{"id":843845,"date":"2026-09-25T20:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T20:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/843845\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T20:54:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T20:54:20","slug":"central-notes-bulls-cavs-pacers-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/843845\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Notes: Bulls, Cavs, Pacers, Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bulls officially announced<\/a> a series of additions and promotions within their front office on Thursday as they fill out their staff under executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham during his first year on the job.<\/p>\n

Among the changes announced by the Bulls was Brian Hagen\u2019s promotion to the role of senior VP of player personnel. Hagen, who has been with the franchise since 2012, has held several basketball operations positions since then, including \u2013 most recently \u2013 director of player personnel.<\/p>\n

The Bulls have also hired Dionne Calhoun as assistant athletic trainer, Alex Kaufman as senior manager of basketball operations (as well as GM of the Windy City Bulls), Jarrett Sutton as a scout and intelligence coordinator, while promoting Noah Fax to coordinator of basketball operations and elevating Justin Irwin to assistant strength and conditioning coach. Both Kaufman and Sutton worked with Graham in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from around the Central:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the greatest area of concern for the Cavaliers entering the 2026\/27 season? In the view of Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com<\/a>, it\u2019s the club\u2019s depth, which took a hit this offseason when Dean Wade<\/a>, Keon Ellis<\/a>, and Larry Nance Jr.<\/a> departed in free agency while Dennis Schr\u00f6der<\/a> and Max Strus<\/a> were traded. While Sam Merrill<\/a> and Jaylon Tyson<\/a> can probably be trusted to play significant roles as reserves, it remains to be seen how much Cleveland can expect from the likes of Tyrese Proctor<\/a>, Thomas Bryant<\/a>, Mario Hezonja<\/a>, and Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin<\/a>, Fedor writes.
\nStill, head coach Kenny Atkinson doesn\u2019t sound concerned about the Cavaliers\u2019 depth, suggesting on Friday that he thinks there are 13 players on the roster who could potentially earn rotation minutes (Twitter link<\/a> via Fedor). Interestingly, Atkinson also suggested the starting five is \u201cnot set,\u201d though it would be a surprise if anyone besides Peyton Watson<\/a> ends up at the three alongside James Harden<\/a>, Donovan Mitchell<\/a>, Evan Mobley<\/a>, and Jarrett Allen<\/a>.
\nPacers general manager Chad Buchanan declined on Thursday to speak about potential new contracts for the team\u2019s many extension-eligible players, including Pascal Siakam<\/a>, Ben Sheppard<\/a>, or Jarace Walker<\/a>, per Zion Brown of The Indianapolis Star<\/a>. However, Buchanan did speak about what Indiana expects from Walker, a former lottery pick, as he enters the final year of his rookie contract. \u201cHis role will be a little different this year than it was last year,\u201d the GM said. \u201cAnd the more simplified he can keep his game, the more he can focus on helping us do the little things. \u2026 We don\u2019t need a lot of play-making necessarily from him like maybe we did last year, and I think part of his maturity and growth as a player is understanding what the team needs from him. We\u2019ve got to see him do it and he\u2019s got to do it night to night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bulls officially announced a series of additions and promotions within their front office on Thursday as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[92453,7,90271,6847,113,126,3866,643,92454,99766,6,99767,114,1146],"class_list":["post-843845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-alex-kaufman","tag-basketball","tag-brian-hagen","tag-dionne-calhoun","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-jarace-walker","tag-jarrett-sutton","tag-justin-irwin","tag-nba","tag-noah-fax","tag-pacers","tag-peyton-watson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117333672808635354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}