Yahoo Sports. Bulls new GM to be person of color

[red222]

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So happy to hear this

[TheSuzerain]

Seems stupid. Hire the best mind we can get. Skin color should not factor into the decision at all.

[Indomitable]

Seems stupid. Hire the best mind we can get.

Meritocracy is dead

[TheAlanParsons]

Really? This is a priority?

[NBAnimal]

BJ

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[dougthonus]

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So happy to hear this

We've just eliminated tons and tons of candidates for consideration based on race. That doesn't seem like a good thing to me. If we announced ahead of time we're going to hire a white candidate then it would be an awfully short job stint.

I am happy to have some minority representation though, and I think having people of different backgrounds and more diversity improves your decision making process. I just would have preferred they went through the process and landed on a black candidate in the end rather than eliminating candidates at the start.

[Red8911]

Lol I did see this coming. Why does he necessarily need to be a person of color? This gm job is probably the least important and I’m guessing Reinsdorf figured to hire a person of color so no one says they aren’t diverse. It’s a bit ridiculous that that’s the only reason.

Anyway since this is the case I would rather them get a former player who will attract players to come here. Pippen, Deng, Finley are guys I wouldn’t mind, but again AK will make all the decisions so this GM job doesn’t have much power.

[iqureshi]

Think if Aturas will do all the advanced analytics and scouting, you need a big recruiter as a GM. Someone like Wade/KG actually fits really well. Lets see how they handle this.

[OnlyTheOneAndOnly]

im guessing he already has a GM picked and came as a "package deal" when he was hired. happens to be a person of color so that was leaked to the media to save face from the spears article from yesterday.

[Bandit King]

Just hire the best guy please!

[cubbiefan009]

Nazr Mohammed

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[nitetrain8603]

Sounds like they've already checked in on Nazr Mohammed and Michael Finley and were denied speaking to Troy Weaver of OKC. Shane Battier and Trajon Langdon are also people of color.

Calvin Booth was another name thrown around but there's a chance that he replaces Art.

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[TheSuzerain]

The #1 thing that could be done to promote diversity within the Bulls organization would be jettison all nepotism hires and crony old guard (e.g. Jim Paxson, Doug Collins, any one who went to Iowa State). Replace those guys with the best candidate.

You can be damn sure that the staff would be more diverse if they did the above.

[dougthonus]

This gm job is probably the least important

Come on now, it's the 2nd highest job in basketball operations. To say it's unimportant is ridiculous. Not all teams have an EVP and GM, so there are less than 30 jobs in the NBA that are higher than this one.

and I’m guessing Reinsdorf figured to hire a person of color so no one says they aren’t diverse. It’s a bit ridiculous that that’s the only reason.

Would be interesting to know if that's the reason or if this is Karnisovas's idea. Maybe Karnisovas values diversity and this is entirely on him or perhaps already knows who he wants to hire. I can't imagine the Bulls are stupid enough that they're doing this purely for PR reasons though you never know.

[Peelboy]

Personally, this whole developing "story" that the Bulls somehow are a discriminatory org is crap. Start w JR who was one of the first to put a minority as the head of a sports org (KW w the Sox). Then contrary to the Yahoo article, I believe the Bulls were also one of the earlier teams to have a minority (BJ) in a high role in the org. Pretty sure that wasn't common in the 90s. Yes since then they have had white guys head the FO - but they've also had basically no changes.

In this case, they were clearly going for guys who were established GMs or GM equivalents (i.e. Simon in Miami, and as the article notes Presti's guy was requested but denied by the team). That leaves I believe Dell Demps or Elton Brand, neither of whom has demonstrated successful leadership of an organization in the way AK, Webster, etc have. Now for the GM search this is clearly not the case and it seems like they are appropriately casting a wide net.

But overall, this "story" is a)incorrect given the pursuit of Webster, b)incorrect given the franchise and owner's history, and c)incorrect given the desire for an established guy.

It is 10000% appropriate to discuss the structural impediments, how this demonstrates their existence - there is a dearth of experienced minority candidates because you have historically had few minority GMs. But making the Bulls out to be discriminatory is misplaced IMO.

[ImSlower]

Not a good look to let this out before we have heard any names. I'd much rather they had mentioned a group of candidates, race unrelated, then simply hired their (apparently POC) target and said "This is the guy we wanted the whole time."

I veer pretty far into progressive idealism, but I don't think saying "Yeah we are totally hiring a POC guys, see how woke we are y'alls? Do kids still say Y'alls?" is not woke in the least.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

I'm all for representation and was very annoyed that the Bulls didn't interview a single minority candidate for the EVP role.

That said, I hate announcing it like this either.

[Chi town]

im guessing he already has a GM picked and came as a "package deal" when he was hired. happens to be a person of color so that was leaked to the media to save face from the spears article from yesterday.

This. He already has his guy who is a person of color.

No way he hired a worse candidate just because of color of skin.

[Red8911]

Read on Twitter

So happy to hear this

We've just eliminated tons and tons of candidates for consideration based on race. That doesn't seem like a good thing to me. If we announced ahead of time we're going to hire a white candidate then it would be an awfully short job stint.

I am happy to have some minority representation though, and I think having people of different backgrounds and more diversity improves your decision making process. I just would have preferred they went through the process and landed on a black candidate in the end rather than eliminating candidates at the start.

Exactly this is terrible and most won’t care of course but if it was the other way around with hiring only a white guy they would be boycotting the bulls right now. Race should never be brought up at all in this, right now it’s obvious they just want to get a black guy so no one says anything about them.

[Chi town]

The #1 thing that could be done to promote diversity within the Bulls organization would be jettison all nepotism hires and crony old guard (e.g. Jim Paxson, Doug Collins, any one who went to Iowa State). Replace those guys with the best candidate.

You can be damn sure that the staff would be more diverse if they did the above.

Just wait till AK drafts Haliburton from...

Iowa State.