The Bulls front office won’t publicly be speaking to the media for another month.
The usual modus operandi for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas since he was put in that chair.
There’s the same talking points on media day in the fall, a wrap up of excuses right after the February trade deadline, and then the April season exit interview filled with promises soon to be unfulfilled.
That leaves coach Billy Donovan taking on the questions that Karnisovas should be accessible to answer, and that was again the case on Monday.
With the Bulls no longer having the misdirection of “Derrick Rose Night” to hide behind, it was Donovan getting peppered with questions about an organizational plan and direction as the Feb. 6 trade deadline approaches.
To his credit, Donovan did very little in the bob and weave department, but he also might not have said what many Bulls fans wanted to hear, either: Holding onto the protected 2025 top 10 first-round draft pick and keeping it away from San Antonio is not the priority.
Even with a loaded draft class waiting in the wings.
“No one is saying to me, ‘Hey listen, wait a second with this draft pick right now, we’ve got to make sure … ‘ It’s always been about the integrity of competition and playing, and I appreciate that,” Donovan said. “In the conversations I’ve had, with the roster and with the team where we are right now, and I appreciate this, I’m not being directed at all. ‘Hey Billy, you’ve got to play this guy, this guy, and this guy, and sit this guy …’ That’s not happening.”
That’s why Donovan’s attitude is foot down on the pedal, play to this fast-paced style, and win as many games as possible.
An attitude he can’t be blamed for.
But that’s also why he was asked flat-out about if there is a plan to get this organization out of mediocrity, and that’s where there was only so much he could answer on that front.
In the past, until trade talks became serious, the front office made it a habit to keep that off Donovan’s plate and let him focus on basketball games. There has been nothing pushed to his plate so far this season.
“They’re all talking about the rosters, players, those types of things,” Donovan said of ongoing trade rumors. “With that being said you’ve got to have a partner that is willing to work with you.
“I haven’t necessarily had any conversations with (Karnisovas) about, ‘Hey, this is really potentially going to happen for the foreseeable future,’ or ‘This is what we’re going to be doing.’ He’s listening to everything. Like in any situation you can have a plan of what you want to do, but you aren’t able to do it because you’ve got to have partners in all this stuff.”
The Sun-Times reported last month that there was “light momentum” in talks with Denver about Zach LaVine, but it never grabbed much traction. Nikola Vucevic is another realistic trade candidate, but again there’s more speculation than reality so far.
Then again, maybe the Bulls don’t feel that holding onto a chance for a top draft pick is really the priority in getting better.
The way Donovan explained it, because the game is changing to a high-paced sprint, it might be more important to have depth with 10-to-12 guys rather than focusing on landing that one “it” guy.
That’s debatable, but also the hill the coach dug his feet into.
“If we want to continue playing this way you can’t have eight guys,” Donovan said. “There’s no way you can sustain playing that way, that fast.
“So instead of one guy or two guys, how do we build out where there’s 10 or 12 guys, and if you lose a guy you’re not taking this huge hit. That’s what I’ve shared with them in terms of what I’ve thought.”