Coming into the 2007-08 NBA season, a lot of people picked the Chicago Bulls to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals. The Bulls were coming off a playoff where they swept the defending champion Miami Heat before losing to the Detroit Pistons. With basically their whole team returning and one more year of experience for their young players, things were looking up for the Bulls for the first time in a long time.

However, the season didn’t start as planned as the Bulls struggled – winning only nine of their first 25 games. Someone had to pay the price and it turned out to be Chicago’s head coach Scott Skiles. Skiles, who was fired on Christmas Eve, was in his fourth year with the Bulls and seemed to be one of the up-and-coming coaches in the league heading into the year.

The Bulls, who play next Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs, haven’t named their next head coach. There’s a possibility that an assistant coach will be elevated to the head coaching spot. However, there’s also a possibility that the Bulls could bring in an experienced coach from the outside. Names such as Jeff Van Gundy and Larry Brown have begun to surface as potential candidates.

The final straw for Skiles was when the Bulls were humiliated at home against the Houston Rockets by a final score of 116-98 and the home fans booed the Bulls off the court. While general manager John Paxson has reportedly had talks of trading for big name players such as Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett, Paxson decided the direction the team needed to go in included a new head coach.