Caleb Wilson Is Showing the Bulls Something New. Tiago Splitter Noticed.

Caleb Wilson’s rookie season begins with an unanswered question: where will the Chicago Bulls ultimately play him?

Head coach Tiago Splitter has said he doesn’t know. In a new interview with the Numbers on the Board podcast, Splitter described the specific skills Wilson is expanding as Chicago learns more about its No. 4 overall pick.

“Every day we get to know him a little bit better,” Splitter said. “When you watch him play in college, he was playing back to the basket. Now, he comes here in the Summer League and we see different things. Throughout practices, [we] see different things. September came, and he’s just getting better and better. It’s hard to see where he’s going to end up, what’s his ceiling.”

In front of an audience of a couple hundred at Park West on Thursday night, Splitter mentioned that Wilson will have to adjust to the grind of the regular season and get stronger over time; however, he also praised his work ethic.

“He’s about the right things,” Splitter said. “He loves to play with his teammates and just being involved with everything that we do.”

The Bulls are still in discovery mode for how Wilson can help them win possessions.

“I think face to the basket, driving, shooting the ball, playing some pick-and-roll, playing dribble handoff action, playing fast in transition, using his length to attack the rim,” Splitter said, “We also saw some of those middies that he loves to take. Hopefully, he doesn’t love too much of those. Coaches don’t love those too much. But he can do it, and sometimes that’s the best shot available when the defense is at the rim or denying three-point shots. So, I think it's hard to give him a ceiling so far.”

It’s an interesting time for an NBA head coach to make a podcast appearance, taped the night before his team’s final preseason game. However, it did give Splitter an opportunity to speak to the Bulls defense, which pulled out a full-court press and on-ball pressure in Wednesday’s exhibition win at Milwaukee.

“We have a lot of length, and you got to use it and make the court a little smaller for the opponent,” Splitter said. “And we got a bunch of those guys, right? Like Noa [Essengue], you mentioned, Caleb, Matas [Buzelis]. They all have a lot of wingspan to cover a lot of ground, and they’re mobile. So, I think it’s a good way to kind of slow down the other team’s offense and make them think differently. You know, after a free throw or a timeout, I try to disrupt a little bit what they’re trying to do. So, why not?”

Splitter still can’t define a ceiling for Wilson. However, the more important development may be that Wilson is giving the Bulls more ways to find out what that ceiling looks like. And since no one can “tank” effectively anymore in the NBA, there won’t be a tradeoff between Wilson’s development and the Bulls playing competitive basketball.

Numbers on the Board is a basketball podcast hosted by Kenny Beecham, Pierre Andresen, Mike Heard and Darrick Miller. The four friends grew up together in the Chicagoland area.

The Splitter interview was a 15-minute portion of the episode. Other topics included Splitter's gameday routine, his coaching style, the influence Gregg Popovich had on him in San Antonio, and the toughest players in the NBA to guard.

The hosts riffed before and after the interview, made preseason predictions and named dark horse candidates for all major NBA awards, and played games with the audience.

The episode is set to be released on October 20.