Chicago Bulls: Wizards interview assistant Chris Fleming for HC

Multiple coaching searches are currently raging on around the NBA landscape as most of the league’s teams are currently in the midst of their 2021 offseason. The only teams remaining are those in the conference finals at the moment. And the Chicago Bulls are not one of those teams remaining alive in the postseason.

What is different for the Bulls this summer is the fact that they very likely won’t be looking for a new head coach like they were last offseason. Last offseason (or at least during the pause in the COVID-19 pandemic), the Bulls found former Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan to serve in the same role with this organization entering the 2020-21 season.

But now it’s an assistant coach of the Bulls that is being looked at for someone who could get a promotion elsewhere this summer. Bulls assistant coach, formerly of the Brooklyn Nets, Chris Fleming could be looked at by the Washington Wizards for their head coaching job.

According to a report from Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Chicago on June 30, the Bulls assistant coach Fleming is on the radar of the Wizards to replace former head coach Scott Brooks this offseason. Brooks is another former Thunder head coach that got the axe entering the offseason.

It just looked like the Wizards were ready to find a new direction for the franchise after five seasons with Brooks at the helm. And in the five years with Brooks as the head coach, the Wizards only made it past the first round of the playoffs once.

Chicago Bulls assistant Chris Fleming interviewing for Wizards head coaching job

This is not the first time that another NBA team has looked into Fleming as a head coach. Teams like the New York Knicks considered this move last summer during the pause.

Fleming was never a head coach up to this point in the NBA. He’s served as an assistant on staff with the Bulls for two seasons now. He started out with the Bulls during the 2019-20 campaign, under the direction of former head coach Jim Boylen at the time.

Fleming also served on staff with the Nets and Denver Nuggets in various stints dating back to 2015. The head coaching experience he does have came with the German National Team from 2016-2018.

There is reportedly going to be an interview held between Fleming and the Wizards this week, but it’s hard to tell where the Bulls assistant coach finds himself in the pecking order to be hired in the nation’s capital. The Wizards do apparently value the international experience from someone like Fleming.

The Bulls finished up the 2020-21 regular season with a record of 31-41 in Donovan’s first year as the head coach. That wound up in the Bulls missing out on the postseason for the fourth straight year.