Stacey Interviews Arturas Karnisovas

[Jcool0]

Regularly, yes. Unless you mean 100% luck which is of course no, but would be a silly question anyway since no team becomes a contender based purely on any one thing.

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

[DuckIII]

Regularly, yes. Unless you mean 100% luck which is of course no, but would be a silly question anyway since no team becomes a contender based purely on any one thing.

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

[Muzbar]

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

Isn't tanking a strategy that is reliant on luck? Tanking doesn't guarantee you the top pick, you still need luck in order to get number 1.

Yes you need the ping pong balls to go your way for it to work. But its better to have more then less of those when trying to get a top pick. So its well worth it (though not like it once was) to lose as much as possible. And you can do it without being stupid about it like Gar/Pax. AK is still trying to get to the play in game despite this team having no upside or future.

I agree that obviously the more ping pong balls the better, but luck still needs to be on your side, for example, the Wizards are currently the worst team in the league record wise, they have a 14% chance at the number 1 pick, but there's a 47.9% chance they move back to number 5 after the lottery. The Hornets and Jazz (the next 2 teams with terrible records) also have a 14 percent chance at the number 1 pick but their chances of moving back to their worst-case spots are significantly less.

Hornets: 5th - 27.8%, 6th - 20%.

Jazz: 6th - 26%, 7th - 7%.

[League Circles]

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

They traded the pick away a long time ago thinking that they'd be good. They weren't, and eventually (too late) they realized this and made moves to tank.

I don't think the Bulls want to bottom out in the sense that they'd prefer to be a better team, but they clearly decided to somewhat sacrifice their prospects to compete this year for the explicit purpose of making their draft pick better to compete better in the future. Now I think it's fair to criticize when they decided to tank and how they've tried to do it, but they're definitely doing it.

[Dez]

I think it keeps getting lost that we got our pick back not just for this year but the protections for next year and the future are gone as well.

It's stupid that we had to trade for that but it was the right thing to do to fix the stupid mistake in the first place.

[League Circles]

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

I don't like the way they've handled things either, but IMO the idea that we should have started tanking instantly when Lonzo first got hurt is wild hyperbole that I'm not sure you or anyone else believes. And we're probably getting the 8th pick, not the 10th, unless there is something I'm unaware of in terms of the teams around us and how the order is determined.

[Jcool0]

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

There is always luck involved. SA has had 3 #1 picks and each one was a generational talent. Because of that they have 5 NBA titles. Most people say SA has one of the best FO is basketball. Would they say that if they had gotten the #2 pick in 1997 and taken Keith Van Horn? Who know if they even taken him. They could of gone Chauncey Billups but even though he won a title with Detroit, odds are he doesn't win one in SA and they probably aren't taking Parker if they have Billups. But this is all unknowable. You want to put your team in the best position to get the best talent. So far the Bulls are doing very little to do that. LA got lucky with Luka but they dont get Lucky without AD on the team. OKC got a million picks are everyone one hated it at the time. But without Paul George wanting to play with the Clippers they never get SGA and who knows were they are now.

[DuckIII]

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

I don't like the way they've handled things either, but IMO the idea that we should have started tanking instantly when Lonzo first got hurt is wild hyperbole that I'm not sure you or anyone else believes.

I agree with you. But you have the wrong year. Believe it or not that was a whopping 4 trade deadlines ago, not 3. That is how long AK had been trying to Weekend-at-Bernie’s the franchise he killed.

[DuckIII]

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

There is always luck involved. SA has had 3 #1 picks and each one was a generational talent. Because of that they have 5 NBA titles. Most people say SA has one of the best FO is basketball. Would they say that if they had gotten the #2 pick in 1997 and taken Keith Van Horn? Who know if they even taken him. They could have gone Chauncey Billups but even though he won a title with Detroit, odds are he doesn't win one in SA and they probably aren't taking Parker if they have Billups. But this is all unknowable. You want to put your team in the best position to get the best talent. So far the Bulls are doing very little to do that. LA got lucky with Luka but they dont get Lucky without AD on the team. OKC got a million picks are everyone one hated it at the time. But without Paul George wanting to play with the Clippers they never get SGA and who knows were they are now.

I agree 100%.

[League Circles]

Don’t want to speak for Jcool but the fact that they are “tanking” now isn’t point because we are still likely to end up with the 10th pick. Because we waited too long. 3 trade deadlines too long. We could have been doing things all along to adopt a longer term strategy, which is what J appears to be saying. But didn’t. And he’s really, really right.

He’s just not right about the significant role luck is always playing in team building.

I don't like the way they've handled things either, but IMO the idea that we should have started tanking instantly when Lonzo first got hurt is wild hyperbole that I'm not sure you or anyone else believes.

I agree with you. But you have the wrong year. Believe it or not that was a whopping 4 trade deadlines ago, not 3. That is how long AK had been trying to Weekend-at-Bernie’s the franchise he killed.

Fair enough. I read "3 trade deadlines too long" as "3 years too long". But since you are saying he waited 2 years too long, I would agree that's a reasonable assessment.

[Jcool0]

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

They traded the pick away a long time ago thinking that they'd be good. They weren't, and eventually (too late) they realized this and made moves to tank.

I don't think the Bulls want to bottom out in the sense that they'd prefer to be a better team, but they clearly decided to somewhat sacrifice their prospects to compete this year for the explicit purpose of making their draft pick better to compete better in the future. Now I think it's fair to criticize when they decided to tank and how they've tried to do it, but they're definitely doing it.

