After a run of mediocre regular seasons with minimal postseason success, the NBA’s (National Basketball League) Chicago Bulls cleaned house by firing their front office and parting ways with Head Coach Bill Donovan. Searching around the league for over two months, the Bulls finally landed on their man. The Bulls hired Tiago Splitter to be the 25th Head Coach in franchise history. Here are three reasons why he will succeed as head coach with the Bulls.
After taking over for Chauncey Billups as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, Splitter guided a talented yet underachieving roster. The Blazers ended up winning 42 games and making the NBA playoffs, far outpacing the 32.5-33.5 expected win total. What made this more impressive was that only one player from the Trail Blazers’ roster, forward Deni Avdija, made the NBA All-Star Game.
Before being an NBA head coach, Splitter gained valuable coaching experience in the international field. In 2021, he took a coaching position on the Brazil national basketball team. Splitter also served as head coach of the Brazil U23 team and went on to win the gold medal at the GLOBL Jam Tournament in 2022. In 2024, he took the head coaching job at Paris Basketball, where he won a domestic league title.
While announcing the hire of Splitter, the Chicago Bulls Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, Bryson Graham, praised Splitter’s development of young players and his ability to grow with the Bulls’ youth-centered roster. During his lone season as head coach of the Trail Blazers, he coached the sixth-youngest roster in the NBA, featuring eight players selected in the first round of the NBA draft since 2019. The Trail Blazers’ six-win improvement from the previous season is credited to Splitter’s ability to bring out career years from Toumani Camara, Donovan Clingan, and Avdija.
Splitter takes over a Bulls team that only won 31 games and features the fifth-youngest roster in the NBA. The Bulls do, however, hold the fourth and fifteenth draft picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. The fourth pick would net the Bulls one of Caleb Wilson, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, or AJ Dybantsa. Any of those players would pair with Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis to give Splitter a formidable young core to develop for the Bulls as he did with the Trail Blazers.
While his lone season with the Trail Blazers was a success, it was not without its trials and tribulations. In October 2025, Chauncey Billups entered his short-lived fifth season as the Trail Blazers’ head coach when he was suspended after their opening game following a federal indictment. The suspension led Splitter to take the reins without any preparation or notice and led the Trail Blazers to the NBA playoffs.
After the season, Splitter was not retained as head coach, where it was widely rumored that the Trail Blazers’ owner was unwilling to pay him more than the NBA’s lowest coaching salary. While that was not the reason he gave for leaving the Trail Blazers, he ended up taking the head coaching job with the Bulls. Even though it is well known that Bulls fans have their own qualms with ownership, the mostly noncontroversial team should be a welcome change of pace for Splitter.
Splitter should be the coach of the Trail Blazers after making the playoffs in his first season as coach. Luckily for the Bulls, that is not the case, and he is taking over a young team starved for leadership and direction.
With his coaching pedigree and instant success, Splitter is the right man for the job in Chicago. If he can do for the Bulls what he did in Portland, the Bulls will be playoff-bound in no time, and fans will be cheering the hire for years to come.
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