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It’s nice to see someone like Gar Forman get promoted to Bulls General Manager, which will be made official at a Berto Center press conference Thursday.

John Paxson will remain in charge as Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, which is Paxson’s current title. The shorthand for that title around the NBA is General Manager. The Bulls have not officially had that title in recent years. Forman was Director of Player Personnel. So he gets a new title and some additional day to day internal responsibilities.

There was a fuss back in February about an erroneous report that Paxson was resigning.

That never was the case. But Paxson has been trying to get away from more day to day operations with the franchise and concentrate more on personnel decisions. So Forman figures to be involved in more of the daily “office manager” type activities that also fall on a general manager in addition to other responsibilities he’s taken on in recent seasons, including more direct relations with agents in contract talks.

The team’s hierarchy won’t change with Jerry Reinsdorf at the top with Paxson the ranking figure in Basketball Operations.

For Forman it’s a welcome reward for someone who went about his duties the way many of us want to be recognized: For our work ethic. Not just for telling everyone how good we are.

Forman has been the classic, behind the scenes foot soldier for the Bulls, a coaching and personnel lifer who came with Tim Floyd in 1998 as a scout and was the only one of the Floyd group to endure and work his way up quietly in various scouting and personnel jobs.

Forman worked the basketball bushes for years, starting as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Utah State, and then working his way through the less glamorous places like College of the Desert in Palm Springs, Cal Poly Pomona and New Mexico State, where he got to know Floyd. Forman then joined Floyd at Iowa State in 1994 and came to the Bulls with Floyd.

None of that, necessarily, suggests a career path to a top executive position with one of the major franchises in the NBA. But it’s good to see hard work, study and quiet determination pay off. It suggests hope for those who don’t have the right connections, influences or the ability to dunk a basketball.