Bulls EVP Artūras Karnišovas full trade deadline press conference
Artūras Karnišovas traded away Zach LaVine, but still faces questions about the future of the Bulls. He held a press conference talking about the team’s future Thursday.
It’s hard to make sense of what the Chicago Bulls are trying to do these days.
We know what they want to do. We know they want to win championships. Bulls Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Artūras Karnišovas said that again on Thursday in the hour after the NBA trade deadline passed.
“We’re committing to building a sustainable, competitive team,” Karnišovas said. “Curating a team that competes at the high level and can compete for a championship has been our goal.”
Makes sense. To get there, the Bulls need to build a roster worthy of contention.
Karnišovas seemed out of touch with the way the front office wanted to get there.
“I think there are different structures that you can try to get to a championship,” Karnišovas said. “There’s two, three star players and then a lot of role players, or you can build it as nine, 10 very good players. And I think now we’re leaning to have a lot of solid good players and nine, 10 that can last through the season.”
Of all the things Karnišovas said on Thursday, this was the most confusing.
In the past 24 years, it’s hard recalling any team that’s won with a collection of good players instead of having star power to lean on.
The past five NBA Champions have been the Celtics, Nuggets, Warriors, Bucks and Lakers. Each of those teams had a grouping of stars: Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton, and finally LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
I guess one team that did it with a roster of 10 talented players was the Toronto Raptors, who had Khawi Leonard and, frankly, everyone else. But, they won the 2019 NBA Finals after Kevin Durant tore his Achilles and Thompson tore his ACL in Games 5 and 6, respectively.
The bottom line is that assembling a roster without one or more stars in the NBA won’t win a title. But the Bulls still didn’t completely commit to that idea. They’re just leaning into it.
All of this to say, the Bulls still haven’t taken a concrete stance on how they want to build their future. But, Karnišovas did signal where he did NOT want to be.
“We’re not OK with being in the middle,” Karnišovas said.
Again, makes sense. Then what are the Bulls doing to get out of the middle? The best way to do so is to acquire talents who can either grow into a star player or acquire stars themselves, like the Bulls did when they roped DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic and Lonzo Ball into the fold ahead of a 50-win 2021-2022 season.
Actions will always speak louder than words. So far, all the Bulls have done is trade away their best players for what has felt like pennies on the dollar. Josh Giddey could be a player the Bulls keep long-term, but his contract ends after this season. Aside from him, can you say the same for the rest?
The Bulls already waived Chris Duarte, who was acquired in the trade for DeMar DeRozan this summer. What about the players acquired in the LaVine trade, Kevin Huerter, Zach Collins and Tre Jones? Jones’ contract ends after this season; Huerter and Collins’ contracts are up after the ’25-26 season.
Still, the Bulls set a goal to be a playoff team on Thursday, saying the team’s final 30 games will help them idenfity how they’ll attack the offseason.
“If we win with this young team and can make the play-in and playoffs, it’s going to be an accomplishment,” Karnišovas said of the Bulls’ last 30 games. “If your young guys are developing and it translates into wins, I think there’s growth.”
That’s true. If the Bulls win with a pieced-together group of players like they have now, that’s a good thing. It proves they have a good core of players that can make the Bulls competitive sooner rather than later.
The Bulls will never truly take the next step unless they acquire star power. Even the Los Angeles Lakers, who have LeBron James, made the move of the decade to acquire 35-year-old superstar Luka Dončić to succeed James. The Bulls have left that blank so far as they head into their 30-game waiting period.
“The next phase is going to be during the draft and free agency,” Karnišovas said.
That means Bulls fans have to watch a half of a season where the Bulls only might be competitive before the team indicates what kind of direction they’ll go in.
They can’t get there without a star, even if the Bulls’ front office thinks they can.
