The Bulls fired executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley on Monday, but Marc Stein reported on Sunday that the team hopes to retain head coach Billy Donovan and Shams Charania of ESPN has heard the same (Twitter video link).
“My understanding is the Bulls want to keep [Donovan] as long as he wants to be there, in Chicago,” Charania said on NBA Today.
Donovan, who signed a multiyear extension with the Bulls last summer, is expected to draw interest from rival NBA teams with head coaching vacancies this offseason, according to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Twitter link), who confirms Chicago would like to keep the 60-year-old.
As for potential front office replacements, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic suggests Timberwolves GM Matt Lloyd could be a name to watch (Twitter link). Lloyd is well regarded around the league and began his NBA career in Chicago, Krawczynski notes.
Here are some more rumors and notes on the Bulls:
- Team sources tell Jamal Collier of ESPN that ownership had been considering a front office overhaul “for weeks,” and the urgency to do so increased after the team traded for — and then waived — Jaden Ivey. While the front office defended the homework it did prior to acquiring Ivey, ownership had questions about the process involved and Karnisovas and Eversley had a “credibility problem” around the league and with the team’s fans, according to Collier.
- Collier hears there was a “growing disconnect” between the front office and several areas of the organization, not just ownership. Bulls employees were reportedly unsure of the team’s direction after it traded away several veterans ahead of the February deadline to add seven second-round picks. “People didn’t know the plan,” one team source told ESPN on Monday. “They didn’t know the process. We needed to move on — with a clean slate and start this thing over.”
- According to Collier’s sources, Karnisovas and Eversley long maintained they were “working under the constraints of ownership,” which was reluctant to embark on a rebuild. Donovan also isn’t a fan of rebuilds, Collier writes, even though the team was stuck in mediocrity for years.
- Collier suggests the front office’s relatively underwhelming trade returns also factored into the decision to let Karnisovas and Eversley go, pointing out that the team waited too long to break up the previous core roster of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic, Alex Caruso, Coby White and Lonzo Ball. “We took too long to pick a lane,” the team source told ESPN. “The Lonzo thing just really messed them up. We saw that success early on, and didn’t have the foresight to pivot early.” Ball missed two-plus years due to a knee injury which required multiple surgeries.
- While the Bulls want to retain Donovan, Collier hears it may not be as head coach, depending on what Donovan wants to do in the future. As Collier writes, Donovan’s father and mother-in-law both passed away within eight days of each other in February, and there has been previous speculation that the veteran coach might take a year off to reevaluate his options moving forward.
Funny but I didn’t hear anything about a change until Giddey shouted out What the heck are we doing last week. So if you want to know who runs things it’s obvious.
The Bulls have performed similarly in almost every season since Donovan has been the head coach, no matter the roster. Surely there’s something to be said to getting new energy in there. Why stick with Donovan, especially when the whole roster except for Giddey and Buzelis is worth turning over?
Donovan has been given a crummy roster every year. I don’t think the fault lies with him. I think the team has a bright future with Buzelis, Giddey, and hopefully some better GM moves going forward.
Donovan choked with the OKC roster with 2 HOF in prime. He is not a good NBA coach.
Yall still holding on to that?? Miserable mfs Lmao..Let it go!!!
Did he choke or did said superstar players choke lol
When a coach makes no adjustments they choke.
But he has been good enough that a team should feel compelled to keep him through such changes? I don’t think so. So even if he may not be deserving of being let go, he’s not exactly deserving of surviving the cleaning house process.
On the bridge side, the Bulls have lowest amount of contracts for next season. Hope that the Bulls use the open cap space intelligently. Don’t just spend for the sake of spending.
They need to spend of the right players. Balance this team out and put the best parts together…
So funny that they got 7 second round picks like yeah what are they thinking lol
Yep they should have kept all those players till the end of the season and then let them go for nothing lol
The press conference today was pretty funny. The reporters all asked Reinsdorf whether the Bulls were going to tank and he said No. Then Collier said something like “Just to follow up, don’t you think there’s a situation where it makes sense to tank?” Reinsdorf said No. Then Joe Cowley asked the same question a different way and Reinsdorf said No again. He said he wanted Donovan to stay as coach and there is no way that Billy would ever agree to tank.
I’m pretty sure Bulls will not be tanking next year lol.
All the Bulls need to do is put the best balance team out.. Spend the cap money on the right players and go from there. First add the right draft players