When the Chicago Bulls traded Zach LaVine to the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night, it marked their first regular season trade since March 25, 2021.
Arturas Karniosvas and Marc Eversley sat out three straight NBA trade deadlines over that span and walked away with only one playoff victory – and two heroic Play-In Tournament wins – to show for it. Turns out that strategy didn’t impress many around the league!
If you thought fans and media were critical of the Chicago Bulls organization over the last few years, wait until you hear what Sam Amick shared on The Athletic’s NBA Daily. After touching on the Bulls’ decision to finally move Zach LaVine, Amick brought up an article The Athletic published in December where executives were asked to rank the NBA’s top five front offices. He mentioned that many front office faces were willing to share their bottom five, and there was one franchise’s name that continuously came up. Shoutout to Steph Noh of the Sporting News for catching this, by the way!
“Along the way, I’m just giving context for the way their colleagues see their performance the last couple of years … Right now, the reactions to their choices are just wildly negative across the league, where Chicago would come up time and again with people throwing them in their bottom five [front offices]. It’s not just media slander, it’s real stuff within the league industry,” Amick told hosts Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni.
You can listen to Amick’s full comments on The Athletic’s NBA Daily show here.
Bulls Front Office Among NBA’s Least Respected
Take the pure shock you felt upon seeing the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade and reverse it – that’s how I feel about this information.
Unfortunately, nothing about what Sam Amick said catches me off guard. Does that make the reality of it sting any less? Not at all, but his words are painfully expected. Rival executives were likely as confused as fans when it came to Karnisovas’ contentment with mediocrity. His decision to stand pat after a five-game first-round exit in 2021-22 was dumbfounding, as was his relentless pursuit of back-to-back Play-In Tournament appearances.
The entire goal of an NBA organization is to compete for championships either in the short term or long term. The Bulls did seemingly nothing to pursue that goal for years on end, preaching a message of “continuity.” That word still sends a shiver down my spine!
However, if I had to guess what really ground the gears of rival executives, it would be the Bulls’ handling of the trade market. Rumors swirled the past couple of seasons about many of their biggest names, yet they repeatedly failed to get a single deal done. We constantly heard about them overvaluing their talent and demanding steep returns. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that at some point it became a nuisance to pick up the phone and negotiate with the Bulls. Why waste your time, right?
The good news for the Bulls is that finally embracing a rebuild should only help boost their reputation. At the same time, they are in store for a slow and daunting climb out of the deep hole they dug themselves. Karniosvas has several years of wrongs to right, and building back respect in this league isn’t particularly easy to do.
At the end of the day, this serves as yet another reminder of how little confidence there currently is in the organization as a whole. These are Karniosvas peers practically saying they don’t believe he is cut out for the job. Can he prove them wrong?