“We aren’t here for the Play-In. It’s a team game, and we have to make changes to fix things. I take full responsibility for where we are right now.”
Arturas Karnisovas uttered those exact words on April 20, 2024. The Chicago Bulls were fresh off losing in the Play-In Tournament for the second consecutive season. Even the hard-headed executive knew he could no longer sit in front of a microphone and make excuses. What he and his cohorts had built failed, and the time for change was long overdue.
To his credit, he followed up those words with actions. DeMar DeRozan was sent to Sacramento in a sign-and-trade, while former lottery pick Josh Giddey was acquired in a deal for Alex Caruso. The team also added big man Jalen Smith in free agency and selected a 19-year-old on draft night. A youth movement appeared to be on the horizon, which felt particularly wise with the organization’s 2025 first-round pick hanging in the balance. Chicago came into the year knowing they would have to finish among the league’s bottom 10 to avoid the San Antonio Spurs another asset.
Then, Karnisovas uttered some more words.
“I mean, this is not our focus,” Karnisovas said of the Top-10 protected pick on Oct. 1, 2024. “Our focus going into the season is basically to define our style of play and find our identity. What is our identity with this group? And the last thing that I’m trying to think about is how do we have a home-court advantage playing in this building. Last year we had a losing record. So those [are the] kind of things that I’m trying to focus on instead of what’s going to happen after the season.”
It was easy to dub these comments as “executive speak” at the time. No front office voluntarily shares they are tanking. Not only is it frowned upon by the league office, but it isn’t going to foster a particularly healthy locker room. And this is still important when you have a roster full of developmental pieces.
To Karnisovas’ discredit, the Bulls followed up these words with actions, too. The team sits at 18-23 at the halfway mark of the 2024-25 season and 10th in the Eastern Conference. Sound familiar? The Bulls were 19-22 at this exact point last season and – you guessed it – 19-22 the season before that.
In other words, despite all of that offseason chatter about change, the Bulls are jogging down the same old pot-holed-filled path. They are in a prime position to make a run at a third-straight Play-In Tournament appearance and thus toggling the very fine line between keeping and losing their pick.
They aren’t even accomplishing what Karnisovas declared that they set out to accomplish. While their style of play may look a lot different this season, the team’s “identity” is painfully the same. They can steal a game from the Boston Celtics as easily as they can lose one to the Washington Wizards. The only thing consistent about them is their inconsistency, and this tells us all we need to know about their chances of achieving anything of significance.
Likewise, the Bulls couldn’t be embarrassing Karnisovas more with their current home record. The team is 8-14 at the United Center this season and fresh off back-to-back losses. The first came against the West-worst New Orleans Pelicans, while the second came against a Hawks team missing their top three scorers.
Everything about the Bulls feels the same, which is precisely why all eyes remain on the Feb. 6 trade deadline. The good news is a recent report shared that the team is planning to be sellers in the coming weeks. The bad news is we have heard very few rumors regarding strong interest in their main trade chips, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic.
Could that change in the coming weeks, especially when we consider how well each player continues to perform? Of course. But it’s also impossible to ignore just how afraid this organization has been to make moves in the past. They have repeatedly talked themselves out of deadline moves and/or overvalued their assets. We even received reports already this season that they are doing the latter.
Let’s not forget the Chicago Bulls haven’t made an in-season trade since March 25, 2021. Yes, you read that right. They also went from August 28, 2021, to June 28, 2023, without making a trade of ANY kind. The streak finally ended during the 2023 NBA Draft when they sent multiple second-round picks to the Washington Wizards for the rights to select Julian Phillips 35th overall – who is currently averaging the 9th-fewest minutes on the team.
No matter how you look at it, this is indefensible. If the team’s goal was to be competitive and a legitimate playoff threat, they clearly needed to add pieces and improve their on-court product. You can’t sit still after a five-game first-round playoff exit and expect to drastically improve.
If the team’s goal was to build for the future, you have to sell off pieces, particularly at the deadline when teams are desperate. The Bulls had every opportunity to do that with players like DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso. What did they do instead? Wait until the offseason, when they did not receive the best asset in the DeRozan sign-and-trade or a first-round pick for Caruso from the team that has the most in the league.
All of this is important context when we consider where the Bulls stand today. As much as they might like to tell themselves this, they are not in this situation because of bad luck on the court or in the injury department. Their unwavering stubbornness and unwillingness to discuss trades in earnest have made them one of the most irrelevant franchises in the NBA. And there is only one way to even attempt to get back on track.
Sitting out a fourth-straight trade deadline would be organizational malpractice. Arturas Karnisovas must show he finally recognizes that living in the middle is the worst place to be in the NBA. If he can’t do that, the next words he should be uttering are “goodbye.”
Get deals done. Keep the pick. Build for the future.