Chicago Bulls: 3 impacts of hiring Marc Eversley
Eversley is player-friendly
As mentioned earlier, Eversley took a bit of a unique path to the NBA, working as an executive for Nike in their retail and marketing departments. In those roles, he developed invaluable relationships with players and forged his “players first” philosophy towards managing a franchise.
Eversley made it clear in his press conference that he wanted to bring that philosophy to the Bulls.
Eversley: “One of my mottos is players first. You have to create a players-first mentality… We’re going to do a pretty diligent job in terms of looking for the proper staff to work with our young guys. Player development is going to be a big focus of this org. moving forward."
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) May 1, 2020
This would be a stark but welcome departure from the current state of affairs within the organization. You do not have to be very perceptive to have noticed that morale wasn’t at an all-time high this season. Players would routinely make their frustrations visible on the court, particularly when Jim Boylen would call one of his patented meaningless, late-game timeouts.
But Boylen took a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” approach, while Eversley is — well — the complete opposite. His time at Nike has helped him see what makes players tick, what stimuli they respond to, both positively and negatively, and how to craft a message that will resonate with his players.
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For all of the skills Eversley brings to the table, perhaps this is the most important for an organization long overdue for a change in philosophy.