Chicago Bulls: 2020 NBA Mock Draft 1.0Michael Guistoliseon August 19, 2020 at 11:00 am

The draft and the lottery will be held virtually, thanks to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the firing of head coach Jim Boylen means that all eyes are locked on EVP of basketball operations, Arturas Karnisovas.

For those of you who have yet to listen to the 15-ish minute official press conference held after Boylen was relieved of his coaching duties, you can take a listen here.

Not sure about all of you, but hearing AK speak about basketball operations around the team makes me deliriously happy. It’s impossible for fans to really understand and hear everything that is going on with a team, especially in the case of a coach getting let go, but Karnisovas shot as straight as he could while keeping some things close to the vest.

Just after the announcement about ol’ JimBo, the Bulls notified their fans that AK would be representing the team during the virtual draft process, which will be held at 7:30 CT on August 20th. The class of 2020 is remarked by most experts as a very weak class, but Karnisovas had different thoughts via Bulls Twitter:

Another snag in the drafting plan is the whole pandemic situation. College basketball was shut down before the NCAA Tournament could take place. Without the tournament, there are pieces of scouting reports missing from a lot of domestic players. The cancelation of March Madness also affects draft stock, giving a higher chance for a team to grab a dud prospect.

(There is also a greater chance that a team could grab a sleeper, to be fair.)

An even scarier thought would be that some of the overseas prospects could decline to come to the United States straight away due to coronavirus concerns.

Yikes.