Bulls have a full house now — adding Josh Longstaff and Maurice Cheeks to their coaching Staff
The Bulls have had an eventful offseason this year completing what seems like a gut rehab of the entire front office; finishing it off with the hirings of Josh Longstaff and Maurice Cheeks as assistants under Billy Donovan’s new inherited regime. And I for one, cannot wait to see the finished product come to life on the court.
Both of the newest additions (Longstaff & Cheeks) have solid résumés and experience that can help cultivate the brand of basketball Billy Donovan and the Bulls look to achieve. Let’s look through their experiences.
Josh Longstaff most recently left the Bucks coaching staff where in 2018–19 & 2019–20 produced the best record in the NBA and back to back reigning MVPs for Giannis. Longstaff was also a former head coach of the Atlanta Hawks’ G-League affiliate (2017–18). He also did a lot of player development work with the Knicks from (2014–17) Getting the chance to create a great working relationship with Kristap Porzingis who is considered a rising star in the NBA. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Longstaff Is looking forward to elevating to a front-of-the-bench assistant with this promotion.
Mo’ Cheeks has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to coaching as he has also played the game at the NBA level and won an NBA championship back with the 76ers as a player. Cheeks has been the head coach of his own team for seven seasons having coached stars such as Allen Iverson and Andre Iguodala in the past and prior to his hiring he was also an assistant under Billy Donovan for the past five seasons, helping him reach success on an OKC team that was doubted to do anything special with the roster they last season. Mo’ Cheeks, already extremely familiar with Billy Donovan’s style and working with players with untapped upside potential such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, should be an exciting pick-up for Bulls fans because they can expect better development out the young players such as Lauri Markkanen, Coby White, and Wendell Carter Jr. Maurice Cheeks signing was originally leaked Oct. 28 by Isiah Thomas on the Scoop B Radio Podcast hosted by Brandon Robinson.
The Bulls came into this offseason with a demolition plan to reset the entire administrative staff and although it took longer than expected and the entire fanbase put pressure on the Reinsdorfs and it has finally happened. We have now seen an entirely new elite level administration put together with Arturas Karnisovas (Vice President of Basketball Operations), Marc Eversley (General Manager), Billy Donovan (Head Coach), Maurice Cheeks (Assistant) and John Longstaff (Assistant).
The Bulls have a collection of basketball minds that can each single-handedly put a team together from scratch and turn nothing into something. Now with a full house, it will be interesting to see what decisions they make together on the fourth overall pick (assuming that they keep it).
