Bulls take a huge jump in player development with latest staff hires

When Bulls general manager Marc Eversley was combing through the structure of the organization before accepting the job months ago, he noticed an all-but-empty player-development cupboard.

“I really believe winning starts from a foundation of player development,’’ Eversley said then. “I was surprised to find there was one player development-coach on the staff as I was doing my research for this job. That’s a hell of a job for one person to take on.’’

That job was fortified Saturday, when the Bulls announced the hiring of Henry Domercant, Ronnie Burrell, Ty Abbott and Max Rothschild as player-development coordinators. They also officially announced coach Billy Donovan’s staff of assistants — Maurice Cheeks, Josh Longstaff, John Bryant, Damian Cotter and Billy Schmidt. Chris Fleming was retained from the old staff.

Among the assistants, Cheeks is the headliner. The Chicago native and Hall of Famer worked under Donovan the last five years and brings more than 40 years of NBA experience as a player and a coach.

He had stints as a head coach with Detroit, Philadelphia and Portland but also is considered a huge asset as an assistant, not only because of his defensive background, but his ability to build relationships with players.

Domercant will be a familiar face. He was an assistant for the Windy City Bulls for two seasons and has a Euroleague background, including being named All-Euroleague in 2011 as a player.

Burrell was an assistant coach with the Long Island Nets in 2019-20 and was a player-development and video assistant for the Brooklyn Nets in 2018-19.

Like Eversley, Abbott and Rothschild are coming over from the 76ers, where they were involved in player development in 2019-20.