Further evidence that these are not your big brother’s Bulls was offered up again on Monday.
The Sun-Times confirmed that new coach Billy Donovan was also empowered to decide on the rest of the coaching staff, and began that process by letting Roy Rogers, Nate Loenser, Karen Stack Umlauf and Dean Cooper know that he was going in a different direction.
The team made it official Monday afternoon.
Not only does that open the door for Chicago-born Maurice Cheeks — a long-time Donovan assistant — to return home and join the staff, but continues to back the idea that COO Michael Reinsdorf values getting this reboot of the front office as right as he can rather than worrying about the money he’s spending on it.
Loenser is a great example of that.
The assistant’s contract was up months ago, but executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas was still evaluating former coach Jim Boylen and the rest of the staff, so allowed Boylen to have some say in Loenser being re-upped.
With Boylen eventually fired and Donovan brought in, well, Loenser’s assistant office became a temporary storage room on Monday morning.
A source did also confirm that Stack Umlauf was demoted from her position months ago under Boylen, but that was never made official.
Not that any of this is a surprise, considering both Karnisovas and Donovan were vague about the coaching staff when asked about it last month.
“Obviously, there are staff members there that are still with the Bulls,’’ Donovan said. “I also think the other piece of it too with our staff is how do we build out the best staff that I can work with, they can work with me, work with Arturas. So that’s something we’re certainly going to look at from top to bottom, not only maybe around the league but certainly the coaches that are in Chicago right now.
“I look forward to talking with those guys and having some conversations. Arturas will be part of that. We’ll work together on that. The biggest focus for us right now is how do we put together the best group that we can put together to help the players.’’
That focus is obviously underway.
“I appreciate the time that I was able to spend with Dean, Nate, Roy and Karen,’’ Donovan said in a statement. “I really want to thank all of them for their service and commitment to the Chicago Bulls. This is the tough side to our business, and I wish all of them the best moving forward.’’
