Regardless of the hour, regardless of the player, the ritual turned into a game for the Bulls.

Whenever they were in the Berto Center working out, they had to look at the window on the other side of the facility to determine whether or not Tom Thibodeau was in his office.

Luoi Deng stated, “I don’t know if he gets here at 5 or 6 a.m. But he’s here early. And he’s the last to leave.”

Earlier in the year, Joakim Noah was more succinct.

He said in a teasing way, “It’s kind of annoying. He lives at the gym. You can’t get away from him.”

All his hard work has paid off.

As a first year head coach in the NBA, Thibodeau was the overwhelming winner of the NBA Coach of the Year Award. 76 voters gave him first place, and he appeared on 113 out of the 119 ballots to earn 475 points. This was quite a bit more than the head coach of the 76ers Doug Collins, who also once coached the Bulls. Gregg Popovich of the Spurs and George Karl of the Nuggets placed 3rd and 4th in the voting.