Shortly after the Chicago Bears hired new head coach Ben Johnson, stories began to emerge about his rise through the NFL ranks. It didn\u2019t take long to realize that the young coach had a reputation. Everybody he seemed to encounter could sense something special. They didn\u2019t just see a highly intelligent, hardworking person. They saw a future head coach. Guys knew it as far back as the mid-2010s when he was a no-name assistant with the Miami Dolphins. That only grew after he went to Detroit. There was even a point when a head coach from another team tried to offer a prominent defensive assistant job just to get him on the staff. Johnson ascended to offensive coordinator, dominated, took the Bears job, and won the division. Having heard those stories, you start to realize the same thing is happening with Bryson Graham.<\/p>\n
The Chicago Bulls<\/a> hired the 39-year-old as their new VP of Basketball Operations. Unlike Johnson, he didn\u2019t come in with tons of fanfare. However, as stories about his rise start to emerge, you\u2019re hearing many of the same types of comments you heard about Johnson. Jon Greenberg of The Athletic caught a few of them.<\/p>\n Bryson Graham has that same aura.<\/p>\n When Mark Turgeon took over Texas A&M\u2019s program, he realized Graham, who suffered two ACL tears in college, was more than a guy who could clap on the bench.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was very mature,\u201d he said. \u201cYou had different conversations with Bryson than you did with other players on the team.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026Nine years later, when David Griffin got the top basketball job in New Orleans, one name kept coming up during his information-gathering process about the staff he inherited: Bryson Graham. You\u2019re going to want to meet this guy, he was told.<\/p>\n Griffin quickly figured out the hype was real.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so awed by him that I made sure to promote him and keep him in the fold,\u201d he said, \u201cand I brought him as close to me as I could from the very beginning.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026Williams, Griffin and Turgeon all told me there is something different about Graham. It wasn\u2019t hard to see what they were talking about.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s the kind of person that will come in and people are just going to gravitate towards him,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n \u201cI worked in the NBA for 32 years, and I\u2019ve never been with anyone like him,\u201d Griffin said.<\/p>\n The Bulls CEO admitted that he knew within two minutes that Graham was the guy for the job. That was how long it took the young executive to make an impression. Upon watching his introductory press conference, it\u2019s easy to see why. Graham comes across as intelligent, sensible, and boasts the right mix of confidence and humility. He made it clear from the outset that this team is nowhere near ready to contend. A rebuild is needed, and it is his job to assemble the right group of people to execute it.<\/p>\n He may not have the same naked intensity as Johnson, but the sheer mix of knowledge and common sense is an obvious parallel. Better still, Graham has a clear vision for the type of team he wants to build. Every player must fit four core categories to play for this team: size, length, athleticism, and physicality. Or SLAP. He believes teams comprised of such players often go far in the NBA playoffs, which isn\u2019t wrong. The goal is to find them in the draft and put them under a head coach who understands how to develop them.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udd25 Subscribe to the Untold Chicago YouTube channel<\/a> to hear Chicago legends tell stories you\u2019ve never seen in headlines \u2014 real moments, real experiences, straight from the athletes themselves.<\/p>\n Bulls President and CEO Michael Reinsdorf on spending:<\/p>\n “(Bryson Graham’s) going to tell us ‘here’s what I need.’ \u2026 If we’re competing for championships, we expect that we’ll probably be in the luxury tax, and we’re totally ok with that.”pic.twitter.com\/bDtbqCu0ww<\/a><\/p>\n