NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bulls have officially announced new additions to their coaching and player development staff, fulfilling an offseason promise (from the new front office) to make player development an organizational priority.
As a former elite college coach who took various Oklahoma City Thunder rosters to the playoffs for five-straight seasons, head coach Billy Donovan was the first to highlight that new philosophy. But the players-first mantra has been further enhanced by the addition of four new player development coordinators: Henry Domecrant, Ronnie Burrell, Ty Abbott, and Max Rothschild have all joined the organization this offseason (NBC Sports Chicago’s Rob Schaefer).
Domecrant, Burell, and Abbot are all former professional basketball players. Domecrant played overseas for more than a decade before returning to the states to become an assistant coach in the G-League. He worked for the Maine Red Claws for the 2017-18 season and then signed on as an assistant with the Windy City Bulls, where he remained until this promotion. Burrell followed a similar path and just started his professional coaching career a couple of seasons ago as a player development and video assistant with the Brooklyn Nets, per his LinkedIn. This past season, he was an assistant coach with the Long Island Nets of the G-League.
Ty Abbott rounded out his professional playing career and began his coaching career in the G-League. Over the past season, he served as a player development associate with the 76ers, and the same goes for Maxwell Rothschild. I think it’s safe to assume GM Marc Eversley worked with both in his prior role as Senior VP of Player Personnel in Philly.
As for Donovan’s coaching staff, we’ve covered most of the hires already: Maurice Cheeks, Josh Longstaff, John Bryant, Damian Cotter, and Billy Schmidt.
Cotter and Schmidt are the two newest names, but neither comes as a big surprise. Cotter served as head coach of the Windy City Bulls in 2019-20, while Schmidt spent the past five seasons in Oklahoma City with Donovan as director of quality control. Before his time with the Thunder, he also worked with the Bulls new head coach in Gainesville at the University of Florida.
For more information on each hire, I recommend checking out the Bulls press release from Saturday.
