There is an undeniably clear theme emerging with each candidate's name that gets an invitation to interview with the Chicago Bulls for their vacant head coach job.
Player development experience is increasingly a trend in the Bulls' head coach interview slate in candidate names such as Portland Trail Blazers interim head coach Tiago Splitter, Miami Heat associate head coach Chris Quinn, former Golden State Warriors assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse, and now Cleveland Cavaliers associate head coach Johnnie Bryant, according to Marc J. Spears of Andscape.
The Bulls have received permission to interview Cavaliers associate head coach Johnnie Bryant for their head coach job, a source said. The former University of Utah guard has 12 years of NBA assistant coaching experience and has also been an associate head coach with the Knicks.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) May 27, 2026
Johnnie Bryant joined Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson’s coaching staff shortly after Atkinson was hired as head coach in 2024. Bryant’s arrival in Cleveland reunited him with Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell who Bryant worked as an assistant coach with the Utah Jazz between 2012 and 2020. Bryant and Mitchell are known in NBA circles to have a close working relationship dating back to their overlap in Utah.
Also notable from Bryant’s time in Utah is that his time as an assistant coach overlapped with that of then-Jazz head coach Quin Snyder. This happens to be the same Quin Snyder who is now the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, the franchise that employed Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham for the 2025-26 NBA season.
Another layer of Bulls familiarity attached to Bryant is also the fact that he served on former Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau’s New York Knicks coaching staff from 2020 until he was hired by the Cavaliers during the 2024 NBA offseason.
Donovan Mitchell as a case study for developing the Bulls next “guy”
The Bulls' front office's focus on finding a head coach who is an authority on player development is wise, given the closest names to “young core” territory on the Bulls roster are wing Matas Buzelis and guard Josh Giddey.
Both players have displayed select flashes of brilliant play on mostly opposite ends of the court. Maybe neither player becomes an elite two-way NBA player, but can either become an elite NBA player, period?
Donovan Mitchell’s rise to NBA superstar status evolved in two phases in his NBA career. First, ascending to All-Star status in his third NBA season with the Utah Jazz during the 2019-20 NBA season.
The second phase of development that catapulted Mitchell to a fully formed NBA superstar occurred during his first season with the Cleveland Cavaliers (sixth NBA season overall), going from mere NBA All-Star to an NBA MVP candidate who averaged a career high 28.3 points per game in the 2022-23 NBA regular season.
Mitchell’s career growth, underpinned by Bryant’s coaching, certainly would create optimism for more upside potential for Giddey as he enters his sixth NBA season when the Bulls tip off the 2026-27 season in October, and definitely would be a welcome contribution to Buzelis’ crucial upcoming third NBA season.
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