Chicago Bulls: The Arturas Karnisovas era is ready to begin

WIth the Chicago Bulls hiring Arturas Karnisovas as their new Executive VP of Basketball Operations, a new era is ready to begin for the Chicago Bulls.

Late on Wednesday night, news broke that the Chicago Bulls were hiring Arturas Karnisovas, formerly the general manager for the Denver Nuggets. In a move that’s got the fanbase buzzing, the hiring of Karnisovas means the beginning of a new era for the Bulls and the ending of another.

With Gar Forman and John Paxson no longer running the show, it seems like owner Jerry Reinsdorf is finally ready to make the Bulls relevant again. Since the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season, the Bulls have been locked into a multi-year rebuild that’s seen them finish in fourth place in the NBA’s Central Division three times.

With Karnisovas running the show, there are going to be a lot of changes that take place over the next few months for the Bulls. First, expect a new head coach to be hired. This means that Jim Boylen is gone. While we don’t know who the Bulls plan to interview amid the current pandemic, whoever it is will be tasked with developing young pieces like Zach Lavine and Coby White.

Second, Karnisovas will need to build around Lavine, White, and Lauri Markkanen. This is one of the requirements that likely came with the job. The average age of White, Lavine, and Markkanen is just 22.3 years old. This means that the three are the future for Bulls unless Karnisovas decides to tear it all down and start over again.

Now let’s talk about Karnisovas who’s got experience working in basketball operations, as an international scout, and as a general manager in the NBA. The key thing to understand is that he took over the Denver Nuggets general manager position in 2017 and quickly turned them into a winner. During the 2019-2020 NBA season, the Nuggets were sitting in third place in the NBA’s Western Conference, only behind the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.

Overall, Karnisovas is an immediate upgrade over anything that Gar Forman and John Paxson ever provided. During the Forman and Paxson era, the best player was ultimately Derrick Rose. However, now Karnisovas will get to build the team that many thought that Forman and Paxson were supposed to build after they shipped out Rose nearly four years ago in an offseason trade.

While we don’t know what kind of vision Karnisovas has for the Bulls, what we do know is that he knows what it takes to build a winning team and sustain it within a good organization. Get ready Bulls fans, a new era is now set to begin.