Thibodeau brings results and reputation to Wolves

3:00 PM ET

“Ice! Ice! Ice!”

It has been almost four years since Kyle Korver last played for Tom Thibodeau and the Chicago Bulls, but the veteran sharpshooter can still hear Thibodeau’s gruff baritone when he closes his eyes.

“I still hear ‘Ice! Ice! Ice!’ like in my dreams,” Korver said recently, referring to a specific defensive call Thibodeau favors. “There’s habits ingrained in me that’s still there.”

Korver’s words came to mind when news broke that Thibodeau had reached a $50 million agreement to be the Minnesota Timberwolves’ president and coach.

Thibodeau, after five seasons as head coach of the Bulls, was fired last spring. There’s no doubt the man can coach. His 255-139 regular-season record during his tenure in Chicago puts him among the game’s elite. His defensive teachings are praised and still used throughout the league.

At his core, Thibodeau is a teacher. He enjoys coaching the game, being in the gym and working with players. He enjoys the process of making his team better.

Most of all, he enjoys winning — and Thibodeau’s relentless drive to win drove a spike through the organization. Some people fiercely loved and defended him, while others despised him by the end. Some players swore by his methods; others weren’t sad to see him go. The passion was palpable on both sides.

There are many layers as to why Thibodeau’s marriage with the Bulls didn’t last. At the heart of the dissolution was the broken relationship between Thibodeau and Bulls executives Gar Forman and John Paxson. They wanted Thibodeau to reduce his starters’ minutes. They wanted younger players to get more playing time. And they wanted Thibodeau — whose door wasn’t always open — to be more accessible to people in the organization.

The final straw came when Jeff Van Gundy, a longtime Thibodeau friend and confidant, said on national television that Bulls management had a long history of undermining coaches. That irritated the executives and disappointed Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf on a personal level.

No matter which side of the severed union people were on, the Bulls needed a change by the end of the 2014-15 season.

There was friction between Thibodeau (left) and Bulls GM Gar Forman (right). AP Photo/David Banks

Thibodeau was a relative unknown to the casual basketball fan when he was hired in the summer of 2010. He was a basketball lifer, having been an assistant coach for six NBA teams during two decades, but nobody was quite sure how he would handle being a head coach.

His team found out quickly that he meant business. He lived and breathed the game.

“I came in here, and I thought no one was in here,” Luol Deng said after a practice in Thibodeau’s first season. “And I tried to just get a few shots up, and he came down [from his office]. And …

continue reading in source espn.go.com