Bryson Graham’s latest round of Bulls hires says a lot about where he’s looking for help as Chicago builds toward the 2026-27 training camp.
On Thursday, the Bulls announced a final wave of front office additions that report to Graham, the team’s lead basketball executive. The group includes Brian Hagen as senior vice president of player personnel, Dionne Calhoun as assistant athletic trainer, Alex Kaufman as senior manager of basketball operations and general manager of the Windy City Bulls, Jarrett Sutton as a scout and intelligence coordinator, Justin Irwin as assistant strength and conditioning coach, and Noah Fax as coordinator of basketball operations.
The thread running through several of those names is New Orleans. Graham’s recent hires include multiple former Pelicans colleagues, a sign that his time there clearly left an imprint and may be shaping how he wants to build out Chicago’s decision-making structure.
Hagen worked with Graham in New Orleans early in Graham’s front office career, during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 NBA seasons, before going on to spend 15 years with the Bulls. Kaufman and Sutton are more recent Pelicans connections; both joined New Orleans in 2019 and worked in roles centered largely on scouting.
There’s also a little Bulls-Pelicans crossover trivia in the mix. The source of the note points out that the Pelicans had a rookie on their 2010-11 roster who later spent time in the Bulls organization and is set to return during the 2026-27 NBA season: Quincy Pondexter.
Of course, loading up on familiar faces can cut both ways. The concern is obvious: is Graham choosing trusted voices, or simply surrounding himself with people he already knows? The Pelicans’ track record during these overlap windows doesn’t exactly silence that question.
During the seasons when Graham and Hagen were together in New Orleans, the Pelicans reached the playoffs once, in 2011, and finished 21-45 in 2011-12. In the later stretch that included Graham, Kaufman, and Sutton, New Orleans made the playoffs twice in six seasons, in 2022 and 2024.
Still, the group did have some success identifying talent. In isolation, Graham and his Pelicans contemporaries helped land players such as Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
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