It’s been a trade deadline that keeps on giving for the Chicago Bulls. Unfortunately, they’re not the Los Angeles Lakers and they didn’t get another decade of championship chasing with Luka Doncic. They’re not the Golden State Warriors, who potentially extended their title window with Jimmy Butler.
They’re not even the San Antonio Spurs, who added De’Aaron Fox to their core which features a historically unique superstar in Victor Wembanyama.
Instead, the Bulls are still in the news 10 days after said deadline with more bad news. Chicago is ready to run things back with the same cast of characters who have already led the franchise deep into mediocrity, per reports.
Bulls to keep front office, Donovan combination despite repeated failures
Chicago’s significant move at the trade deadline was sending Zach LaVine to Sacramento in exchange for salary filler and its own first-round pick that was sent to the Spurs for DeMar DeRozan.
It wasn’t a haul for the Bulls by any means. But it was the first trade deadline move since 2021 for the front office of Vice President of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas and General Manager Marc Eversley.
It’s worth reading again: Despite the stale mediocrity of the past three seasons, the Bulls did not consummate a single trade at the deadline, whether to get better or to get worse. The last deadline deal happened when the team acquired Nikola Vucevic from the Orlando Magic.
Unfortunately, it’s not getting any better for Bulls fans. Despite its failures, ownership is not ready to move on from the Karnisovas-Eversley front office, and Billy Donovan is set to stay on as head coach. That’s despite Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf’s supposed instructions to fix the team’s average roster, per Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times (h/t HoopsHype).
On the bright side, the Bulls may be bad enough without LaVine that they could end up tanking themselves into a top draft pick. With any luck, that player and late-breakout rookie Matas Buzelis could carry Chicago back into contention despite the organization’s tendencies toward self-destruction.
