Tuesday, Jake Fischer of The Stein Line reported updates on the Chicago Bulls head coach search, with an explicit emphasis on the names of Portland Trail Blazers interim head coach Tiago Splitter, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach Micah Nori, Atlanta Hawks assistant coach Ryan Schmidt, and incumbent candidate, Bulls assistant coach Wes Unseld Jr.
Ryan Schmidt is an intriguing finalist candidate for a few reasons. Schmidt started his NBA coaching career with another candidate on Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham’s head coach interview slate, former Golden State Warriors assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse.
Schmidt worked multiple seasons as an assistant coach in the Toronto Raptors’ G-League affiliate Raptors 905 organization from 2017 to 2021, which included an overlap with Stackhouse as an assistant coach on his staff.
Ryan Schmidt also took a detour outside of NBA coaching, coaching in Canada’s CEBL league and in Europe from 2021 to 2023, when he joined the Atlanta Hawks as an assistant coach and head coach of the Hawks' G-League affiliate College Park Skyhawks for the 2023-24 G-League season.
Schmidt elaborated on the breadth and depth of his basketball coaching experience in an interview on The Euro Step Brit Podcast, which was released in Aug 2025.
Ryan Schmidt shared notable themes that have reverberated through nearly all of Bryson Graham’s Bulls head coach candidates, player development, and defense.
The pros and cons of prospective Bulls head coach Ryan Schmidt
Bulls fans should be strongly encouraged by the defensive results that Ryan Schmidt brings to the table. As he mentioned in his podcast interview, Schmidt was actively recruited by Hawks head coach Quin Snyder to join his coaching staff as an assistant coach and has effectively leaned on Schmidt to be his defensive scheme innovator for the main Hawks roster.
The Hawks' defensive transformation is self-evident, according to Basketball Reference, going from the 19th-ranked NBA defense in terms of defensive rating (115.7 points allowed per 100 possessions) in Schmidt’s first full season exclusively as a main roster Hawks assistant coach during the 2024-25 NBA season to an NBA top-10 ranked defense in the 2025-26 NBA season, finishing their season ranked ninth with a 113.7 points allowed per 100 possession defensive rating.
Granted, the Hawks also executed a major roster transformation, trading guard Trae Young to the Washington Wizards as Hawks wing Jalen Johnson emerged as a clear star-level NBA player. Yet, one player alone doesn’t define an entire NBA defense.
Player development is perhaps a debatable topic on Schmidt’s resume. While he served as an assistant on Jerry Stackhouse’s successful Raptors 905 coaching staff, by Schmidt’s own admission, he’s been the primary player development coach for Hawks wing and 2024 NBA Draft number one overall pick Zaccharie Risacher, who has struggled in his first two NBA seasons.
Schmidt certainly has varied player development experience and has run an NBA G-League team as a head coach, but there should be reasonable scrutiny on his track record of helping individual NBA players improve their skills, given the lack of success the Bulls have had in recent seasons with project players like Dalen Terry, Patrick Williams, and Julian Phillips, to name a few examples.
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