Monday, Chicago Bulls head coach spoke to Bulls media during team practice and covered a wide range of questions.
Head Coach Tiago Splitter speaks with media ahead of NBA Summer League 🎤 pic.twitter.com/ou6E0h7WIw
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) July 6, 2026
The most informative question posed to Splitter came from Bulls.com’s Sam Smith: “[Will we] get a glimpse of the style you want to play all season long from anything we see during the first few games of summer league?” and Splitter’s response to Smith provided an illuminating window into the future of Splitter’s game planning for the 2026-27 NBA season: “win the possession game”.
Why do possessions matter? Splitter also tagged a specific outcome he wants to see from his roster in terms of winning the possession game on a nightly basis, to the effect of making sure the Bulls get more shot attempts than their opponent game to game.
For context, Pace is the basketball metric that estimates the number of possessions a basketball team obtains per 48 minutes in an NBA context. Looking back at the 2025-26 NBA regular season, the Bulls didn’t have a problem with pace, finishing the season as the second-ranked NBA team in pace, according to Basketball Reference.
However, pace alone doesn’t create an elite NBA offense, as the Bulls finished the 2025-26 NBA regular season with the 23rd-ranked offense in terms of offensive rating (113.0 pts/100 possessions), according to Basketball Reference. Splitter won’t solve offensive efficiency problems in Las Vegas during the Bulls’ summer league games.
Instead, the Bulls' new head coach will focus on coaching his players on foundational concepts that create pace advantages and more shot attempts for the Bulls.
Pace factor to look for in the Bulls' trip to Vegas
A cornerstone of the Bulls' winning possession should start on the defensive end of the court with consistent, aggressive ball pressure that creates turnovers.
The Bulls ranked 23rd in the NBA in team steals per game (7.6) during the 2025-26 NBA regular season, according to Basketball Reference. The summer league Bulls learning how to work together to get stops and turnovers is a huge opportunity to lay the foundation of the Bulls' new identity of Splitter-ball.
Creating turnovers naturally creates fast-break opportunities that boost pace. Even after an opponent’s made basket, the summer league Bulls should be pushing the ball up the court and hunting early shot-clock (first eight seconds) field goal attempts to maximize the Bulls' transition offensive impact.
The nuance the Bulls must manage in fast break or transition possession is to keep their turnovers low, and Splitter will need to tackle the root of that problem within his main roster’s starting point guard, Josh Giddey, who led the team in turnovers per game for the 2025-26 NBA regular season.
The final pace factor that Splitter and Bulls fans alike should pay attention to is the Bulls' ability to clean glass via defensive and offensive rebounds. Defensive rebounds are opportunities to push the pace, and offensive rebounds are critical opportunities to keep possessions alive.
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