The Main Difference Between Billy Donovan and Tiago Splitter Will Be.....

Flexibility.

It is the thing Chicago Bulls fans wanted the most and--even as the President of the Billy Donovan Fan Club have to admit--got perhaps the least. 

The Bulls-Donovan relationship seemed like a bit of an odd one from the start. A coach who left the Oklahoma City Thunder because he didn't want to rebuild join a Bulls franchise that quickly pivoted into exactly that: a rebuild. 

To both Donovan's credit and perhaps his dismay, he never publicly complained about the Bulls franchise, and handled the job with class. As the relationship neared its end, it was clear even from the outside that everyone did not seem to 100% be on the same page. 

Donovan's non-committal demeanor when discussing Bulls 12th overall pick Noa Essengue signaled that they was a lack of belief on his end. Even if his perceived hunch turned out to be true, it was not a great sign for the synergy of the front office-head coach relationship. Donovan didn't give Essengue a chance at the NBA level, playing him a grand total of three minutes per game over two games. 

It is, of course, completely possible that Essengue simply wasn't ready for extended minutes physically, and Donovan chose to get a look at other players vs. something he felt like he had a good understanding of already in terms of Essengue's timeline. But the fact that the Bulls fanbase quickly knew Essengue would get no shot never felt great from the outside looking in. 

It's impossible to truly know what you have in a player unless you give them a chance, just like it is impossible to know if a certain strategy works if you rarely try it. To Donovan's credit again, he did take the DeMar DeRozan-led, midrange heavy Bulls and turn them into a more modern, pace-and-space offense with the help of Josh Giddey. But while year to year things could change, game to game felt a tad too predictable. 

Tiago Splitter, both because is simply a younger coach but also played in a different NBA than Billy Donovan did, has a higher probability of injecting some of the randomness I would like to see out of the 2026-27 Bulls. 

There should always be a game plan and a pecking order, but there is also no reason to be so rigid as to not switch things up when an intriguing opportunity for a data point arises.