m going to look at everything, re-examine. Something’s being missed. It’s got to change.”

From Monday:

“It’s a new day,” Thibodeau said. “You don’t look back, you don’t look ahead. Concentrate on what we have to do here (in Minnesota).”

Things are far cheerier for Hornacek, who has somehow managed to turn his Knicks into the sort of team that wins the games they’re supposed to. This would be weird for this sort of motley crew (which features former Thibodeau greyhounds Rose and center Joakim Noah), even without the added pressure of Knick president Phil Jackson chiming in on all matters involving spacing and tact during his infrequent one-on-one meetings with the press.

It also helps that the Suns, the team that threw its hands up on all sorts of experiments when it parted ways with Hornacek last February after a 2-21 run, are rather stinko.

This allows Jeff Hornacek to ease right in. The only anonymous Knick:

“I’ve never really been that way even when I was traded to different cities to go back. To me, it’s another game probably,” he said. “You get to go back to Phoenix to see a lot of people you know.

“You try not to make it a distraction where you’re talking to everybody and seeing everybody. The focus is on the game.”

Unlike Thibodeau, though, Hornacek has a long history with the Suns dating back 30 years. Hornacek was drafted by the team in 1986, became an All-Star there, and was the biggest cog in the deal that helped acquire Charles Barkley for the franchise in 1992.

Jeff Hornacek keeps it smiley. (Getty Images)
Jeff Hornacek keeps it smiley. (Getty Images)

That history didn’t help much when it came time for the Suns to cut ties with their former hybrid guard, hired as a rookie in 2013 prior to what was supposed to be a rebuilding season. Still, Hornacek remains Howard Keel:

“I mean, it’s never a good thing to get fired, but you also understand as coaches it’s going to happen at some point,” he said. “So there’s not many (Gregg Popoviches) who stay around the same team. Jerry Sloan for so many years. So you just kind of understand that.”

Gregg Popovich was nearly let go during his second full season as San Antonio Spurs head coach, though, and Jerry Sloan was fired by Chicago (who never regrets these sorts of things) prior to throwing his hands up and walking away from a Utah Jazz team that was too dominated by free agent-to be Deron Williams in 2011. Absolutely nobody is safe, which is why Tim Duncan (following a San Antonio loss in Chicago on Thursday) has been working in Spurs practice all week, trying to save some jobs.

Earl Watson, Hornacek’s replacement, is working with a secure job. His Suns are 7-17, a little up on the Timberwolves but working without the astonishing level of potential All-NBA-level talent that has Timberwolves fans both giddy about the future, while a step or two away from apoplexy as Thibodeau’s team takes so long in turning the corner.

T.J. Warren is Phoenix’s third-leading scorer at 17.7 per game, shooter Devin Booker is well below the average mark at 31.9 from behind the three-point line, and designated bench scorer Brandon Knight is stuck at just under 38 percent shooting on the year. The Suns foul a ton and despite the presence of the younger Watson the disparate crew just doesn’t seem made for each other.

Tyson Chandler, at age 34, is asked to bang with and lead rookies Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss, two players that were drafted last June at age 18, two wafers that clearly have potential and a protracted waiting game on the ready in equal parts. Eric Bledsoe, after several knee surgeries, would seem to want to win now, while Booker (having only just turned 20 himself) clearly hasn’t been quite ready for his primetime turn.

Hornacek’s Knicks, featuring a whole stable of famous people as team owner James Dolan sees fit, is less chaotic (!) and perhaps even a little more sanguine (!!) than Knick tempests of years past, but this is what winning will do. The team has managed to cobble together a thoroughly mediocre offense (Luke Walton: “They do some triangle stuff but they’re not running the triangle”) out of all these parts while taking advantage of a rather chill schedule of late. The team has won 11 of 15 while throwing its weight around that stop just short of mid-range.

Both will try to stay out of the way on Tuesday, as the players pick up the slack once the whistle blows. It’s a futile exercise, as both know, because it will be the coach (and not the players, front office, or ownership group) that will not only take any potential defeat the hardest, but probably pay for it with his job.

Not just yet, though. The grace period for both Tom Thibodeau and Jeff Hornacek just started. Even in the NBA’s coaching culture, they’ll have some time.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!