It’s a tad early in the NBA season for an official dumpster fire sighting but smoke appears to be coming from the Windy City. Last Monday, after a 5-19 start, the Chicago Bulls decided to part ways with head coach Fred Hoiberg. Assistant Jim Boylen was officially put in charge though according to one report, Boylen, was to a large degree already coaching the team behind the scenes. Things started out fine under Boylen as Chicago covered in a 96-90 loss at Indiana and then fired back with an outright win over Oklahoma City as +8.5 home underdogs. But then came a 133-77 home loss to Boston. And on Monday, after taking a 56-45 halftime lead over Sacramento, the Bulls melted down in what ended up being a 108-89 loss. Since Boylen took over there have been multiple reports of ill-timed practices, extra sprints, entire rotations being subbed in for, player-only meetings, player-coach meetings, and a near — or currently on-going, depending on how you look at it — mutiny. Basically, Boylen is running things like that Bobby Knight-wannabe high school coach you had who made you utterly despise playing basketball.

As bettors, we’re trained to not get sucked into the media’s often sensationalized interpretations of “bad situations.” After all, these are professionals who have pride and are being paid to do a job. But this is a bad team that prior to the turmoil had difficultly competing on a nightly basis. The Bulls start a seven games in 11 nights stretch on Thursday as they take on Orlando in Mexico City. Perhaps you’ll want to “circle” Monday, December 17 on your calendar with the Bulls traveling to Oklahoma City. After starting the year 0-4 SU and 1-3 ATS, the Thunder are one of the hottest teams in the NBA at 17-4 SU and 14-7 ATS.