Outside opinion is Bulls are playing the waiting game on trade front

The NBA has its buyers and sellers with the trade deadline just over a week away, but mostly there are a bunch of teams lying in wait.

According to several sources, that’s where the Bulls and executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas reside. He’s waiting to see if a can’t-say-no offer comes his way and if there’s a scenario in which he actually adds rather than sells.

One NBA executive said Tuesday that the popular opinion is the Bulls will stand pat when the March 25 deadline comes and goes.

But that could mean nothing has wowed Karnisovas just yet or he’s already really good at this poker-face thing in his first year as an NBA VP.

He did say a few weeks ago that because of the 10-team play-in format, there likely will be few sellers, and it sounds as if that’s how it’s playing out, coach Billy Donovan said.

“Like anything else, all front-office people are on the phone, talking and communicating,’’ Donovan said before the game against the Thunder, ‘‘but there’s still maybe a little bit less than 10 days or so, two weeks, whatever it may be, and I still think there’s a lead-up time to it.

‘‘Arturas has been on the phone, taking phone calls, just like everybody else in this league, doing his job, but it just seems to me, just being in the league, that everything seems to really transpire the more you get up to those last 48 hours. Closer to the deadline is when people maybe start making those types of decisions.’’

Whom could the Bulls part ways with in a trade? The two most likely candidates would be Thaddeus Young because of the impact he could have on a contending team, and Lauri Markkanen, who is on his way to restricted free agency this summer.

Otto Porter Jr. has an expiring contract, so he could jump on a team’s radar now that he’s healthy, but that might entail the Bulls taking a bad contract in return.

If a solid draft asset was included in that package, Karnisovas could explore that option, but the Bulls are far enough into the rebuild process that they no longer need to do that.

“I don’t know all the conversations,’’ Donovan said. “Obviously he and I have been talking every day and we speak, he updates me, but, again, I don’t know what that’s going to look like as we get closer to the 25th.’’

Ankle wait

Guard Garrett Temple is out of the boot that had been stabilizing his sprained left ankle, but when asked about a timetable for his return, Donovan could only say he was improving.

“He’s progressed in a very, very positive way, maybe even more than what we expected,’’ Donovan said. “There’s still not really a timeframe, but I think coming out of that game against Miami and needing maybe a couple of days just to see what his ankle looked like, going through the treatment he’s gone through, he’s responded really, really well.

‘‘Hopefully we can keep him on that trajectory. Right now, there’s no real timetable, but it was pretty positive news the last 24 hours just in the way he’s responded.’’