The Chicago Bulls finally gave the fans something to cheer about early in the 2019 off-season with the hire of top assistant coach Chris Fleming.
Giving an immediate reaction to a Chicago Bulls coaching hire, or contract extension in the case of this off-season, can be a painful and difficult process. The Bulls couldn’t seem to do much right in the past eight months in terms of making coaching and personnel decisions. It was confusing the narrative that John Paxson and Gar Forman took with firing former head coach Fred Hoiberg and hiring the former interim head coach Jim Boylen. But, the latest assistant coaching hire for the Chicago Bulls wasn’t bad with the former Brooklyn Nets assistant Chris Fleming.
Now, Boylen is the fully extended (for three years) head coach for the Chicago Bulls. It feels like GarPax did that for the Bulls without conducting the slightest bit of a coaching search. Although, conducting a coaching search seems like it was an afterthought in general for the past two head coach hires for the Bulls.
However, the hire of Fleming from the Nets was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski on his Twitter timeline. This “Woj bomb” was actually some seemingly positive news for the Bulls at the outset of an off-season that could be a rocky road.
Bulls coach Jim Boylen is hiring Nets assistant Chris Fleming to serve as his top assistant coach, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 8, 2019
It almost seems like Chris Fleming would be a better head coaching hire for the Bulls than Boylen. The contract extension for Boylen wasn’t the most popular move by any means in the Windy City.
Fleming was a part of teams that made waves in the NBA of late. He was also an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets, who are currently fighting int he second round of the NBA Playoffs and holding a one-game series lead over the three-seed Portland Trail Blazers. The Nets also had a surprising rise up to playoff contention in the Eastern Conference this season with a solid young core.
Can confirm Bulls are hiring Chris Fleming as lead assistant. @wojespn had it 1st. Fleming was Germany’s national coach and has been with teams that have made jumps like Denver and Nets.
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) May 8, 2019
Hopefully, this hiring of Fleming has a good impact on Boylen and this young Bulls roster. He’s a very well-respected coaching figure around the NBA and has his roots seeded in German basketball. Fleming also has a good modern idea of how the game of basketball should be played in the NBA today. That is a core difference compared to Boylen’s schemes.
Maybe this could be a bridge for Fleming to be a candidate for the Bulls head coaching job a few years down the road. That would be a popular take for Bulls fans compared to the idea of having Boylen here for the long-term.
Fleming was the German League Coach of the Year back in 2011 and won four German League Championships between 2010 and 2013. He also played his college ball with the Richmond Spiders basketball program. He never played any games in the NBA, though.