NEW YORK – Arturas Karnisovas did his best to win the press conference, but the Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations knew he was short on ammo Thursday evening.
So he did what he could in explaining his team’s inactivity as the trade deadline came and went earlier in the day, hitting the talking points that mattered most – several times in some cases – and now he will sit back and watch the final 28 regular-season games play out.
Live to wheel-and-deal another day.
“I think I can start by saying we were pretty active at the trade deadline,” Karnisovas said, referring to the phone calls made and received. “It just didn’t seem like there were deals for us to make to improve this group. After a busy couple days, we came to the conclusion that this was the best group for us to give us the best chance to win.”
And that’s still the goal in this 2022-23 campaign, as tough as that was to see. Karnisovas still feels like there’s a product on the court that should not only win games, but make the playoffs.
Then, based on how far that playoff run is, address roster changes this summer, knowing what the market was asking for the last few days.
“This trade deadline showed us that we have a lot of good players that have a lot of value around the league and I think there’s ways to [improve it],” Karnisovas said. “I think we turned the roster around the last couple years. We’ve done deals in the summertime that a lot of people said we couldn’t do.”
According to Karnisovas, it was a buyer’s market, and the Bulls went into it looking to add to the roster, not subtract.
While he obviously wouldn’t get into the specifics of how many teams he spoke to and which players were the most sought after, he did say they were open to discussing almost everyone, especially with a record under .500.
The Sun-Times reported that there was some talk with the Knicks about Zach LaVine, but those talks never got past the specifics of the players.
LaVine said of the rumors surrounding him that if the team was performing better it wouldn’t have been an issue.
“Those speculations don’t come out with winning teams,” LaVine said. “Didn’t happen last year, so I think being one of the leaders of the team and understanding your positioning and the position of the team, your name is going to get thrown in stuff like that.”
All Karnisovas would say on the matter was he felt the East “shifted” on Thursday, and it was a shift the Bulls could take advantage of.
The gut punch for the fan base, however, was not only what the Bulls didn’t do, but what the rest of the league did pull off either on Thursday or the days leading into the deadline. The Bulls and the Cavs were the only two teams that were completely inactive.
Meanwhile, other organizations were completely changing the league’s landscape.
It started early Thursday morning, when Brooklyn sent two-time champion Kevin Durant to Phoenix, getting back a package that included forward Mikal Bridges. The same Nets team that earlier in the week sent Kyrie Irving to Dallas, ending the dreams that Brooklyn once had for a James Harden, Irving, Durant title run.
The dominoes quickly started falling after that, with the Lakers getting rid of Russell Westbrook in a three-team deal with Utah and Minnesota, Milwaukee adding Jae Crowder after he was sent to Brooklyn, and Toronto landing Jakob Poeltl from San Antonio, to name a few.
By the time the smoke cleared, the Western Conference really got interesting from the Lakers all the way up, while the top two teams in the East – Boston and Milwaukee – distanced themselves from the rest of the conference with additions.
The Bulls? Crickets.
“Mediocrity and average is not OK with us,” Karnisovas said. “But the next step is what’s going to happen for the rest of the season and then how we can address – during the draft and free agency – our shortcomings.”