All signs point to Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg seeing Year 4

HOUSTON — Coach Fred Hoiberg is eight games away from completing the third year of his five-year contract.

Barring an unforeseen change of heart by the Bulls’ front office and ownership, Hoiberg will see a fourth year.

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Yes, the Bulls’ 118-86 loss Tuesday to the Rockets was ugly, especially considering Houston rested James Harden and Clint Capela. It was the sixth consecutive loss for the Bulls and their 50th of the season.

But at least Hoiberg has had the full support of his bosses throughout the early stages of this rebuild.

“I’ve gotten unbelievable support from everybody throughout the year, going back to what I thought was a great offseason and training camp,’’ Hoiberg said. “We battled through some adversity. It’s very much appreciated when you’re in the head-coaching position. From [president] Michael [Reinsdorf] to [vice president of basketball operations] John [Paxson] to [general manager] Gar [Forman], all the support we’ve gotten and how we’re trying to build the right habits, it’s been there throughout the year, through the good times and bad.

“Obviously, the position that we’re in now with trying to see the young guys and if they fit with what we want to do long-term, there are going to be some highs and lows. Throughout it all, there has been a lot of support.’’

Against the Rockets, Zach LaVine (knee) and Kris Dunn (toe) again were sidelined.

Rookie Lauri Markkanen was back in the lineup and made an impact with 22 points, but the Bulls were bringing a knife to a gunfight from the opening tip.

Hoiberg tried to take the blame for the latest showing, but Denzel Valentine wasn’t having any of it.

“Coach is a good man, so he’s going to try to take responsibility, but as players, we have to take responsibility, too,’’ Valentine said. “We’re the ones out there playing.’’

Hoiberg is still hanging his hat on the 10-6 record the Bulls had in December, as well as how well they were playing into January before Dunn was lost for almost five weeks because of a concussion.

He not only hopes that type of basketball is a sign of things to come, but admitted that the front office was all in on him coaching to win as many games as possible at that time — whether Bulls fans embraced that approach or not.

“The position we were in at that time, we put a really good stretch of basketball together,’’ Hoiberg said. “They always told us to compete and do everything you can to put the team in position to win.

‘‘At that time of year, we were still seeing what we had with Kris Dunn. We were still figuring out what we had with Lauri. We didn’t have Zach in the fold, but we were talking about things we could do when everybody was healthy. Niko [Mirotic] and Bobby [Portis] were playing at a really high level. Robin [Lopez] and Justin [Holiday], our veteran guys, were playing some of the best basketball of their careers. We wanted to keep that going.

“Unfortunately, we just didn’t get the look with everybody when we were playing so well. If we could’ve added Zach to that mix when we were playing so well — he played a couple of games, which I think we won with him playing limited minutes — it would’ve been fun to continue that ride to see how long we could’ve kept it going.’’