The feelings were good.
Not great, not through the roof, but good after the Friday win in Charlotte broke a seven-game losing streak for the Bulls.
The hope was one win would lead to something sustainable. Maybe not the impressive 6-1 record to start the 2025-26 campaign, but definitely better than the showing since late November.
“It just gives you a confidence boost,” Bulls veteran Nikola Vucevic said after beating the Hornets. “We’re all confident players and we all have belief in ourselves, but when you’re losing there’s always a little, you know you hesitate and overthink stuff a little bit. So when you win a game it kind of takes some weight off your shoulder. It’s hard to win in this league so you take every win.”
The Bulls took it alright.
And then promptly flushed it immediately down the toilet 48 hours later by losing to five-win New Orleans for the second time in less than three weeks.
Now a quick little reminder for executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas: You opted to bring back the core of this roster based on a 15-5 regular-season finish last year. It was a 20-game sample size that made you think, ‘Yeah, a little tweak here with an Isaac Okoro, and that should do it.”
Well, the Bulls are now 5-15 in their last 20 games this year, so when does the demolition start?
After all, 20 games seems to be all Karnisovas needs in deciding to waste yet another season mired in embarrassment and mediocrity.
And in case the executive wasn’t paying close attention, the 5-15 record was against the likes of Indiana, Charlotte and New Orleans twice, with a Brooklyn, Utah and Washington sprinkled in. One could even argue that the last 10 games were the easiest part of the entire schedule, and Karnisovas’ latest iteration of this dumpster fire went 2-8.
So what’s the fix? It’s not real complicated. This is a simple tear down. It’s a sledgehammer, goggles, and swing away.
The problem is the architect of this condemned shack still might see the bones of a mansion.
Sure, the Bulls don’t have one real All-Star, they are a group that relies fully on the collective, and anyone in the organization that reminds Karnisovas of that can find their things gathered in a cardboard box by the loading dock, but they have “competitive integrity.”
What they really have is a front office that to this point doesn’t understand roster construction.
Here are some hard truths that Karnisovas needs to start to understand: Chicago is not a free-agent destination. The Bulls don’t carry a great reputation around the league on multiple fronts, and Karnisovas hasn’t helped that. If there’s a major sports market that hangs a low bar and embraces a rebuild, this is it.
Take all that information, throw it in a bowl, and there’s only one conclusion that a right-minded NBA executive can make: Tank!
The players aren’t going to tank and coach Billy Donovan sure isn’t going to tank. He made that very clear.
“As a coach when you’re going through every single game, all you’re thinking about is how do we compete, how do we win?” Donovan said. “I think the ‘competitive integrity,’ at least from my perspective, I appreciate that as a coach I’m not being directed to say, ‘Well, we’ve got to play this young guy and let him run. Don’t worry about his mistakes.’ To me, I don’t think that’s a great developmental plan.”
This is once again about one person – Karnisovas.
His best friend between now and the Feb. 5 trade deadline should be his phone. If he decides to go in any other direction other than that the next cardboard box at the loading dock should be his own.