Offseason grades are coming in for Arturas Karnisovas and the Bulls
Most of the national media has judged the Bulls’ offseason as a complete failure.
The latest to weigh in with a red pen in hand was ESPN senior NBA writer Zach Lowe, who recently was discussing the summer project Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas has been working on and called it ‘‘an absolute disaster for the Bulls. They’re a year-and-a-half late for this. They’re a year-and-a-half late to the teardown party.’’
Lowe isn’t wrong. It does reek of failure in that vacuum of timing. But it feels more like an incomplete than a flat-out failure. At least for now.
As long as shooting guard Zach LaVine and, for that matter, center Nikola Vucevic are on the roster, it’s like Karnisovas got up from his desk halfway through the test to take a break and hit the vending machine.
What Karnisovas and the rest of the Bulls’ front office have on their side is time. Not a lot but enough.
The growing concerns, however, are that possible destinations for LaVine seemingly have dried up and that there is still no market for Vucevic at age 33 and $41 million-plus guaranteed over the next two seasons.
Karnisovas was praised for his creativity when the Reinsdorfs hired him, and now it’s time for that to show itself in cleaning up the mess that he himself created.
At least he has chosen a path, giving us some grades to hand out along the way.
Acquiring Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso
This was the first domino to fall and reveal that the youth movement was on. The question in the eyes of many, however, was why Karnisovas didn’t get a draft pick attached to Giddey. After all, the Thunder got a proven championship player and are sitting on a surplus of draft assets.
‘‘Well, I think that’s a trade that we preferred over picks because, you know, it’s hard to acquire players this young, this productive, that early in their careers,’’ Karnisovas said when asked that very question. ‘‘Especially when [Giddey] already has, like, 11 triple-doubles in his career. So we were just excited, and we thought that was the price to pay for Josh.’’
Fine, but there will be a bigger price to pay ‘‘for Josh,’’ considering he is due a contract extension off his rookie deal after next season.
But what gets lost in this deal is what Karnisovas also ‘‘acquired’’ without actually ‘‘acquiring’’ it.
Trading Caruso helps make the Bulls a bottom-10 team in the NBA, which means the top-10-protected draft pick from the loaded 2025 draft class that could have gone to the Spurs likely will stay in Karnisovas’ pocket.
That all has to be factored in.
Grade: C+.
Drafting forward Matas Buzelis 11th overall
The Bulls were all smiles after landing the confident — bordering on cocky — 6-9 forward on draft night, considering he was expected to go No. 7 or No. 8.
Buzelis has high-ceiling potential and brings a swagger to an organization that has been very vanilla in that department for the last five years. Yes, he has some holes in his game, but he is another key piece in the push to go young.
Grade: B.
Signing free-agent big man Jalen Smith
The Bulls signed the versatile big man to a three-year, $27 million deal to work as the primary backup to Vucevic or to give coach Billy Donovan the option to with a small-ball lineup when he wants. It was a solid acquisition for the Bulls, especially because Smith is only 24 years old and fits the profile of what they’ve been adding.
There’s upside in his game, and he was worth rolling the dice for at that price after Andre Drummond left for the 76ers.
Grade: B+.
Re-signing restricted free agent Patrick Williams
There’s no doubt Williams was a priority this summer, but where it gets dicey is that the Bulls ponied up a five-year,
$90 million deal to keep a player who has battled injuries and inconsistency in terms of energy.
Karnisovas can argue that the going rate for a ‘‘three-and-D’’ player such as Williams is much higher than $18 million per year, but the deal is also a huge gamble. If Williams continues to be a passenger in the car rather than grabbing the steering wheel and taking over as the driver, this is another contract that might come back to sting a bit.
Grade: C, with a chance to become a B+ with some extra credit by Williams.
Trading DeMar DeRozan for Chris Duarte, draft picks and cash considerations
If the Bulls can use the picks to help them trade LaVine, then it was a game-changing deal. If they can’t and they wasted the window to move DeRozan in the last two seasons, then Lowe’s ‘‘disaster’’ take was right.
Grade: For now, an F. Stay tuned.