Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
The Bulls, put simply, are back
I’ve been pumping out these shorter newsletters all week. Today’s was going to cover more than the Bulls, but a new head of basketball operations deserves a stand alone.
Apologies for some apparent spelling errors yesterday. Listen, this is one-man ship, alright? Cut me some slack.
On Monday, White Sox fans will get their Ed Farmer eulogy. RIP. We’ll chat about when sports are coming back and get into some more Chicago sports history. Trivia will return. The Bears ancillary offseason moves will be examined. More Bulls front office. Maybe even some Kerry Wood. God damn, it’s going to be such an awesome newsletter.
I’ve been pumping out content all week, so firstly, for the love of god, tell someone to subscribe:
ICYMI: Yesterday’s newsletter on the Bears’ QB situation and the Robert Quinn signing.
If you missed any of the three other newsletters this week, you can find them at:
And don’t forget to comment — shout out my commenters! Love y’all.
Big things coming for SGCTC. Thanks to everyone who has been reading during the quarantine. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
Bulls hire Arturas Karnisovas as new VP of basketball operations
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
I never actually read whatever the book is that begins that way in high school, but always have wanted to use it to kick one of my pieces off. It’s the ultimate writer’s cliche that is more of an excuse to evoke Charles Dickens and make people think you know shit about him besides that Oliver! is the best musical derived from a book of all time.
Or, perhaps, that’s a very subjective experience.
Either way, it is quite fitting to how I’m feeling right now. I joked with a friend today that this is the second-best sports moment of my adult life (the Cubs World Series being first), but the more I thought of that, the less it seemed like a joke.
This, in actuality, may be the 2nd best sports moment of my adult life. Really. Obviously, that’ll be different for everyone based on age. Especially for you spoiled Chicagoans who cry about today’s troubles as if you weren’t ripping it up to the Super Bowl Shuffle — led by the greatest running back of all time — all while the greatest basketball player of all time was on his way to changing the game forever.
The Bears Super Bowl run was great — I was also singing “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” every Monday in my middle school class and didn’t even know what the “T” formation was. The Blackhawks titles were fantastic, but I wasn’t in the weeds yet, agonizing over regular season games in OT on the west side of North America at midnight. I was just drinking Busch Lights and spitting everywhere yelling DA DA DA, DA DA DA after the Hawks scored another playoff goal that I, yet again, missed.
So it’s fitting that the change I’ve waited on for my entire teenage and adult life happens at a time when the I’m stuck in my house, forced to go to bed because I have work in the morning after I learned of my dream coming true on Twitter. Instead, I’ll probably celebrate with a glass or two of wine and fall asleep watching something on Netflix, a scene that my younger self would call too fiction for Hollywood.
But alas, that’s where we are. Under different circumstances, I’d be on the horn with every bar in the city telling them I got 50 subscribers to this newsletter I write who want to come in to celebrate and asking for a deal and subsequently being hung up on. I’d be calling back and further digging myself a hole — “Don’t you remember me? I called about the Bulls over season win total party I was planning in the fall? I told you we were going to throw an event when the Bulls hit either the 32- or 34-win mark? Because that’s what their season win total was?”
We’d be out at a bar, talking about the important stuff: potential coach hirings, who was going to drive Zach LaVine to the airport, etc. We’d end the night with a “seriously, love you man…” after the bartender told us that we had to leave for the fourth time.
How good does that sound?
The lesson is that dreams do come true, but not always like you thought they would. Truth be told, I had given up on the Bulls making a major move in the front office. I really had. This past year was the first time I had not gone to a Bulls regular season game since before they drafted Elton Brand in 1999. I couldn’t keep spouting off about the organization not deserving our trust and money and then turn around and be cheering my ass off like a doofus in the upper deck.
Hey, maybe they noticed. For once, the Bulls acted like the organization I had built them up to be in my head for a decade. They acted like the team that everyone feared for a decade-plus. The team that had the most recognizable sports logo in the world a mere 20 years ago.
The team I had increasingly grown to hate and mock acted like the team that I used to damn near cry for.
It’s not about Arturas Karnisovas (ARE-TURUS CAR-KNEE-SHI-VAS), the next Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, a role long held hostage by John Paxson. (I did that phonetic spelling myself, by the way, don’t hold me to it). It’s about who it’s not, and it’s about what his name on the masthead means moving forward.
Alright — time for the pen to passed from the emotional SGCTC author to the serious one.
But before I go, Let’s stillgottacomethroughchicago GOOOOOOOOOOO!
The answers to (some of) your questions
What happened:
The Bulls hired Arturas Karnisovas — the Denver Nuggets general manager for the last three seasons — to be the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, a role formerly held by Paxson.
Why this is good:
The obvious reason is that Pax is no longer in that role. The second reason is that Karnisovas — dubbed the Big ART (still workshopping) on this very newsletter two days ago — is, truly, a fantastic candidate.
His endorsements:
A Pat Beverley stamp of approval is a SGCTC stamp of approval, full stop.
Arguably the best basketball executive in the NBA.
Jusuf Nurkic, who he got in a trade from the Bulls, so they could get… Doug McDermott.
Tom Thibodeau.
