Between patting himself on the back for being “on the right path” and asking Bulls fans for more patience, executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas had quite a day.
Quite a confusing, frustrating, headshaking day.
And the real kicker in all of it? His “plan” seemingly has the backing of ownership and the rest of the front office.
One day after watching the Bulls get dismantled by the Heat in a play-in game, Karnisovas met with the media to discuss the 2024-25 season and the plan for the future. Oh, there’s a plan. It’s completely flawed with a shortcut mentality and goes against the history of almost every NBA championship team from the last three-plus decades, but Karnisovas is sold on it and spent more than 20 minutes trying to sell it to the masses.
First things first, he put to rest any notion that he would leave his post to return to Denver and take the Nuggets’ executive opening. Karnisovas still has a home in Denver, so it wasn’t a stretch to link him to that job.
“No, I’m in Chicago; I’m focused only on this roster,” Karnisovas said Thursday.
The other piece of important business he addressed came when he reiterated that his job was safe. He said the Bulls’ plan to escape from mediocrity is shared by the entire organization, including Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf.
“We have a very good relationship with Jerry and Michael,” Karnisovas said. “We take pride, especially in this building, in everybody being on the same page. It’s very hard to accomplish, but that’s how it is in this building between the ownership, front office, coaching staff, performance staff, so they have always been very supportive of my decisions, my thoughts, about this direction.”
Then he went into detail about that “direction,” and that’s when it felt like things went off the rails.
Karnisovas said the organization had four major hurdles to get over from last season: changing the style of play, retaining the 2025 draft pick, building the roster by minimizing the timeline with young, experienced players and focusing on internal development.
He took joy in insisting those boxes were checked.
Karnisovas wasn’t wrong. Those boxes were checked.
If only those boxes mattered.
The Bulls finished with the same 39-43 record as in 2023-24 and lost to the Heat again in the play-in for the third year in a row.
And he failed to address the elephant in the room — or at least the All-Star absent from his locker room.
All-Star guard Tyler Herro helped eliminate the Bulls in the last two play-in meetings, and Jimmy Butler sent the Bulls packing in the 2022-23 play-in loss.
So Karnisovas was asked about how he plans to land an elite player, especially if he’s unwilling to tank to try hit draft gold. He pushed back against the idea that he had no real plan.
“Well, there is a plan,” he said. “I think we’re always going to look at how to improve this roster by adding a player or high-caliber player.
‘‘At the same time, I would not put any limitations on this roster or on the way Coby [White] has been playing, the way Josh [Giddey] has been playing, so I think those players have a chance to play at a very high level. We’re constantly going to be looking for ways to improve from year to year.”
So the plan is to hope that White and Giddey continue pushing up against the ceiling? Again, hope is not a plan.
Even more concerning, Karnisovas admitted that the roster could look similar next season, with the Bulls hitting financial flexibility in the 2026 offseason. But they refuse to take steps back in the standings — increasing the odds to hit on a high draft pick — despite the 2025 and ’26 classes being loaded, especially at the top.
Karnisovas doesn’t seem to have the patience for that or want to go through the pain it takes to sink that low.
“I do believe that the way we wanted to build this roster is basically by having players that have experience to kind of shrink the timeline and continuously look for other ways to improve,” Karnisovas said. “I think [coach] Billy [Donovan] spoke about how important it was for this young group to focus on winning and what goes into winning, instead of just rolling the ball out and telling them, ‘Go and develop.’ That’s the path we chose.”
It’s the path of no patience. Well, he was asking for some patience, but that was from Bulls fans.
“I’m asking fans for patience because we’re in the first year of that transition,” Karnisovas said. “I thought the way we finished the year showed some promise. It’s hard to win games in this league and to finish 15-5, yeah, it’s not a victory lap, but I think there are some positives.”