Bulls hire Todd Campbell to be new head athletic trainer originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Bulls announced Tuesday the hire of Todd Campbell as the team’s new head athletic trainer.
Campbell, a Massachusetts native and current Chicago resident, comes with 16 years of NBA experience in athletic training and physical therapy. For the past three seasons, he served as an athletic trainer for the New Orleans Pelicans; before that, he spent 13 years as a full-time physical therapist with the Boston Celtics, where he first broke NBA ground as an intern in 2002.
He also, according to a team release, worked as an athletic trainer in football at Brown (2003) and Harvard (2012), and ice hockey with the Northern Cyclones (2011) — plus, a spell touring with Aerosmith as their staff physical therapist in 2009.
The hire is a significant one for the Bulls, who have endured grueling injury losses in recent years. Just in 2019-20, the team lost Otto Porter Jr. (who missed 51 games with foot sprain/fracture), Chandler Hutchison (37 cumulative games; hamstring strain/shoulder injury) Wendell Carter Jr. (22 games; ankle sprain) and Lauri Markkanen (15 games; stress reaction in pelvis), among many others, for extended stretches due to injury.
Coby White and Tomáš Satoranský were the only two players to appear in all 65 of the team’s games — Zach LaVine appeared in 60 before missing the last five due to a quad strain.
Some of those ailments were trauma-induced, but the Bulls’ injury woes date years back. Artūras Karnišovas acknowledged in his end of season press conference that if the rebuild is to move forward, this team can’t afford to continue being hampered in that department.
“The youth, the injuries, all that stuff is not going to be an excuse moving forward,” Karnišovas said, “because this group is too talented not to perform better.”
Earlier in the offseason, Karnišovas declined the option on former head athletic trainer Jeff Tanaka’s contract. Director of sports performance Chip Schaefer remains in his role.
The Bulls' offseason has also included the notable hires of general manager Marc Eversley, vice president of player personnel Pat Connelly, assistant general manager J.J. Polk and head coach Billy Donovan.
