Building out the front office was always priority No. 1 for the Bulls’ new man in charge Bryson Graham and that construction project officially broke ground on Tuesday.
As multiple reports indicated last week, Stephen Mervis and Acie Law IV were the first two big pieces added to Graham’s front office, as Mervis will serve as the senior vice president of basketball operations and Law will be the vice president of player personnel.
Keep moving more desks into the second floor of the Advocate Center because Graham is hardly finished.
Since being named executive vice president of basketball operations earlier this month by team president Michael Reinsdorf, Graham not only promised to advance the Bulls from the days of playing checkers to now start playing chess, but was given an empty checkbook by Reinsdorf to do just that.
Mervis and Law were just the first two pieces added to the board and smart additions at that.
Mervis has a nose for salary cap strategy and analytics, spending the last 12 seasons climbing the ranks in Orlando — most recently as their assistant general manager. The strategy background is key, as the Bulls seemingly fell behind on that front during the Arturas Karnisovas regime, according to Reinsdorf.
As for Law, he spent last season as the director of player personnel for Brooklyn, but prior to that he was with the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder from 2022-25, serving as the director of amateur scouting.
It doesn’t hurt that Law and Graham were college teammates back at Texas A&M, but Law’s reputation as a talent finder had taken off in his last few years with the Thunder.
The immediate focus for both Graham and Law — both considered successful talent evaluators — will be the upcoming June 23-24 NBA Draft, with the Bulls currently holding Nos. 4 and 15 in a loaded class.
The good news for both men is there’s no catch-up needed because they’ve each been scouting the class for their previous organizations. Graham was with Atlanta, who also acquired a lottery pick from New Orleans, so admittedly had personally scouted all of the top talent the last six months.
It was a good sign at last week’s draft combine that almost every player projected to go in the top 20 admitted to meeting with Graham and the Bulls.
But Graham has way more on his plate than just the draft.
Besides continuing to add to the front office, there’s a little coaching search that will start picking up momentum in the wake of Billy Donovan opting to leave that seat back in April after six seasons.
There has been a list of names floating out here, including Timberwolves assistant coach Micah Nori and Spurs assistant Sean Sweeney.
Sweeney was front and center during the double-overtime win by San Antonio in Monday’s Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, picked up on camera several times giving final instructions to star big man Victor Wembanyama .
As for Donovan, the initial thought process was the long-time coach would be a shoo-in for the Magic opening, and while he is in the running as the Sun-Times reported, it’s not as clear cut as initially believed, according to a source.
