After Chris Broussard reported Vinny Del Negro was out the door once the Bulls found a replacement for him, I thought it was a pretty telling sign that after Del Negro defended his honor and said he was on the same page as management and that “rumor” was bunk, no one from the front office stepped up.

GM Gar Forman declined to talk to reporters the same day Vinny was saying everything was all good. If Vinny is really their guy, really the person they want leading this time now, and for the foreseeable future, why wouldn’t Forman step to the mic and put all the rumors to rest? Why wouldn’t he tell the media that Del Negro is “our guy” and we’re sticking behind him?

Because that’s likely not the truth. That’s why.

But Forman did step to the mic yesterday. And here’s what he had to say, via the Chicago Tribune:

Asked if the Bulls are committing to Del Negro for the remainder of the season, Forman said: “I feel we shouldn’t talk about evaluations with any personnel that we do internally. We are all being evaluated at all times. That goes from me to our management staff to our coaching staff to our players. Those are things we keep internally.”

Asked specifically where he’d like to see Del Negro improve, Forman said: “I don’t know if you pin it on one guy,” Forman said. “As a whole, we want to get better defensively. We’ve talked about that all year. We want a defensive base to how we play the game. We want to be an up-tempo team that gets up and down the floor and takes advantage of our athleticism.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d say Gar Forman has a nice career in politics ahead of him. Talk about two non-answers completely avoiding the questions at hand.

The fact that there continues to be no vote of confidence for Del Negro from the front office leads me, and everyone else, to believe that Broussard’s report was correct: Del Negro’s days are numbered as head coach of the Bulls.