{"id":702004,"date":"2026-04-06T20:45:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702004\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:45:21","slug":"bulls-fire-gm-marc-eversley-executive-arturas-karnisovas-in-front-office-shakeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702004\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulls fire GM Marc Eversley, executive Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas in front-office shakeup"},"content":{"rendered":"

With less than a week remaining in the 2025-26 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls fired Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas and Marc Eversley, their two leading basketball decision-makers in the front office, on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not had the success our fans deserve, and it\u2019s my responsibility to go in a new direction,\u201d Bulls CEO Michael Reinsdorf said, in part, in a statement. \u201cThis move is about positioning our team for sustained success moving ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

In six seasons under Karni\u0161ovas, the Bulls\u2019 executive vice president of basketball operations, and Eversley, their general manager, the team had one winning season and won just a single playoff game. The Bulls still manage to pack the cavernous United Center most nights, but fan unrest has clearly reached Reinsdorf and his father Jerry, who owns the team.<\/p>\n

When Chicago\u2019s season officially concludes on April 12, it\u2019ll mark the fourth consecutive season without a playoff appearance, and the first in three years without so much as a Play-In Tournament berth.<\/p>\n

The firing of Karni\u0161ovas and Eversley comes one week after the team waived Jaden Ivey<\/a> after a series of Instagram livestreams in which he made inflammatory comments based on his religious beliefs and criticized the NBA\u2019s advocacy of the LGBTQ+ community. Karni\u0161ovas acquired the former Detroit Pistons guard at the February trade deadline.<\/p>\n

At the time, Ivey, a top-five pick in 2022, fit the timeline Karni\u0161ovas\u2019 operation sketched and followed a trend of refurbished former lottery talent that the Bulls herded in recent years. His acquisition was part of an uncharacteristically active Bulls trade deadline in which Karni\u0161ovas\u2019 front office made seven deals to turn over a core that included Bulls mainstays Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu and Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107.<\/p>\n

Karni\u0161ovas\u2019 trade-deadline moves, meant to salvage some future assets while improving Chicago\u2019s lottery odds among a sea of tanking teams, increasingly placed him at odds with Billy Donovan. Blindly playing young, inexperienced talent has never been the Bulls head coach\u2019s preference. Donovan continued to use his new, younger group the same way he would if the team was in contention, playing veterans like Collin Sexton heavy minutes and in late-game scenarios.<\/p>\n

Donovan\u2019s future with the Bulls remains uncertain. He was a candidate to fill the coaching vacancy at the University of North Carolina before reports circulated Monday the school was planning to hire former Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bulls hired Karni\u0161ovas after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season to replace longtime head of basketball operations John Paxson and his GM, Gar Forman. Karni\u0161ovas soon hired Eversley, who was the first Black GM in Bulls history. Their first big moves were hiring Donovan to replace Jim Boylen as head coach and then trading Wendell Carter Jr. and what would become two first-round picks for Vu\u010devi\u0107. Their first draft pick was Patrick Williams at No. 4, whom they later extended in a five-year, $90 million deal despite middling performance.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2021, Karni\u0161ovas made a splash in free agency \u2014 which was rare for the Bulls \u2014 when the team signed Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball while acquiring DeMar DeRozan in a sign-and-trade with the San Antonio Spurs. But despite limited success, Karni\u0161ovas didn\u2019t make another trade involving a player for nearly three years, when he traded Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Josh Giddey.<\/p>\n

Karni\u0161ovas has since made a flurry of trades, dealing impact players like Zach LaVine, Ball, White, Dosunmu and Vu\u010devi\u0107, while failing to acquire a first-round draft pick in return. Karni\u0161ovas\u2019 group, in fact, lost one of the second-round picks it acquired when White failed his physical with the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n

The new GM could inherit two first-round draft picks and are projected to have about $60 million in cap space this summer to begin remaking the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want our fans to know that I hear you and understand your frustration,\u201d Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement. \u201cI feel it as well. I know this will take time, and I am fully committed to getting this right. At the Chicago Bulls, our focus remains on building a team that can compete at the highest level and ultimately contend for championships. We are committed to taking the necessary steps to move the Bulls forward in a way that makes our fans proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulls haven\u2019t won a playoff series since 2015, which was also Tom Thibodeau\u2019s last season in charge. Chicago fired him after falling to LeBron James\u2019 Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round, with Forman noting the Bulls \u201chad some success\u201d with Thibodeau but needed change to improve.<\/p>\n

In the 11 seasons since then, the team has had three head coaches and is 378-493 with two playoff appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With less than a week remaining in the 2025-26 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls fired Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,329,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-702004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chicago-bulls","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116359720253363112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702004","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=702004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}