Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
K.C. Johnson: Scottie Pippen is sitting with Michael Reinsdorf and former teammate Toni Kukoč. Artūras Karnišovas just stopped by. Always good to have Pip in the house
For now, Arturas Karnisovas is in charge and he has big plans for the present. “Starting right now, I think our pro group is going to focus on watching games with very specific lists of players that we’re going to target during free agency,” he said. “Also, we’re going to watch a lot of college games, international games, and we’re going to focus on the draft and constantly try to get better.”
Joel Lorenzi: The core players Karnisovas listed: Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Isaac Okoro, Noa Essengue, Jalen Smith. Says “we’re intentional about surrounding these core pieces with players who have real NBA experience, along with upcoming draft picks.”
Joel Lorenzi: Asked Artūras if he’s still staying away from the word rebuild, and he says yes, saying “this is a stage we’re in.” Says he, the Reinsdorfs and Billy Donovan are “in lockstep.”
Joel Lorenzi: AK, previously not so fixated on acquiring youthful players and assets, on what changed: “The timing. (The) stage we’re in as a team. We started this last year, and going into the season a lot of decisions had to be made. That was a great opportunity for us during trade deadline to get a lot of draft capital.”
Advertisement
Joe Cowley: The world of AK does confuse me. As late as a few months ago, he was still poo-pooing second round picks - now he has 80 of them. And when I've brought up tanking for the 25 and 26 classes he said hell no. Now, he's soft tanking at least one year too late. But OK.
Karnisovas has a team that is growing distrustful about the direction in which it is going, he still has seven potential free agents come July and he has a product that remains stuck in the same swamp of mediocrity it has resided in the previous three seasons. What he has on his side is the trade deadline Thursday, which gives him a chance to try to right his own wrongs.
Artūras Karnišovas, a forward who averaged 11.2 points per game during Lithuania’s bronze-medal run, called the 1992 Games “a truly special time in my life.” Karnišovas is now executive vice president of basketball operations for the Chicago Bulls. “The chance to represent Lithuania as an independent country after so many years made it even more meaningful,” Karnišovas told The Athletic. “What Bob Weir and the Grateful Dead did for us is something I will never forget, and we, both as a team and as a country, are incredibly grateful for their support. Without it, we probably wouldn’t have had the means to train, travel, or even qualify for the 1992 Olympics. At the time, I was just a college sophomore. Little did we know that this tie-dyed story and experience would grow into something so powerful and lasting for so many years.”
According to several league sources, Karnisovas has been more transparent in trade talks and more realistic in asking prices since last year’s trade deadline. The feeling from other executives is that that momentum is carrying over heading toward the Feb. 5 trade deadline as Karnisovas looks to get something done with this roster.
According to several league sources, going back to last year’s trade deadline Karnisovas has been more transparent in trade talks and realistic in asking prices. The feeling from other executives is going into this year’s Feb. 5 deadline, that momentum is carrying over toward Karnisovas looking to get something done with this current roster.
Advertisement
There comes a point in a game where your star has to shine brighter than the other team’s star. Do the Bulls have that dude? Maybe it will be Matas Buzelis, Giddey or even a healthy White. But it’s not clear they have that player now. Is there a trade out there to be made, especially with six players — including White — on expiring contracts? That’s a question executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas will explore. He had better.
KC Johnson: Karnišovas says Coby White will be limited by a calf strain suffered in August. “Hopefully we can see him by end of preseason.”
"It has been very good. We have good communication," Vucevic said, talking about his relationship with Bulls V.P. of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas. "He has always been pretty open with me. Even just a couple of weeks ago, when the buyout news came out, he actually texted me to tell me not to worry about it and not to read into it," he said. "I have known AK for a long time. When I did my pre-draft workout, he was with Houston and took me out to dinner for an interview. So I have known him for a very long time," Vucevic added.
