Arturas Karnisovas sounded a bit less delusional, but still plenty dimwitted

the very low standards for the team extended to this press conference

In the wake of another rare-but-always-memorable media availability for Arturas Karnisovas, let’s re-establish the current situation between Bulls fans and the front office: it is in the Boylen zone. Where the success of the team is too predictable so we are instead anticipating something that at least makes us feel anything: what dumb shit the guy will say next.

So that’s why it was predicted here that there would be the usual nonsense after a horrible season capped with a play-in dud.

In that sense, Karnisovas let us down. Perhaps actually taking note of how abjectly horrible he was after the trade deadline, Karnisovas started this press conference reading from a prepared statement so he could emphasize points that should be the bare minimum, yet were still heretofore missing:

1. Ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship, season goal is a deep playoff run.

2. The team failed, and thus he failed.

It was indicative of how standards have fallen to where I saw a lot of reaction to this basic message, even delivered objectively-poorly as usual (Karnisovas is simply not an effective communicator), containing praise. It was faint praise, but still: Karnisovas received credit in some circles for merely not being aggressively ignorant or attempting to gaslight.

It’s one thing to say “accountability”, but another to actually apply it. His tenure, and this season in particular, meant actually applying that word would’ve meant a self-firing. Anything less meant it was just something he felt sounded good to say, and some agreed.

But when not reading from his script, Karnisovas still couldn’t help but reveal that ultimately he’s in way over his head. He has no clue how deep a hole he’s in, let alone how to get out.

It was telling in the answers to actual questions. And we know the Bulls don’t have the most honest or effective “press” (an even shallower pool with The Athletic’s Darnell Mayberry not even there, off on a more newsworthy role), but the format alone pushed AK out of his comfort zone:

AK still thinks they’re close

While the prepared statement attempted to articulate a championship standard, when asked how that reconciles with his 3 year lust for mediocrity he let that mask slip.

Any mention of a rebuild was ignored. And while I actually think that there are reasons to not want a total teardown, AK did not use those. Instead, it was frequent reiteration of prior messages: doesn’t want to go backwards, and that they’ve already progressed forwards so much.

AK said their preseason goal of ‘better cohesion’ was achieved. That they were indeed ‘competitive’, even in the play-in loss which he said was more due to unlucky shooting than any effort deficit. He cited the 39 win total being inflated by clutch+overtime victories as a positive, and that the goal next season is to get ten more wins.

The goal is a bit weak, which is annoying already. But more revealing of incompetence is AK not realizing the clutch performance actually means they are farther away.

Slow to react, and pledging to remain that way

One my pet peeves with Arturas: always saying the work is still to be done, meaning it’s not continually happening. This turned me off of him right away when he dithered in firing Boylen. Reminiscent of his ‘wait for free agency’ smirk-fest last season, Karnisovas repeated multiple times that the work begins now.

This is not just a vocal tick in speaking to generalities, it’s apparent in more precise answers (and, more importantly, his moves) that he truly does not think proactively or continually assess.

I truly believe that if they won a single game in Miami, it completely removes even his slight feeling of responsibility here. Which is a really stupid way to go about the job.

Lonzo Ball’s recovery was brought up and delivered with a “wait and see” approach. When pressed to acknowledge the obvious urgency - don’t you kind of need to know Lonzo’s status before the draft and free agency? - Karnisovas answered with the same “wait and see” like he literally did not understand the concept.

And while he can say he’s learning (though couldn’t provide an example of what mistakes he’s going to learn from), and that’s technically a positive step, it is not acceptable that he is so slow to learn. Saying “we can’t bring back the same team and expect different results” could have been said a year ago. Asked about his lack of foresight at the trade deadline where he could’ve maybe taken a slight step back for better change at long-term success…that was, again, answered like he didn’t even understand the question.

I believe Karnisovas simply exists with a different concept of time than what should be a major league organization: only with the Bulls can you frequently mention three years ago as if it was the recent past.

read between the lines: LaVine will be the only ‘change’

AK frequently used phraseology evoking broadness, like ‘the group’ and ‘in totality’ and ‘everything is on the table’. There was no mention of anything specific that will change. Which is not unexpected, but the only definitive (slightly definitive) statements were towards the lack of change.

AK immediately and emphatically shot down the suggestion of a front office shakeup. Billy Donovan was lauded and in an unprovoked fashion (part of the opening statement), though there was a noticeable lack of definition with the coaching staff (yawn). DeMar DeRozan and Patrick Williams’s free agency was discussed in terms like the assumption is they’re coming back because the team values them.

[After the press conference, it was reported by KC Johnson at the team broadcast partner that the Bulls offered something around 2 years and $80M to DeMar, who turned it down looking for something longer.]

But there was no such praise or assumption of retaining when it came to Zach LaVine. AK couldn’t help himself and while repeating that the season overall was a failure did segment out the ‘positive stretches’ that included Patrick Williams but not LaVine. When asked specifically about the Mid Three, it was again only answered in terms of them all together not working. As mentioned earlier, DeMar was praised. While Vucevic thankfully wasn’t (a minor W for this press conference) he simply isn’t as significant as the other two.

Another clue was some actual helpful clarification of assumptions from AK in how he views his payroll budget. It confirmed this current team is not going into the tax.

So what change can there be that keeps the talent level at ‘competitive’, stays within budget, yet appears substantial enough to where you can attempt to say you kept your promise to address the situation?

It’s the only move they’re considering: a trade of LaVine, where you take back a lot less salary.

This, of course, will not help enough. But given how low the standards are, I expect it’ll be praised as Karnisovas staying true to his word.