New Bulls Rumors on What Caused Front Office Shakeup, How Billy Donovan Resisted Tanking for Draft

The Chicago Bulls have done nothing but disappoint since executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas and general manager Marc Eversley took over ahead of the 2020-21 campaign, and they made significant changes Monday.

Chicago announced it fired both, and ESPN's Jamal Collier reported on a number of details that led to their exits, including some hesitancy from head coach Billy Donovan when it came to a tanking strategy.

According to Collier, there was a "growing disconnect" between the front office and the organization when it came to the direction of the team following this season's trade deadline that included moving Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White for uninspiring returns.

The strategy has garnered plenty of criticism and was under the spotlight again following Monday's moves.

"People didn't know the plan," a team source told Collier. "They didn't know the process. We needed to move on—with a clean slate and start this thing over."

Notably, Collier also reported Donovan and the team's ownership were both "hesitant" to embrace any type of tanking, which put the front office in something of a position to continue chasing mediocre playoff spots. That cycle largely prevented the Bulls from acquiring true franchise-altering talent and made them a regular in the play-in tournament.

It has been something of an NBA purgatory as a result, and that eventually led to Monday's firings.

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There was a time when optimism was warranted in Chicago, as the team got off to a 38-21 start during the 2021-22 campaign with a core of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, White, Alex Caruso and Nikola Vučević. However, Ball suffered a knee injury that held him out until the 2024-25 season, and the team lost in the first round to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Yet the front office held onto that core for much longer than it should have, perhaps emboldened by that small-sample-size success.

"We took too long to pick a lane," a team source told Collier. "The Lonzo thing just really messed them up. We saw that success early on, and didn't have the foresight to pivot early."

Even Vučević's presence ended up as a reminder of the front office's failure, as he and Al-Farouq Aminu were acquired in 2021 for Wendell Carter Jr., Otto Porter Jr. and two first-round picks in a move a team source told Collier was the front office's "original sin."

The end result was a 224-254 record across six seasons under Karnišovas. A first-round exit was the highlight of his tenure, and Monday's moves were just another reminder of how far the franchise has fallen since the golden era of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen winning championships.

Instead, this once proud franchise has become a punch line with no significant reason for optimism moving into the future.

Perhaps the right hires to replace Monday's firings could change that.