This is all about actions from Arturas Karnisovas moving forward.
Because in speaking to the media after the Thursday NBA trade deadline came and went, the words from the Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations were mostly a fail.
Karnisovas brought up a playoff push still being on the table for this season, threw out a plan of building the team out with good depth one through 10 rather than trying to focus on landing star players, and also making this a slower process to allow for all the younger players to be truly evaluated.
He not only lost the presser, but didn’t help himself or the organization in the eyes of a fan base that is growing impatient with not only the mediocrity under the Karnisovas/general manager Marc Eversley regime, but seemingly the confusion of the direction to move forward.
A source close to the situation, however, did tell the Sun-Times that Karnisovas is in fact working with more urgency than shown and does have a more definite plan in place than what he conveyed publicly. All well and good, but that’s why it’s about his actions now.
Even in his days as an assistant in the Denver organization, Karnisovas was from the school of never showing his hand. While there is frustration in that, he’s made it very clear throughout the Bulls front office that the mess that’s been made is on him and he intends to clean it up.
He traded Alex Caruso, DeMar DeRozan and then on Sunday, Zach LaVine, in the last seven months, but the hope was there would be more cargo thrown off the sinking ship by the 2 p.m. deadline.
It didn’t happen, and even more unfortunate was the fact that Karnisovas made those three trades and only got back control of the protected first-round pick from San Antonio that went out when they first acquired DeRozan.
“We obviously value draft compensation and young players, and flexibility, I think in that order,” Karnisovas said. “But again, we have nine players that are between 20 and 25 (years old). You have to have a right mix of players to grow. You can’t just roll out all young players and they’re going to develop on their own. I think you need the right vets, experienced guys to be around. I see Vooch (Nikola Vucevic) and keeping Zo (Lonzo Ball who was extended on Wednesday) in that role.”
That’s one of the reasons why Vucevic wasn’t traded, but it was also explained to the Sun-Times by a source that the Bulls felt Vucevic – who has an expiring contract entering the 2025-26 season – would bring them back more draft capital in the offseason when teams have a reset. The offers for Vucevic on Thursday were said to be underwhelming and life without the big man wouldn’t significantly change where the Bulls are in the standings.
As far as Karnisovas using the word “playoff push” for the remainder of the season, the only way he would want to see that happen is if it’s led by the young players like Matas Buzelis, Ayo Dosunmu and Josh Giddey.
Privately, Karnisovas does want the highest draft odds as possible and that’s been reflected in him advising coach Billy Donovan to continue upping the minutes of Buzelis. He wants the training wheels off the rookie and if that means losses, but development, a win-win.
The Bulls did come away from the trade deadline feeling good about laying down the groundwork for this summer and were confident that they could come out of the offseason with more veteran players moved and draft assets gathered.
Again, a fact that Karnisovas did not want to divulge with the media.
“Yes,” Karnisovas did say, when asked about doing what it takes to put the Bulls in the best position for this year’s draft lottery. “By getting our pick back and not having to worry about where we’re going to land this year, there’s an opportunity during the draft to land another young player and consistently look for opportunities to get a star player.”
All well and good, but actions now, not words.