Portland High grad Longstaff hired as assistant with Bulls

Portland High grad Josh Longstaff, right, shown as head coach of the Erie Bayhawks’ in 2017, has been hired as an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls. Joel Page/Staff Photographer

Josh Longstaff, a Portland High grad, has been hired as an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls as new coach Billy Donovan fills out his staff.

For Longstaff, who broke into the NBA with the video department of the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2010 after five years as a high school coach in Maine, it’s a significant promotion. This gives him his first front-of-the-bench role after spending the past two seasons with Milwaukee under Mike Budenholzer.

He started in 2010 as a player personnel coordinator with the Thunder before eventually taking over as video coordinator, player development coach and video analyst. He spent two seasons with the New York Knicks as a player development coach and then an assistant coach from 2014-16, and then as a head coach with the Atlanta Hawks’ G League affiliate Erie in 2017-18.

Player development has been a key focus point of the Bulls’ new front office since Arturas Karnisovas took over in April, and adding Longstaff to the team seems to align with that goal.

“It’s all about the players,” Longstaff said in a video by the National Basketball Coaches Association. “It’s all about them improving one day at at time, it’s about us as coaches improving one day at a time. That’s something I learned right off in Oklahoma City and I’ve tried to carry that with myself… and just making sure that the players understand that they come first. They’re the most important thing and without them, there isn’t us.”

Also expected to join Donovan’s staff is Maurice Cheeks. He and Longstaff are expected to join former Philadelphia 76ers assistant John Bryant, who the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week is also taking a job with the Bulls, although his exact title is unknown. Chris Fleming, who was the lead assistant under Jim Boylen, still currently remains on the staff after the Bulls fired the rest of Boylen’s assistants last month.

Cheeks, who was born in Chicago, played for 15 seasons in the NBA before three different stints as a head coach in Portland, Philadelphia and Detroit. He has been with Donovan since 2015 as his right-hand man, so he was connected to the Bulls almost immediately after they hired Donovan.

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