Key Points
- The Chicago Bulls are hiring Tiago Splitter as head coach, per ESPN's Shams Charania.
- Splitter replaces Billy Donovan, who stepped down after six seasons.
- He went 42-39 as Portland's interim coach and reached the playoffs.
- The Bulls cited his leadership and player-development focus.
The Chicago Bulls are finalizing a deal to make Tiago Splitter their next head coach, ESPN's Shams Charania reported Monday. Splitter, who ran the Portland Trail Blazers on an interim basis last season, replaces Billy Donovan, who stepped down after six years on the Bulls' bench.
Why Splitter
Chicago landed on Splitter out of a four-man finalist group that also included Minnesota assistant Micah Nori, Atlanta assistant Ryan Schmidt, and current Bulls assistant Wes Unseld Jr. Front-office sources pointed to his leadership and his focus on player development as the deciding factors — the qualities a young, still-rebuilding roster needs most.
The Portland audition
Splitter earned the job on the back of a difficult stint in Portland, where he took over under chaotic circumstances and guided the Blazers to a 42-39 record and their first playoff appearance in five years. Squeezing a winning record and a postseason berth out of that situation was the kind of result that turns an interim tag into a real candidacy.
The pedigree
This is a hire with a clear lineage. Splitter is a former Spurs big man who won the 2014 NBA title in San Antonio, schooled in the Gregg Popovich system that prizes ball movement, defense, and developing players over chasing names. The Bulls are betting that the same developmental discipline travels to Chicago — that a coach who came up inside the league's gold-standard program can develop the roster it already has.
The read
With the season just closed on the Knicks' run to the Finals, the NBA's coaching carousel is turning, and Chicago has made one of its more interesting bets. The Bulls have been stuck in the league's middle for years — not bad enough to bottom out, not good enough to matter. Hiring a development-first coach with a Spurs pedigree is a tell about the timeline: this is a build, not a quick fix.
Source: NBA.com, CBS Sports
Comments