After years of front-office and coaching dislocation, Chicago Bulls president and chief operating officer Michael Reinsdorf hired Arturas Karnisova in April 2020 to reshape their basketball operations and restore playoff contention. So far, the results have been remarkable. Years of organizational missteps and mistrust rapidly faded, replaced with a fully functional first place franchise.
"When we hired Arturas, I believed he would help turn things around, but I can't say that I thought it would be quicker," Reinsdorf told ESPN. "No problem. There's no drama. Just about everyone wants to go to the next level. It's a good feeling."
As the Bulls (27-12) host the Golden State Warriors on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), Reinsdorf makes clear that he's not declaring a major accomplishment so early in the season's journey, but acknowledges Did: "It's exciting for Chicago that Bullock will be relevant again."
The Bulls have missed the playoffs in six of the past seven years, but that is likely to change this spring. Reinsdorf believes that the decision to hire Karnisova in the midst of the league's closure gave her the ability to accelerate organizational rebuilding.
"We hired Arturas at the start of COVID, when a lot of teams were in a holding pattern," Reinsdorf told ESPN. "Many times, people come and clean the house. He took the time to get to know the people in our organization."
The Bulls did not qualify for Orlando's restart and Karnisova eventually fired former coach Jim Boylen. Everything changed when Billy Donovan left the Oklahoma City Thunder, prompting Karnisova to inform Reinsdorf that he was flying to Florida immediately to meet them.
"The minute Billy Donovan announced he was not returning to Oklahoma City, Arturas was ready to set up camp at his home," Reinsdorf told ESPN. "The hiring of Billy was such an important step for the Chicago Bulls."
Karnisovas and Donovan are in the running for the Executive and Coach of the Year awards. Together, Reinsdorf sees something within the Bulls that had been missing for years: building trust and relationships. Donovan has long been considered unmatched in his ability to connect with players and has become a big part of the development of All-Star guard Zach LaVine in Chicago.
"Arturas and Billy took the time to really get to know Zach Lavin, and knew he wanted to win," Reinsdorf told ESPN. "Zach was on some bad teams, and as if it wasn't Devin Booker's fault here in Phoenix in those years, it wasn't Zach's fault here. We needed to get his help. Billy, Arturas and (general manager) Mark Eversley were our players." Spend a lot of time together. These aren't assets, these are people. But especially with Zach, it took them time to understand what he is. It was easy for people on the outside to say, "Oh, he's just the one." Scorer and he doesn't care. But they knew better about Zach, because they spend time and get ahead of basketball with him."
Reinsdorf contemplates the introduction of free agency in August, when Karnisova sent Eversley to meet with the franchise's No. 1 target: DeMar DeRozan. Eversley and DeRozan had a history together at the Toronto Raptors.
"Arturas' arrogance is not that he needs to be the man on every deal," Reinsdorf told ESPN. "He was aggressive in the business for the last year (Nikola Vusevic) and showed everyone here that the status quo was not enough. It was smart, and it was the start of a chain of events that got us where we are today.
"As we built up our roster, we also focused on defense. Alex Caruso has played a key role. Lonzo Ball has been a great addition for us, taking the momentum forward. He is the perfect complement. Ayo Dosunmu (38 overall) th) Getting In the second round we had him high on our draft board.
"Listen, it's not a victory lap, but it's good to be relevant and mix in games that are intense and important. We have a lot of work to do, but we're happy where we are so far."