Arturas Karnisovas put the hard hat on Sunday night, resuming the demolition project that is the Bulls roster.
As well and as professional as Zach LaVine was playing this season, his contract was a boulder that had to be removed.
But the executive vice president of basketball operations might want to keep the hard hat handy, this time for falling debris.
According to multiple sources, Karnisovas saw two separate deals for Nikola Vucevic fall apart on Tuesday, forcing the front office into a complete reset that could result in Vucevic remaining a Bull the rest of the season, and then being shopped over the summer.
One of the sources did stress that the situation remained fluid, but as of game-time Tuesday night against the Heat, there was no outside momentum for a Vucevic deal to be done, and not even new talks with another team initiated.
That doesn’t mean Karnisovas wasn’t busy, however.
The Bulls were still actively trying to move pieces, specifically evaluating the landscape for the likes of Coby White and Lonzo Ball, as well as any other player that could be made available. That’s why there was a pause in activating Zach Collins, Tre Jones and Kevin Huerter – the players they got back in the three-team deal for LaVine – because there’s a good chance that one or more of them could be attached in a package if a bigger deal materializes by the Thursday trade deadline.
Either way, Bulls players were dealing with the loss of LaVine, as well as the uncertainty of their own tomorrows.
“He was always a guy I can lean on,” White said of the LaVine trade. “The relationship deal was always bigger than just being basketball. I talked to him after the trade and he kind of reiterated that our relationship isn’t going to change. So when I’m training in LA, ‘You’re always welcome to come to the house.’ It was sad, but that’s the business and it is what it is.”
Business that White knows could come calling for him the next few days.
“I’m not going to lie, like I’m going to be honest, when you name an untouchable guy, Luka (Doncic) was definitely getting named,” White said, referring to the shocking Doncic trade that sent the Dallas star to Los Angeles. “So that was hard to believe. You see a guy like Luka, who is a mega superstar, like for myself I already know I’m not untouchable.”
That’s why White couldn’t definitely answer if he would see Thursday night still on the Bulls roster.
“I don’t know,” White, who just bought a house in Chicago, said. “I hope so. That’s up to the front office and how they view me.”
Then there’s the other side of venturing into the rebuild and the pain that comes along with it. It was erroneously reported years ago that Billy Donovan mutually split from Oklahoma City because he didn’t want to be part of a rebuild, when in fact it was more about having some say and communication with the front office in that rebuild.
With the Bulls headed in that direction, Donovan was all in.
“You’ve got to be able to have a partner in that to make things happen,” Donovan said. “I still think there’s a long process in this quite honestly. You have a few more days left in this (trade deadline) period, you’re going to move into the draft, move into free agency in July, so there’s going to be windows to make these things happen.
“I’m all for doing what’s best for the organization. All the way from top to bottom everybody felt the same way. We’re kind of in the middle here and we had to make a shift and do something, and that’s been the goal to try and get that done.”