Chicago Bulls: Perception of organization is much better since March

The Chicago Bulls look completely different right now than it did before the pause.

Right before the NBA season came to a pause, things were very annoying from the perspective of Chicago Bulls fans. Then, COVID-19 hit the United States of American and the season came to a sudden pause. The Bulls, at a record of 22-43, ended their year with an abysmal .338 winning percentage. Not only do fans not get to watch their team anymore, but the future is bleak whenever they do return. Most of us knew that if the league came up with a return plan, the Bulls wouldn’t be invited.

Well, not long into their earlier than anticipated offseason, they hired Arturas Karnisovas to be their new executive and vice president of basketball operations. He was coming over from the Denver Nuggets, where he was a major factor in getting them to where they are today. This all came after firing long time general manager Gar Foreman and reassigning John Paxson to a new role. This team needed to change things up badly and this was the first big step.

Not long after that, we were given the treat of “The Last Dance”, a documentary that went over the Michael Jordan era of the Chicago Bulls leading up to their final season of the dynasty. It reminded the world that Chicago is a great basketball town and what the NBA could look like again if the Bulls were ever relevant to that magnitude again.

Later in May, they hired Marc Eversley to be their general manager. It would be the first time that someone other than Forman was their general manager since 2009. It was clear that things were going to be different but there was one major issue still looming over the organization. They went all summer without firing Jim Boylen and he was the only old piece still there. He didn’t do that good of a job at all so everyone wanted to know what the issue with firing him was.

On August 14th, the Bulls finally pulled the trigger and fired Boylen. It was annoying that it took so long but in hindsight, it is probably good that the new regime did their due diligence before making such a big decision. As easy of a decision as it appeared on the surface, it was one that needed to be evaluated from all angles.

After firing Boylen it was now a matter of who would replace him. Many assistants around the league were in rumors to come over to Chicago but then some major news started hitting the basketball world. They hired Billy Donovan to be their new head coach on Tuesday afternoon which was somewhat of a shock to fans across the NBA.

It was a shock because of the fact that he and the Oklahoma City Thunder just mutually parted ways in the last few weeks after being unable to reach a contract extension agreement. He could have had his pick of the litter to coach but he chose the most challenging gig of them all in Chicago. This is a guy who coached the Florida Gators to two national titles in back to back years. He also annually receives coach of the year awards, including winning it in 2020. The Bulls are a better organization for having this guy in town.

Of course, there are issues with the roster that need to be addressed. They need to figure out who is there for the long haul and who will be gone. No matter what the opinions are on that, you have to figure that they will start making moves soon enough. They have a high draft pick as well so the turnaround of the Bulls might (hopefully) be upon us. Since March, this team has put itself in a much better spot and we should all be excited about it.