The Chicago Bulls have ended their coaching search, reaching a deal to hire Tiago Splitter as their next head coach, ESPN's Shams Charania reported Sunday. The move pulls the 41-year-old away from Portland, where he spent the past season as the Trail Blazers' interim coach, and hands him a young Bulls roster the franchise is hoping to rebuild from the ground up.
Splitter took the Portland job under the strangest of circumstances. He was thrust into the lead seat in the second game of the season after head coach Chauncey Billups' arrest, then steered an undermanned team to a 42-40 record and a playoff berth through the play-in tournament. Portland lost to the San Antonio Spurs in five games in the first round, but the bar had already been cleared: he became the first Trail Blazers coach to post a winning record in his debut season since Maurice Cheeks in 2001-02, and the first to win a playoff game in his first year in Portland since Mike Dunleavy in 1997-98.
The numbers backed up the eye test. Portland ran a top-10 defense over its final 51 games, going 32-20 across that stretch, and led the NBA in second-chance points per game. Splitter also leaned into pace, lifting the Blazers from 16th to ninth in the league in possessions per 48 minutes and building an offense that asked players to read the floor rather than run set plays. Deni Avdija made an All-Star leap as the offensive hub, even with starting point guard Scoot Henderson sidelined for long stretches by injury.
His resume runs deeper than one season. Splitter won a championship as a player with the 2014 Spurs under Gregg Popovich, served as a Brooklyn Nets assistant from 2019 to 2023, spent a year with the Houston Rockets, and led Paris Basketball to a French league title and a EuroLeague playoff berth as head coach. At 6-foot-11, he is the second-tallest head coach in NBA history.
Reaction to the hire split along predictable lines. SB Nation graded it a measured, acceptable move rather than a home run, noting that Chicago picked Splitter over Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori, Hawks assistant Ryan Schmidt and incumbent Wes Unseld Jr., and warning that questions about the roster far outnumber any answers a young coach can provide. The site argued Portland's halfcourt offense was often dull under Splitter, while conceding that losing your point guard will do that to a team, and that a 41-year-old coach can improve much like a player.
Others were more bullish. The Bulls blog Pippen Ain't Easy had flagged Splitter as the ideal fit months ago, pointing to his knack for maximizing rosters short on talent and the people-first culture he absorbed from Popovich — an approach suited to a group that projects to be young and inexperienced. Chicago radio station 104.3 The Score called it an encouraging hire.
The franchise reset that produced the opening was sweeping. The Bulls parted with executive Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley, and Billy Donovan stepped down as head coach. Chicago's new basketball-operations leadership has signaled it wants to take the long view, and the roster reflects that: developmental pieces like Matas Buzelis, a likely lottery pick at No. 4, significant cap room and no centers currently under contract. Splitter inherits open questions about whether Josh Giddey is traded and how the young core is built out, but little pressure to win immediately.
For a coach who spent a year proving he could hold a sinking ship together, that may be the point.
