Bulls find no-shortcut guy, landing Tiago Splitter as new head coach

It almost felt more pipedream than realistic job description, but Bryson Graham’s expectations were his expectations, and in the world of the Bulls’ new executive vice president of basketball operations there are no shortcuts.

Tiago Splitter is a no-shortcut guy, and he will now be the organization’s 25th head coach, replacing Billy Donovan, a source confirmed on Monday.

“In terms of what we’re looking for, we’re looking for someone who is smart, we’re looking for someone that can lead, and someone that has a really high character,” Graham said last month in his original requests of what he would be looking for to fill that coaching vacancy. “We also want someone who when I say smart, they’re good on both sides of the ball. A lot of times now you have coaches that lean towards offense and they lean towards defense, and that’s fine, but we’re going to try and find the coach that can coach both sides of the ball and care about both sides of the ball. And then develop these guys, as they are obviously young in their careers.”

Splitter already has a sample size as an NBA head coach and an impressive one at that. A former NBA Championship player with the Spurs, Splitter became as assistant in Brooklyn back in 2019, eventually working his way to Portland.

He became the team’s head coach earlier this season, inheriting a complete mess in the wake of former head man Chauncey Billups arrested in connection with an illegal gambling investigation. All Splitter did was refocus a young team to getting in the play-in and beating Phoenix to become a playoff team.

Portland was flirting with keeping him, but a source told the Sun-Times that his former organization had also been making offers to other coaches in the process.

(Visited 3 times, 3 visits today)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *