The Chicago Bulls are among the teams who face an uncertain future. They’ve made it clear they aren’t good enough to challenge the big boys in the East but aren’t bad enough to be considered rebuilding. It appears they are stuck in NBA purgatory. Ownership seems unwilling to hit the reset button even though all signs point to that being the best choice. That leaves VP of basketball operation Arturas Karnisovas in a precarious spot. He has to decide how he wants to approach reshaping this team. Already, he’s made a big move to start the off-season, trading star defender Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City.
Is this the first step in considering a rebuild? He would deny it, but some believe that is the case. Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times revealed as much. He stated Karnisovas actually tried trading Caruso, among other assets, last season in hopes of securing more capital in the 2025 draft. However, other teams weren’t willing to bite.
Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas tried his best to get another pick in the 2025 draft class last season, but whether it was waving Alex Caruso out there on the trade market or other assets, picks from the ’24 class were all that were being offered, according to a source.
It makes sense considering how stacked ’25 appears to be in comparison, but it also leaves Karnisovas and his front office in a predicament.
The Bulls owe the Spurs their first pick in 2025, but it is top-10 protected.
This leaves Chicago with a tough decision. They can either keep the roster together, hoping for one last chance at a playoff push, or they can make more moves to shake things up and likely take a step back. While it likely wouldn’t guarantee a shot at the #1 pick, they would be given a reasonable chance of keeping their selection in 2025.
Reports indicate the Bulls owner dismissed the idea of a midseason firesale, urging a push to reach the playoffs. That obviously didn’t work out. Now, Karnisovas must work with what he has. People around the league seem to think Chicago will push the reset button, at least to a degree. That means trading away established assets like Zach Lavine, Nikola Vucevic, and even DeMar DeRozan. Doing so would be the loudest signal in some time that the organization is serious about changes.
The long and short of it is that Arturas Karnisovas wants to protect his draft pick in 2025 since he wasn’t able to land one through trade last year. That means making the Bulls bad enough to secure a top 10 draft slot. History says you need at least 50-52 losses to have a reasonable chance of picking that high. They haven’t been that bad since the 2018-2019 season during the Fred Hoiberg/Jim Boylen years. As an NBA head coach, Billy Donovan has never lost more than 43 games in a season.
Keep that in mind as the next month unfolds.
