On Thursday, Chicago Bulls lead front office executive, Bryson Graham, and head coach Tiago Splitter appeared on ESPN 1000 Radio’s Waddle & Silvy show hosted by Marc ‘Silvy’ Silverman and Tom Waddle.
The interview was engaging and thorough, offering a refreshing tone of management explanation that Bulls fans would be hard-pressed to find in a precedent example of simultaneous Bulls front office and head coaching candor to the media.
Revealing the wiring of the Splitter and Graham partnership
Silvy opened the conversation with an exploration of how Graham decided Tiago Splitter was the right candidate for the Bulls’ vacant head coaching job. The joint explanations of Splitter’s in-person interview by Graham and Splitter himself revealed a deep appreciation for basketball detail as the common thread that has synthesized their shared basketball chemistry.
The common bond of Graham and Splitter, being former basketball players, transformed a job interview into a game huddle, according to Graham, as Tiago went into expansive detail to explain his coaching philosophy over a five-to-six-hour interview time slot.
Explaining the case for why forward Caleb Wilson was selected fourth overall by the Bulls, Graham stressed character as an important attribute, which is an emerging recurring theme in Graham’s Bulls press conferences.
While Splitter praised Wilson’s approachable, easy communication style. Also noteworthy in Splitter’s assessment of Wilson is the view of Caleb as the role model for subsequent players the Bulls acquire to fill their roster.
Perhaps the most interesting implicit portion of the conversation was the bookend conclusion of the chat that ended with Graham and Splitter’s assessment of guard Josh Giddey and forward Noa Essengue.
None of Graham or Splitter’s explicit words were framed in a critical or negative assessment of Giddey or Essengue.
However, the tone of both Graham's and Splitter’s words while discussing the two players acquired by their predecessor Bulls regime should give Bulls fans a reasonable pause to question if Essengue or Giddey will earn distinction as long-term building blocks of the Bryson Graham Bulls rebuild?
Diving into the Chicago Bulls brain trust’s red-print
Player development and shooting were topics that Graham and Splitter were prompted to lay bare in terms of their philosophical point of view, and the insight in this portion of the conversation is invaluable to any passionate Bulls fan.
Splitter’s stake in player development is heavily weighted on the practices he will run with his team, along with holding his players accountable to preparation habits such as film room study.
Additionally, Splitter went into detail on the procedural aspect of creating development plans for NBA players: identifying strengths and weaknesses, identifying improvement actions for player weaknesses, and holding players to deliver on those plans.
Graham described his player development stake from the point of view of a basketball scout. In Graham’s mind, his player development job is to scout players who fit his culture and character criteria.
As strong a vision Graham and Splitter explained to Waddle and Silvy on the topic of player development, the counterpoint in their vision is an emerging risk that the Bulls' lack of shooting within their roster depth and the requisite shooting coach staff to fix the Bulls' shooting deficit may not be inside the Bulls organization yet.
Graham and Splitter gave an answer on hiring a shooting coach, and they would be well served to improve the clarity of who will be the next Bulls shooting coach and when they will arrive in the organization.
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