Shocking news on Monday afternoon, as the Chicago Bulls announced they’ve undergone a long-overdue housecleaning of their front office. Both Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley have been fired. I couldn’t help but mention this should’ve been done years ago. But I will give them credit: in the team’s statement from the owner’s son it’s mentioned how much they value the fans… and typically that’s all horseshit BUT in this case they actually did something that indicates they do care. Not that it should matter given their status in professional sports, but ownership is eating some money in terminating both AK and ME less than a year after they received secret contract extensions.
While shocking in the exact timing – I don’t even think it was leaked to Shams minutes before? – there had been some recent acceleration in speculation and rumor-ing that changes were finally going to happen. The latest debacle of a trade deadline, culminating in the release of Jaden Ivey last week, was apparently the final straw. I am perhaps most happy that this happened before the end of the season and we don’t have to hear from Karnisovas ever again.
No word yet on the future of other members of the front office – a lot of Bulls and Iowa State lifers still linger through multiple eras – or that of head coach Billy Donovan. It’s long been speculated that Donovan could stay and either help pick the front office or head upstairs himself. There was other news in the basketball world concerning Donovan as one of his rumored landing spots – the University of North Carolina – had just filled its open head coaching job.
I’m so very elated that the Bulls can start fresh. Of the awful things the AKME regime did over the past couple seasons in particular, they at least didn’t sell out the future. The cupboard is currently pretty bare, but very little ‘bad’ money has been committed, and the new boss will have a lot of cap space plus all of their own first round picks (with potentially one more coming from Portland) plus a freshly-stocked cache of second rounders.
Of course, given that this is The Bulls, there is reason to be skeptical that they will make a good hire. Judging by their history it’ll be some old time confidant of Reinsdorf or a new cheap hire. And some underlying limitations with ownership in how the team spends on payroll and in support staff (including front office!). But Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley were not merely cheap first timers who were OK-to-bad at their jobs and hamstrung by ownership. They were uniquely poor at nearly every aspect of running a basketball team, including the ability to communicate to fans what they were doing. Since coming aboard before the 2020-21 season, they have been the worst not-fired front office in the entire league.
That qualifier ends now. The Bulls no longer have the absolute worst. AKME is gone.