Adrian Wojnarowski himself.
Everyone in Denver who has spent time with him.
You can’t find a bad word written about this guy.
What he believes:
He believes in fast-moving, selfless offense (hit the road, Zach). He believes in aggressive defense, blitzing pick and rolls when necessary. In his time with Denver, they were always at or near the top-third in both offensive and defensive efficiency.
Where’s he from: Lithuania. See Wednesday’s newsletter for more on that. After playing college ball at Seton Hall, he had a very successful career abroad — and was the FIBA European player of the year in 1996.
He also played for the Lithuanian national team.
He worked for the NBA for a while, then was a scout for the Houston Rockets. After that, he became the Nuggets’ assistant GM, and then officially the GM. He interviewed for top jobs for both the Bucks and Nets recently, and was one of — if not the most — coveted candidates in basketball.
What he has done:
With Denver, oh, he’s just been an integral part of running one of the smoothest franchises in the entire NBA. An organization that has built a contender with no major free agent signings other than Paul Millsap (his first move as GM). Overall, the Nuggets didn’t really make a bad pick of significance in the draft during his time there. That’s especially impressive because they didn’t have any particularly high picks.
What he’s going to do:
Hopefully, tear this entire whole mf’in thing down. Jim Boylen said he was “confident” he’d keep his job, but I sincerely doubt that Karnisovas will get the job of a lifetime and immediately hitch his wagon to Jimmy.
He’s going to built up the scouting and analytic departments, two areas in which the Bulls have been severely lacking for a long time. He’ll probably try to lure some front office members from Denver, but they could all be offered promotions in his absence.
His first order of business will be to hire a GM to work under him. The leading candidate for that job is Michael Finley, the former-NBA All-Star, FROM CHICAGO, who has been serving as the VP of basketball operations for the Dallas Mavericks. He has already interviewed with the Bulls, and that would be a fantastic hire.
Finley would bring the former-NBA player voice into the mix, and those two would create a two-headed monster that would be too massive of an upgrade from Gar-Pax to even calculate.
Nazr Mohammed also interviewed with the Bulls for a front office position, but I haven’t seen it specified as to which position he was interviewing for. Nazr, as you should know, played for the Bulls and shoved LeBron James to the ground and received a tech, forever cementing his legacy in Chicago. I know that Nazr has a great relationship with the organization (he currently works for the Thunder), so I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with the Bulls, even if it’s in a lesser role than GM.
Mohammed and Finley would both be great additions, adding voices that players could trust in the organization — something that has not existed in Chicago, maybe ever. Plus, it would increase diversity within a front office that has lacked that in the past.
Personally, I thought the rush to suggest the Bulls were somehow racist because they didn’t interview a black candidate for VP was a bit of a stretch. For one, if anyone had a problem with diverse hires, it was Pax, not the Reinsdorfs. Diversity has never been an issue on the White Sox side of things. Secondly, it was, uh, like the first hire in an entire makeover. Suggesting that the Bulls were completely bypassing minority candidates because they brought in Karnisovas — the candidate they wanted from the start — was a bit lazy.
Karnisovas also reportedly has full autonomy to do whatever he wants with basketball operations. That means he can fire Boylen, Gar, and Pax tomorrow if he wants to. Paxson has made a last-ditch effort to make it seem like he was the one that suggested a change this season, and I bet his bullshit works. He’ll probably stay on the payroll, which sucks, but if he stays the hell out of the way — which was definitely promised if Karnisovas decided to make the leap — I guess I’m okay with it.
The Pax thing is ridiculous. Him completely failing and then retrospectively acting like he was the one who wanted change and should therefore be kept around is like a guy cheating on his girlfriend, getting caught, and then telling her things weren’t working out and they needed to break up.
Pax, this is all your fault. You don’t get credit, after years of arrogantly suggesting everything was going in the right direction, for telling a reporter that you were the one who suggested change. The guy is shameless. Always has been, always will be.
Who he’ll hire as a coach:
Here’s a short list, which we’ll get further into on Monday:
—Adrian Griffin, a former Thibs assistant who played with him at Seton Hall
—Kenny Atkinson, a top-10 coach (IMO) who was just fired by the Nets. Even if Boylen is fired, his top assistant — Chris Fleming — may stick around. That would make even more sense if Atkinson were hired, given that Fleming was an assistant under Atkinson in Brooklyn before coming to Chicago.
—Wes Unseld Jr., the son of NBA legend Wes Unseld, who is the top assistant for the Denver Nuggets. Unseld Jr. was rumored to be a lead candidate for the Cavs vacancy and holds most of the same philosophies as Karnisovas.
This list will grow in the coming days, so stay tuned.
Comment: What was your reaction to the news? How does it make you feel? What are your coach and GM preferences?
Or, just stop by to say Hi so we can all celebrate together.
STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO!
O/U 1.5 seasons before Jacob and Carrico turn on Big ART? I'm hammering the under
Dam, Donny. I didn't think it was possible, but over the course of this week, you have managed to pump some bulls fandom back into me. You are like that one friend everyone has who majored in some medical bullshit during school and now hooks their friends up with an electrolyte IV for when they get hungover on the weekends. LFG #BIGART