When underperforming AND embarrassing, just get rid of them!
Jaden Ivey gone, no better time (than yesterday) to clean out front office
Prior to this week, the Bulls acquisition of Jaden Ivey at the trade deadline was merely a bust due to his physical deterioration. He had recently been shut down for the season with persistent knee issues, and with his gigantic cap hold1 wasn’t likely to return - Arturas Karnisovas negotiation skills aside - outside of maybe a bargain-basement contract.
Then Ivey’s mental deterioration became too prolific to ignore. Being away from the team’s road trip while rehabbing, Ivey’s consistent and escalating Instagram rants broke Reddit containment and received mainstream media attention. First from the Chicago Sun-Times’s Joe Cowley, who reported that the Bulls had had enough - this was apparently just the latest and worst of Ivey’s behavior - and were ‘working on an exit strategy’. By the time I started openly wondering exactly what ‘work’ needed to be done2 when you could simply cut the guy loose, the Bulls did exactly that.
I don’t believe anywhere but the fringe of the internet thinks it wasn’t a proper cut-and-dry decision to cut Ivey immediately. Even before his latest rants (he has continued multiple times since, in case there was any benefit of the doubt not burned through yet), the physical and mental issues Ivey was exhibiting meant the Bulls weren’t going to re-sign him.
Would the decision be different if Ivey was contributing, or had a good chance of contributing in the future? Yes, of course, those are different circumstances. The NBA, and Chicago Bulls, have employed players who’ve done worse because of their performance.
It’s easy to let go of people who aren’t producing. The Bulls should take a similar approach to their front office, and fire Arturas Karnisovas immediately.
I don’t need to lay out the multitude of reasons AK should be canned. He should’ve been replaced years ago, and instead received a secret contract extension over the summer with the message from ownership being that he succeeded once (?) and deserved another chance to shape the next iteration of the six-time world champions going for the sixth seed in the East.
This past trade deadline was the easiest, lowest-risk step in this next ‘stage’, as AK called it. And while Ivey was one of the more high-profile additions, it was only at the cost of Kevin Huerter. Perhaps, like so many times before, the draft pedigree of Ivey gave AK tunnel-vision in his ask, but the Pistons were not going to offer much different if not Ivey.
Given the cost, Ivey already looking like a bust was not an indictment in and of itself. It was the kind of low-risk swing at talent that the Bulls put themselves in position to have to attempt, and it always had a low likelihood of working out.
But we didn’t know just how much of a longshot that was, with the added problem of organizational embarrassment, given Ivey’s personality. And that Karnisovas either knew about Ivey’s behavior and went for it anyway, or didn’t perform proper due diligence (not the first time this very deadline!), is just the latest reason to fire this guy already.
The knives are out for Arturas Karnisovas. We recently saw Billy Donovan start to backchannel his own exit strategy, publically distancing himself from this mess. In the wake of cutting Ivey, Donovan was forced to face the media before a game and be the only person in the organization to address the issue beyond PR’s “conduct detrimental to the team”.
Julia Poe of the Chicago Tribune had a fantastic column about how that public-facing dynamic is reason to fire Karnisovas:
It’s impossible to extend this grace, however, to an executive too cowardly to face any public acknowledgment of his error. Karnišovas offered nothing — not a public statement, not a private comment — in the wake of Ivey’s tirades. Instead, he placed that burden once again on the shoulders of Donovan, who handled Monday’s meltdown with a stoic professionalism that has become his standard over the many, many times he has been asked to answer for another man’s actions.
How many more times will the Reinsdorfs allow this loop to be repeated? Karnišovas made a mistake. The Bulls paid the price. The man in charge ducked responsibility. It’s a dull, exhausting, pointless pattern.
Poe follows with further rationale that the Bulls used with Ivey: It’s not as if AK is doing a good job!
Cowley also had a column calling for AK’s head, speculating that if he stays Donovan is walking. The only reason there aren’t more publications like this is because, sadly, the third biggest media market (with one team) has no other full-time independent coverage.
When finally relieving Bulls fans from GarPax’s multi-decade reign of terror, it was cited that the national embarrassment was the final straw. Ownership performed an actual outside-the-organization search to hire Karnisovas, whose first action was bringing in Billy Donovan at a high price for ‘stability’ to clean up after Jim Boylen’s clown show.
It didn’t work. But like with Ivey, wiping your hands of Karnisovas has no downside. The only better time than doing it now would’ve been doing it earlier.
being a top-5 pick (the first released before rookie deal ended since Dragan Bender), Ivey made $33M in his career, and to retain restricted free agent rights the Bulls would’ve had to extend a $13.5M qualifying offer
another example of Cowley’s half-measures in reporting. He was very upset that Shams scooped that Ivey was waived, but Cowley never said Ivey was getting waived. But I give Cowley credit for being the first to report that Ivey’s remarks were going to be addressed by Bulls management.