Arturas Karnisovas's moral hazard

18-month plan is offensive in that AK thinks he should stick around another 18 months

Bulls lead decisionmaker Arturas Karnisovas went on a state media podcast late last week.

I truly do not to make every post about the front office’s slow (so slow) descent into eventual firing, but:

1. the team on the court is boring, and - despite AK’s protestations - not informing us of anything

2. they so rarely speak that it’s notable when they do

It was another round of buffoonery from AK, despite having a safe space that can be described as “when KC Johnson is too tough a questioner”

There wasn’t much here, certainly not much different than what he said at the deadline, but as fans we are so starved for any kind of communicated plan that several jumped on the fact that Karnisovas…well, didn’t even really lay out anything, but merely mentioned future transaction periods and their cap sheet.

AK simply saying “2025 draft…2026 draft, we get good player” does not mean they are valuing the draft again, nor does a mention of 2026 free agency mean they actually plan on doing a major acquisition.

None of this was particularly confusing before (just insipid), and so there was no need for clarification even if this recitation of ‘draft, free agency, good player’ was an attempt to provide some.

I think it helps me to comprehend AK’s talking points when you strip out his profession: He is simply an over-promoted executive who knows he is in over his head, and saying anything to buy himself more time on the job. There’s no consistent (let alone thoughtful) roster-building philosophy at work here, Karnisovas is simply saying this is part of a plan, because it is the corner he has painted himself into.

That’s the reason why there’s touting acquisitions of ‘young players with experience’ and Josh Giddey’s progress (huh?¹), not because it is correct or even validated in this case, but because that’s what you are stuck with. Keep insisting you don’t need to tank, because it’s far too late. Keep talking like a roster teardown needs to take years (including leaking that Vuc surely will be traded this offseason), because it kicks the can down the road to when you can be actually expected to actually again. And mention a 20XX free agency plan with cap space, a classic GarPax play, not because you have a situation a free agent would want to be in, but because you have so few good players under contract.

Karnisovas is doomed, and he knows it. His only personal path forward is to delay and obfuscate how bad and hopeless things are, so he can be the one to fix it, and quickly.

There’s been reporting over the past year-plus² that Karnisovas has ownership’s faith in ability to clean up his own mess in any way he sees fit. I think that’s only partially true. I think it’s possible that ownership would support a swift completion of this teardown and then a multi-year wallowing in the league basement. They don’t think it should be necessary, and as a general philosophy I agree (though not for the reasons they do).

But I don’t think it’s possible they’d support Arturas Karnisovas doing this: for one thing, AK doesn’t have the desire or aptitude to do it correctly. And while it’s never too late to do the right thing, doing so now just means a longer time at the bottom due to prior missteps.

Karnisovas has correctly given up on reaching the fans. He is just talking to one dumbass family.

That’s why Karnisovas said that his goal in this “transition period” is not to be the best team possible in the future, but to limit the time of downturn. It’s a much easier sell to ownership that not only are their Bulls not league-wide embarrassments but playing with ‘tegridy, but they won’t be this bad for even another season longer³.

We know the ‘dorfs are even slower to react than the executives they employ, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they express concern over the relative lack of fan interest (and more importantly, patronage) while this team is in sub-mediocrity. Ideally, for everyone involved, this would be fixed with lottery luck. But if that fails, then - again, counter to what he’s been saying as it’s merely to stay employed - AK will target a “young player with experience” that also has some star power. LaMelo Ball? Trae Young? Zion?

I wouldn’t even be opposed to such a move if looking at it objectively. But Karnisovas can’t be the one to do it. Like nearly everything he’s done in his tenure, he would screw up the execution and it’ll backfire long-term, and in the short-term he will say anything to buy himself even more time.

1. extremely unsurprising that AK had Giddey’s counting stats (“comparable to MJ”) from a handful of games at the ready

2. I’m going with a consensus here and not a particular Sun-Times reporter’s sources

3. and to hear AK describe it, they’re not even bad now. Still competitive but just too young to effectively close out games