Bulls coaching staff publicly finalized, front office changes kept more secret

trigger-warning: Bryson Graham is being ‘deliberate’

Not much to say these past 6 weeks, as Bryson Graham’s first offseason leading the Bulls looked to be done even with some bullets left to fire, and it indeed appears done.

In terms of personnel, it’s an altogether uninspired performance by Graham, where the praise is some variation of “he didn’t do anything catastrophically wrong”. They’re even leaving open an active roster spot and not using their Cap Exception (‘Room’, ~$9M), with Graham carrying forward a Bulls GM tradition of future flexibility masking a low payroll.

But the roster is just one part of organization-helming, though the most important. How about the coaching, front office, scouting? These are facets unencumbered by a salary cap but in another Bulls tradition has seen low attention (money), that Graham said would be a focus but couched it in ways he likely also did in the interview process with his future boss Michael Reinsdorf and his consigliere John Paxson.

I feel a need to emphasize that I don’t consider the following as a top priority, but a nice to have: I wanted Graham to not only bring in new blood, but more blood.

And there wasn’t enough of either when it comes to the front office (including scouting). The Bulls look to have taken down their public-facing staff directory, and I can’t/won’t do the legwork to truly nail this down, but the initial hiring did look like a one-in, one-out policy with too many holdovers for my taste. I do appreciate that Graham changed over the GLeague staff (including replacing Billy Donovan’s son with former non-GloryYears Bull Quincy Pondexter as head coach), with those hires and their selection of 2-way contracts indicating that they are trying to bring ‘development’ back to the GLeague instead of populating the team with minor league ticket draws.

This could be an incomplete house-cleaning due to contracts¹ and Graham feeling he needs time to evaluate. I’m far from convinced, but will give him some time and recognize that this is all of far lower importance than Caleb Wilson’s rookie year, though unlike the drafting of Wilson it is actually in Graham’s control to do correctly.

The coaching staff, led by new head coach Tiago Splitter, has more new faces than the front office. The final hires were part of an official announcement yesterday:

Tiago Splitter – Head Coach*
Wes Unseld Jr. – Assistant Coach
Blake Ahearn – Assistant Coach*
Jamelle McMillan – Assistant Coach*
Rex Kalamian – Assistant Coach*
Jonah Herscu – Assistant Coach*
Taj Gibson – Assistant Coach*
Martin Rancik – Senior Player Development Coach*
Jordan Brink – Assistant Coach, Director of Player Development*
Pete Crawford – Player Development Coach
LD Williams – Player Development Coach
Jeremiah Bonsu – Head Video Coordinator
Micah Bruno – Assistant Video Coordinator
Brandon Leftwich – Video Coordinator*
Delvon Johnson – Video Coordinator*
Jayden Hardaway – Video Coordinator*

I starred the new hires, as you can see very few holdovers from Billy Donovan’s staff. And I originally typed “Graham’s new hires” but in a press answer earlier this summer it seemed like Graham was deferring these decisions - specifically whether they’d hire a shooting coach - to Splitter. And, no: they did not hire a shooting coach. Every coaching staff has some mix of benefactors, and I don’t doubt Bulls legend (of actual GloryYears) Taj Gibson was suggested by ownership.

It was admittedly too much to ask after the euphoria inducing shitcanning of AKME that this would be a completely new regime. The owner’s son and adopted son led the search for Graham, after all. As all Bulls leaders past and present have in common²: tell us these things take time, and we’ll sit around and hope they get lucky.

1. both targets being under contract with other teams, and the Bulls tradition making sure their guys get paid to work for the Bulls.

2. this includes working on the broadcast, as CHSN has announced they don’t have a replacement hire for Stacey King and instead be open mic night all season.