Before the Bulls fired top executives Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley last week, it felt like there was a 90% chance that head coach Billy Donovan would be leaving the team, according to Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times, who suggests that the former front office didn’t seem to have a plan that would make Donovan optimistic about the team’s future.
However, with Karnisovas and Eversley no longer in the picture, Donovan’s decision feels more like a coin flip, Cowley writes, speculating that there’s now a “49%” chance of the head coach departing.
Within his story, Cowley writes that Karnisovas’ and Eversley’s talent evaluation had long been considered questionable, dating back to the 2020 draft, when Karnisovas “fixated” on Patrick Williams with the No. 4 overall pick. According to one of Cowley’s sources, there were scouts and executives within the organization who preferred Tyrese Haliburton, but Karnisovas didn’t view the point guard as a “serious prospect.” Haliburton has since made two All-NBA teams and gotten within one win of a championship.
We have more from around the Central:
- In a separate story for the Chicago Sun-Times, Cowley considers a few potential targets for the Bulls with their newly secured second first-round pick, courtesy of Portland. Cowley identifies UConn’s Braylon Mullins, Michigan’s Aday Mara, and Kentucky’s Jayden Quaintance as prospects who Chicago may consider drafting using that pick, which will be either 15th or 16th overall.
- What’s at stake for the Cavaliers during this year’s playoffs? “Everything,” according to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (subscription required), who believes that any number of organizational and roster changes could be on the table if Cleveland fails to advance to at least the conference finals this spring after spending more than any other team on its roster in 2025/26.
- Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription required) poses some of the most pressing questions facing the Bucks this summer, including whether ownership wants to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo long-term, who will be the next head coach, and whether they can nail their first lottery pick since 2016.
- Pistons owner Tom Gores published a letter on Tuesday thanking fans for sticking with the team through a challenging rebuild that included five straight years between 14 and 23 wins, including a franchise-worst 14-68 mark in 2023/24. “What we’re building here is a story for the ages,” Gores wrote. “One of the great comeback stories in sports, and not just because of where we are today but because of how we got here.”
I can only wonder if the Bulls finally getting Portlands pick makes Donovan more likely to want to stay? Might be a case of win the battle lose the war scenario. I actually thought Donovan was a good hire at the time But now I want to know did Donovan have any input into the draft or was he playing this crap system because of what he was given to work with? Knowing that would go a long way to figuring out what to do here.
I think Karnisovas wanted to experiment with a faster pace and a deeper rotation. Since the Bulls didn’t have any stars and AK didn’t have any good way to get them, they needed to try something. It seemed to me that Billy was on board with that approach.
Yeah but everybody else in the universe knows that Playoff basketball is mostly based on the ability to execute half court offense in the clutch so once again we have a guy who’s trying to reinvent the wheel here. Basketball games are won by big men who dominate the rim and little men who can shoot the 3 ever since they started allowing it. But here come the Bulls trying to prove everyone wrong. Like they say in baseball, Steeeeeeriiiike!
Sure but everyone also knows the game is continually changing.
I think you mean evolving but OK. And so how was it working out drafting guys like Terry, Williams and Phillips who couldn’t shoot their way out of a paper bag or guard anybody who wasn’t a member of the Hadley School for the blind? I’ll tell you. They stunk plain and simple.
I firmly believe, that tanking world and is a necessary part of the game. However, tanking by virtue of stripping the team of start veterans, playing the young kids, collecting picks and maintain cap flexibility is NOT the same as throwing the game by making bad in- game decisions and gaming injury reports of star players.
But Detroit, San Antonio, Cleveland, Charlotte and Houston are examples of teams that have tanked successfully.
Washington, New Orleans, Brooklyn and Sacramento are franchises that have had no direction, poor scouting and development that have failed at rebuilding their teams.
Milwaukee, Golden State, Miami and Dallas are great examples of teams that probably SHOULD tank but are too proud to do it and thus are sort of stuck in mediocrity where they’re too good to get a top 5 but too bad to contend for more than a play- in appearance, of lucky enough.
So Joe Cowley talked to some junior executive in the Bulls organization who said he would have taken Hali at #4 six years ago. I wonder why that guy is still a junior executive six years later? And for godsake, why is he talking to Cowley about it?
Probably because he knows he’s out the door as soon as the new POBO is eventually named so why not throw the old ones under the bus. Let’s be real there’s nobody in that Organizational FO that should be kept. The one guy they should have kept was the shooting coach who told the truth and he was the first guy out the door. And Cowley is horrible. If he said the Earth is round I’d double check it.