Less than a week ago, Taj Gibson was on the books of the New Orleans Pelicans. He was waived almost as quickly as he arrived in a trade that sent Jordan Hawkins, rookie Micah Peavy, and two future second-round picks from New Orleans to the Grizzlies. It turned out to be the final transaction of his 17-year playing career. Gibson announced his retirement on Monday, and within hours, a new chapter was already confirmed: he’s heading back to the team that drafted him in 2009, this time as a coach.

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Gibson will return to the Chicago Bulls as an assistant coach on first-year head coach Tiago Splitter’s staff. The move comes just after Gibson made his retirement official on social media.

“Today is a very emotional day for me,” Gibson wrote. “After 17 seasons in the NBA, I can honestly say I gave this game everything I had.”

Gibson’s playing career stretched across eight franchises. He began with eight seasons in Chicago after the Bulls selected him 26th overall in 2009, and later had stops with Oklahoma City, Minnesota and two separate stints with the Knicks.

The timing lines up well for Chicago’s roster, too. Taj Gibson is expected to work directly with the Bulls’ young frontcourt, including forward Matas Buzelis and rookie Caleb Wilson, giving the coaching staff a direct link to the kind of habits that helped Gibson last nearly two decades in the league.

Gibson’s exit from the league came with an odd final act. On Sept. 8, the Grizzlies sent him and guard AJ Johnson to New Orleans, only for the Pelicans to waive him the very next day as a corresponding roster move.

That timing may have actually worked in Chicago’s favor. With the Bulls in the middle of a roster rebuild around Buzelis and Wilson, some fans had already pushed back on the idea of bringing Gibson back for another season as a player, arguing that a youth-focused roster had little use for another open veteran spot.

Landing him as a coach instead lets the organization keep his experience in the building without taking a spot away from a player it’s trying to develop.

Between the surprise trade, the surprise waiving, and now the surprise return to the same franchise that drafted him 17 years ago, Gibson’s final week as an NBA player was almost as eventful as entire seasons of his career.

For the Bulls, though, the outcome is straightforward: a well-respected veteran who never fully left Chicago is now positioned to shape the next generation of the roster from the bench instead of the court.