Chicago Bulls: The GarPax era is over, and the future is now

#2: The Bulls plan to interview some great NBA minds

When Wojnarowski reported that GarPax was out, he also dropped some knowledge of who the Bulls were interested in as a replacement. The answers to that should make Bulls fans cautiously optimistic.

Bulls fans often grew frustrated at the publicly-stated philosophies of Paxson and Forman. Specifically, Paxson was always quick to downplay rumors around the league of how other players looked at the Bulls organization.

Paxson was seen as a hard-nosed, gritty basketball guy. The Bulls ownership and front office were late to the game on the revolution in the NBA known as “Load management”. They also were behind on analytics as they just hired multiple staff for that department last year.

The two top candidates to replace Paxson mentioned in Wojnarowski’s original report are Denver Nuggets GM Arturas Karnisovas and Toronto Raptors GM Bobby Webster. Both men have great track records on rebuilding teams, both are heavily invested in analytics.

Webster is the successor to former Raptors president and highly-coveted front office executive Masai Ujiri. He’s now the Raptors Executive VP of Basketball Operations, and easily the most sought after hire for teams looking for a new leading executive.

NBCSN reporter KC Johnson already shot down the pipe dream of Ujiri coming to the Bulls, stating that it would take huge money to secure him since he’s still under contract with Toronto. That’s apparently a step too far for the Bulls.

The names highlighted in Woj’s report are a promising start. Let’s hope the new leader of the Bulls front office has a fresh outlook on how to win in today’s NBA. It was one of GarPax’s biggest weaknesses.