The early days of Arturas Karnisovas’ tenure as the Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations brought some excitement.
Karnisovas stepped in, conducted a fair evaluation of the team’s situation and already was flipping the roster in his second season.
It was impressive and paid almost instant dividends. The Bulls were playing like an Eastern Conference powerhouse midway through the 2021-22 season, then it seemed as though the creativity just stopped.
Plan A hit a wall because of injuries, and there was seemingly no Plan B.
So while Karnisovas acknowledged Saturday that he had made some mistakes, his promises to turn the Bulls around might prove to be easier said than done.
Time to make a play
First, Karnisovas can talk about being ‘‘creative’’ within the salary-cap constraints he’s facing, but he needs willing partners to help him maneuver. If the rest of the league wants to stay conservative this offseason because of the new collective-bargaining agreement, Karnisovas will have a much tougher journey.
That’s why the playoff series between the Magic and Cavaliers takes on a lot of importance, as does what happens to the 76ers. Also, like the Bulls, the Kings came up very short this season, and the Lakers always seem to be open for some sort of business.
Even if the market is an active one, the Bulls can’t take swings just to take swings. The worst thing to do when stuck in mediocrity is to make moves to stay in mediocrity.
‘‘I think we can be creative,’’ Karnisovas said when he was asked about maneuvering around the Bulls’ cap issues. ‘‘We’ve been creative in the past, and going into this offseason, basically everything is on the table. So we are going to look at everything. That would be my answer.’’
For the first time since joining the Bulls in 2020, he also laid out more specific parameters that he’s allowed to work from.
Bulls ownership has been known to be willing to spend into the luxury tax when the team is poised to make a run, but there always has been a vagueness attached to that. No longer.
‘‘My approach looking at the luxury tax is that if you can prove your team is going to be in the top four, you go in the luxury tax,’’ Karnisovas said. ‘‘It just makes no sense to be in the play-in if you’re going to be in the luxury tax. As long as I can put together a team that is going to be competing [for the] top four in the East, that’s when you start looking at retaining guys and go in the luxury tax. That’s my approach.’’
That’s not exactly something he has to sell the Reinsdorfs on just yet.
Playing the hand that’s been dealt
The first boulder that has to be moved will be guard Zach LaVine’s contract. Even if teams such as the Kings and Magic know they need a proven scorer, they also need a healthy one. It would be difficult for any general manager to talk ownership into taking a $140 million leap of faith for a player coming off season-ending foot surgery.
Then there’s the question about what to do with Lonzo Ball. Could the creativity Karnisovas spoke of simply be giving up on Ball returning from three surgeries on his left knee and doing a waive-and-stretch with the rest of his deal? That would enable the Bulls to waive Ball, then spread his cap hit over added seasons at a lesser annual value.
‘‘We’re just going to wait and see his progression in the next couple of months,’’ Karnisovas said of Ball. ‘‘He’s progressing well. [If] there are no setbacks, we’ll see where he is at in terms of on-court and basketball side. So we’ll figure it out.’’
Karnisovas has a lot to prove this summer, and that creativity he claims to have is about to be tested.
