Chicago Bulls Hire Tiago Splitter as Head Coach: Fresh Voice for a Franchise Stuck in Neutral
The Chicago Bulls have their new head coach. Tiago Splitter is officially in.
Chicago announced the hire on Tuesday, poaching Splitter away from Portland where he served as interim head coach after Chauncey Billups was indicted on federal gambling charges last November. Splitter guided the Trail Blazers to a 42-40 record and a play-in berth, which was an over-performance for a roster that most preseason projections had drafting in the lottery.
Splitter replaces Billy Donovan, who left in April after six seasons of the Bulls being firmly stuck as a play-in team. Donovan was a fine coach who never got the roster he needed to actually break through. Chicago has been paralyzed at the top for years, and firing him was the easiest change to make even though the real problem was Arturas Karnisovas and the front office.
The Splitter hire is a good one. He is a former NBA player. He has coaching experience under Ime Udoka in Houston and Pop in San Antonio. His half-season in Portland showed he can get more out of a roster than the raw talent suggested, and he has a reputation for developing young players and running clean, disciplined offense.
That is exactly what Chicago needs. The Bulls have a very young core right now. Matas Buzelis, Josh Giddey, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, and Nikola Vucevic on his last legs. There is nobody on the roster who is clearly a franchise cornerstone yet, and the job of the next coach was always going to be to figure out which of those players deserve to be centered.
Splitter is going to have full support to play the young guys. Karnisovas made that clear during the search. The Bulls are done pretending to compete. They are also drafting in the top ten in 2027 with a full commitment to building through the draft rather than through veteran acquisitions.
Portland is the loser here. The Trail Blazers were going to hire Splitter as their permanent head coach based on how he handled the Billups situation. Chicago came in late and offered him more money and a longer deal, and he made the right decision for his career.
Whether Splitter can actually turn the Bulls into a contender is a five-year question. The talent is not there. The direction is finally clarified. He is going to spend year one figuring out what he has, year two developing an identity, and hoping year three brings a lottery pick who changes the ceiling.
The bigger story is that Karnisovas is now on the clock. He hired the coach. He drafted the roster. He is out of excuses. If the Bulls are still a play-in team in 2028 with a new head coach and multiple young lottery picks, ownership is going to have to have a real conversation about whether he is the guy to lead this rebuild.
Splitter is a bet on discipline and structure. The Bulls have needed both for years. Now they finally have someone in charge who might actually deliver them.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
