How Tiago Splitter's Bulls changes have hurt Josh Giddey

• Josh Giddey is averaging 9.3 points, down from 22.3 at the same stage last season
• Chicago started 2025-26 at 6-2 and is 1-7 under new coach Tiago Splitter
• A sore left wrist and Caleb Wilson's arrival as top scorer sit behind the drop

Australian Boomers star Josh Giddey is going backwards under new Chicago Bulls head coach Tiago Splitter, and the numbers demand an explanation.

Eight games into last season, 23-year-old Giddey was averaging 22.3 points, 9.6 rebounds and 9.8 assists. Chicago was 6-2, and its Australian point guard was establishing himself as one of the NBA's most productive playmakers.

Eight games into Splitter's tenure, the Bulls are 1-7. Giddey's scoring has collapsed to 9.3 points, his rebounds have almost halved, and he's playing seven fewer minutes a night. There is an injury cloud over his wrist but Splitter has said: "I haven't seen it affect his play.

"I understand he's got something with his wrist. I think he's just playing basketball."

So, the question isn't simply what's happened to Giddey. It's what Splitter has done with him.

The Brazilian coach inherited a point guard who averaged 17.0 points, 8.3 rebounds and 9.1 assists across 2025-26.

Now Giddey is taking just 9.0 shots per game, compared with 16.4 at the same stage last season, while rookie Caleb Wilson has become Chicago's leading scorer.

Splitter has every right to rebuild the Bulls. But when a player who was producing near triple-double numbers is suddenly struggling to reach double figures, the coach's decisions deserve as much scrutiny as the player's performances.

And Splitter's own words make the contrast more striking.

"I don't need him to be cute," Splitter said of Giddey at media day.

"I need him to be effective."

Eight games later, the Bulls have one win, and their Australian playmaker is producing less in almost every major statistical category.

That raises an uncomfortable question for Chicago: Is Splitter building a system that gets the best out of his USD $25M centrepiece, or asking his best playmaker to become someone else?

RELATED: Tracking every Josh Giddey Bulls game in 2026-27

Nikola Vucevic, Coby White, Collin Sexton, Ayo Dosunmu and Kevin Huerter are gone. Rookie Caleb Wilson, 20, veteran Norman Powell, 33, and Leonard Miller, 22, have come in, and Matas Buzelis, 22, has moved to small forward under Tiago Splitter, who replaced Billy Donovan.

The Bulls' style of play has changed with the personnel.

Chicago now attacks the paint for fouls, and its free-throw rate has jumped from .246, 22nd in the NBA last season, to .368, second, with Powell alone taking 8.6 free throws a game.

Giddey has just 15 attempts in eight games.

The Bulls also crash the offensive glass now, collecting 28.8 per cent of their own misses, up from 23.1. The cost is at the other end, where their defensive rebound rate has fallen from 75.5 per cent, sixth in the league, to 68.0, 28th.

Pace has barely moved, from 102.5 possessions per 48 minutes (second) to 104.6 (first).

That rebounding trade shows up in Giddey's own line. He averaged 7.1 defensive rebounds a game across 2025-26 and is averaging 4.1 now, three of the 4.9 a game Chicago has lost. Per minute, he is grabbing about 30 per cent fewer, and he is not crashing the other end either, with four offensive rebounds in eight games.

A point guard who used to finish defensive possessions with the ball in his hands is finishing far fewer, on a team sending bodies the other way.

The other big change is where the shots go. Giddey took 16.4 a game over his first eight games last season and 13.3 across the year, and he is taking 9.0 now, while Wilson leads Chicago at 19.5 points on 17.1 attempts and Powell is next at 19.3 points on 12.9.

Splitter set out what he expected from Giddey at media day.

"I don't need him to be cute," Splitter said.

"I need him to be effective."

It was a message about turnovers, and Giddey is down to 2.5 a game from 3.6, the one improvement in a line where his points, rebounds, assists, minutes and shooting have all fallen.

The assists need context. Chicago's are down 4.2 per 100 possessions, but the share of made baskets that were assisted has barely moved, from 67 per cent to 66.

The Bulls are shooting 27.2 per cent from three, last in the league, so part of Giddey's fall from 9.1 assists to 7.6 is teammates missing.

After the 133-127 loss to the Knicks on Thursday, October 29 (AEDT), when Giddey had 10 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds, Splitter said: "Overall, Josh, I think he had a good game.

"He's not forcing anything. He's passing the game. He had 11 assists, two turnovers. I think he's been outstanding.

"Yes, we want him to do that and score 20, but I think he's reading the game and doing the right thing."

Giddey has been blunt about his own part in it.

“(Finding better shots) is probably something I’ve got to work out. Being inefficient like I have been the first four games doesn’t help,” Giddey said, as the team slipped to 1-3 in late October.

“I’ve made a conscious effort to get off the ball, to get guys looks. I’ve never really been one to press. When I haven’t been scoring, I’ve never wanted to go out there and just try to make something happen for myself.

“Letting the game come to you, not going out there predetermining what you want to do, is the best way to go about it.

“It’ll come. Shots will start falling. But I’m never one to go out there – I’m not thinking tomorrow night I’ve got to go out there and have 25 to get back on track.

“It’ll come naturally as I kind of put myself in the team, and we’ll start to figure it out together. That stuff will come naturally.

“But I’m not sitting here saying it’s going well. I’ve got to figure it out, and I’ve got to do a better job of helping other guys on our team figure it out too. That’s the role as a point guard.

“When we get there, we generate good shots, and we’re probably shooting the ball as bad as anybody in the league right now."

Eight games is a small sample, and the shooting is the shakiest part of it. Chicago's 27.2 per cent comes on 342 attempts and Giddey's 8-from-28 on far fewer. His role has changed. The shooting may come back.

Then there is the wrist. Giddey revealed the injury after the 135-92 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Thursday, October 22, 2026 (AEDT), saying he hurt it in the first preseason game and had an MRI. The Bulls expect to manage it "throughout the season".

He was listed as probable with a left wrist sprain for the next game in Milwaukee.

The Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks 132-125 for their only win, and Splitter closed with Tre Jones, 26, rather than Giddey. Jones was plus-24 with 11 points and eight assists; Giddey was -15 with six points and nine assists.

"Cannot say enough about Tre," Splitter said.

"He changed the game."

The bigger worry is the defence. Chicago is allowing 123.9 points per 100 possessions, 29th, up from 118.1, and is being outscored by 18 a game against a schedule Basketball-Reference rates as softer than average (minus 4.1).

The blowouts cost Giddey minutes, but only some of them. He has averaged 26.4 in the five losses by 14 or more and 28.7 in the three single-digit games, both well below the 34.1 he played at this stage last season.

The Bulls host the Philadelphia 76ers at 7:30am AEDT on Monday, November 9, six days after Philadelphia beat them 126-107 in a game where Giddey had 13 points and 10 assists.

A year ago, the second of those back-to-back triple-doubles (29 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists) beat the 76ers 113-111 in Chicago on Wednesday, November 5, 2025 (AEDT).

Giddey has a responsibility to rediscover his shooting touch. But Splitter has a bigger responsibility: explaining why a player who flourished as Chicago's primary playmaker is suddenly being asked to do so much less.

Eight games into his tenure, Splitter hasn't just changed the Bulls. He's changed Josh Giddey's place within them.

And with Chicago sitting 1-7, the coach needs to show why that's making anyone better.