The Chicago Bulls have reached a deal to hire Portland Trail Blazers interim coach Tiago Splitter as the franchise’s new head coach, sources told ESPN on Monday.
Splitter succeeds Billy Donovan as the Bulls’ head coach after stepping into the head coach job in Portland last season and excelling. Splitter, 41, guided the Trail Blazers to a 42-40 record and a postseason berth as the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference amid adversity stemming from Chauncey Billups’ federal charges.
Splitter became the first Trail Blazers head coach to have a winning record in his first season with the team since Maurice Cheeks in 2001-02 and the first to win a playoff game in his debut season in Portland since Mike Dunleavy in 1997-98.
Splitter led the Trail Blazers to a top-10 defense in their final 51 regular-season games, with a 30-21 record during that span. Portland also led the NBA in second-chance points per game under Splitter last season.
Sources said top Bulls officials, including executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham and his front office staff, met with four finalists for the head coaching job last week in Chicago: Splitter, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori, Atlanta Hawks assistant Ryan Schmidt and current Bulls assistant Wes Unseld Jr.
The Bulls conducted a search that spanned a double-digit number of candidates before narrowing the process. They landed on Splitter due to his ability to lead the team’s player development, organizational alignment on the franchise’s direction and vision, and his leadership and knowledge base as a coach who has risen through the ranks since 2018 and played in the NBA for seven years with one championship with the San Antonio Spurs.
Splitter played overseas before the Spurs chose him with the No. 28 pick in the 2007 NBA draft. He played in San Antonio, Atlanta and Philadelphia across his NBA career. After retiring, Splitter joined the Brooklyn Nets as a scout and player development staff member in 2018. He spent the 2023-24 season as an assistant for the Houston Rockets under Ime Udoka, and then he took a job as head coach of Paris Basketball for the 2024-25 EuroLeague campaign before returning to the NBA as Billups’ lead assistant in Portland.
The Trail Blazers will now have to hire a new coach after Splitter, one of their finalists, takes the Chicago job. Nori and Boston Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook are the two candidates remaining to be the new Portland coach, and both are expected to meet with team ownership in the near future, sources told ESPN.
