a 123-107 loss at Toronto<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\u201cThose guys were really good for us, but we just couldn\u2019t get over the hump,\u201d Karnisovas said. \u201cAnd I think those decisions have to be made and the timing was good for us to make those moves. We\u2019ll see how those work out because … we just couldn\u2019t get consistency \u2014 consistently good and consistently healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karnisovas was reluctant in the past to launch a rebuild and give the Bulls a better shot at winning the lottery, stressing patience and not skipping steps while frustrated fans called for a do-over. But he was busy in the days leading up to the deadline, making seven trades.<\/p>\n
Among the players the Bulls acquired were Jaden Ivey from Detroit, hoping the former No. 5 pick in the 2022 NBA draft can regain the form he showed before knee surgery, and Anfernee Simons from Boston. They loaded up on second-round draft picks, but didn\u2019t get any first-rounders in these deals.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecond-round picks are currency in our industry and you cannot operate and acquire players and trade players,\u201d Karnisovas said. \u201cI think we addressed it during the trade deadline and hopefully they\u2019re going to contribute to … the draft, during free agency and trying to build this team.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the timing of the rebuild, Karnisovas insisted he has no regrets. He dismissed the idea that he should have dismantled the roster a year ago, when Giddey was in his first season in Chicago and Buzelis was a rookie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not,\u201d Karnisovas said. \u201cI think we were at that stage as well (where) we continue evaluating our young guys and, you know, Josh, it was Matas\u2019 first year. So I think right now it\u2019s good timing and we addressed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karnisovas said chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and president Michael Reinsdorf were \u201csupportive\u201d and \u201cinvolved\u201d leading up to the trade deadline. He also said the front office is in \u201clockstep\u201d with coach Billy Donovan.<\/p>\n
The Bulls were quiet last offseason after getting knocked out of the play-in tournament by Miami for the third year in a row. Their most recent All-Star was DeMar DeRozan in 2023, and their lack of a franchise cornerstone player is glaring.<\/p>\n
Karnisovas said the Bulls will stick with an up-tempo style. He also expressed concern about cohesion down the stretch with so many new players. But he also acknowledged it was time to make big changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just stayed in the middle,\u201d Karnisovas said. \u201cYou know, we\u2019d get to 500, then we\u2019d get two or three games under. I mean, look at our standings. We\u2019re going to be again in the ninth, 10th spot. It\u2019s not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Arturas Karnisovas finally decided he\u2019d seen enough. The Chicago Bulls\u2019 top basketball executive took a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[4329,4102,7,3363,920,919,329,3824,963,3213,301,8382,2048,1018,4744,965,4103,24589,6,446,3853,75525,66],"class_list":["post-586237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bulls","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-ayo-dosunmu","tag-basketball","tag-billy-donovan","tag-bulls","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-chicagobulls","tag-coby-white","tag-demar-derozan","tag-denver","tag-il-state-wire","tag-illinois","tag-jaden-ivey","tag-jerry-reinsdorf","tag-josh-giddey","tag-kevin-huerter","tag-michael-reinsdorf","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nikola-vucevic","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116023771975704489","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}