They did none of that. They wanted to trade Zach since before the season and had no good offers. When they got one he was dealt and then made no other moves. They also will bench Matas whenever a game is close enough to win. Now you would think if they have decided to now go for the better pick, they wouldn't be playing the "vet" lineup in close games. And luckily for Chicago they are a bad enough team that they will usually lose those games anyway.

[League Circles]

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

They traded the pick away a long time ago thinking that they'd be good. They weren't, and eventually (too late) they realized this and made moves to tank.

I don't think the Bulls want to bottom out in the sense that they'd prefer to be a better team, but they clearly decided to somewhat sacrifice their prospects to compete this year for the explicit purpose of making their draft pick better to compete better in the future. Now I think it's fair to criticize when they decided to tank and how they've tried to do it, but they're definitely doing it.

They did none of that. They wanted to trade Zach since before the season and had no good offers. When they got one he was dealt and then made no other moves. They also will bench Matas whenever a game is close enough to win. Now you would think if they have decided to now go for the better pick, they wouldn't be playing the "vet" lineup in close games. And luckily for Chicago they are a bad enough team that they will usually lose those games anyway.

I'm not sure which vet lineup you are referring to. All I know is that the Bulls traded. Zach LaVine at his absolute peak for a low quality trade return. There's nobody currently on the Bulls that is obviously better than the other guys in the rotation in order to win games. Literally every single player even Lonzo ball and Kobe White. You can look at and make a decent argument that if they only played this other guy instead it would give them a better or worse chance to win.

But that's all besides the point. A front office is who determines whether or not a team is going to tank. I think very very few coaches ever get on board with that. Although AK made it easy for Billy because there's nothing he can really do that gives us a good chance to win because nobody is very good or at least they don't distinguish themselves.

[jnrjr79]

Regularly? What examples? And a team tanking for a draft pick is not luck. That is a strategy. I mean the Bulls they aren't trying to tank, they aren't making trades for draft picks and are hoping either the 8th pick becomes an all star or they land a top 4 pick. They aren't moving on from worthless vets because they aren't getting value they are never getting. There entire organization is just hoping to luck into a franchise player.

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

The bolded part is inaccurate. They may or may not have needed the pick in 2025, but removing the future protections and inevitable loss of a 1st or 2 2nds to San Antonio was significant.

They are obviously tanking for the remainder of this season. I’m not sure AK will commit to tanking next season or beyond, however. It’s been noted the Bulls will have a lot of 2026 cap space as things stand, but that also means this offseason they’ll have a lot of expiring contracts and control over all their picks, so it’s not going to shock me if AK in essence tanks for 2025 but then tries to make some sort of win-now moves for 2026. I don’t think this would be a good plan, but given his history, I assume AK will look at this.

[Jcool0]

The Bulls are very, very obviously and unambiguously trying to tank right now. They traded their best player at the height of his prime for nobody they needed.......AND their own pick back. Now a bunch of guys are missing games with "injuries" and we're playing whoever. Not saying that Billy is deliberately throwing games, but trying to improve the value of their draft pick was obviously a primary goal and is the definition of tanking.

If they were tanking they shouldn't of needed to get there own picks back & they would of taken the deal for Vuc. The Bulls are a bad team and there were a slightly better team (but not a playoff team) with Zach. Bulls think the experience of the play in or play offs is worth it. How many times do the Bulls need to say they dont want to bottom out before people believe them?

The bolded part is inaccurate. They may or may not have needed the pick in 2025, but removing the future protections and inevitable loss of a 1st or 2 2nds to San Antonio was significant.

They are obviously tanking for the remainder of this season. I’m not sure AK will commit to tanking next season or beyond, however. It’s been noted the Bulls will have a lot of 2026 cap space as things stand, but that also means this offseason they’ll have a lot of expiring contracts and control over all their picks, so it’s not going to shock me if AK in essence tanks for 2025 but then tries to make some sort of win-now moves for 2026. I don’t think this would be a good plan, but given his history, I assume AK will look at this.

The bold part is inaccurate. Being bad does not = tanking.

[dougthonus]

We view the quality of the current team similarly, but definitely not the talent level. I think we're a pretty talented team at least in terms of players on the roster (and have been for years), but not assembled well nor executing well. However, we may possibly be more well assembled next year than we were the past few years, so I think we will be better than we're playing right now due to better skillset balance, more chemistry together, etc.

If you look around the NBA, the teams that win titles typically have at least one player that is radically better than anyone we've had on our roster since Jimmy Butler. With DeMar and Zach, maybe those guys could have been #2 and #3 if the #1 was Jokic, but that means you're still an MVP talent away from being anything. On the present team, I'd guess most contending teams have 3 guys better than our best guy.

That's a massive talent gap.

[Wingy]

I think it keeps getting lost that we got our pick back not just for this year but the protections for next year and the future are gone as well.

It's stupid that we had to trade for that but it was the right thing to do to fix the stupid mistake in the first place.

No.

You tank by design (see Wizards) for 2 years with predicted strong at the top drafts.

Follow Presti strategy and collect assets.

Bring vets on after that to disallow your young kids getting into the complete losing cycle. Like the Rockets and Pistons (who figured it out late) have done.

Then convey what’s much more likely to be a meh pick.

Don’t excuse the league worst incompetence of these idiots.

[League Circles]

We view the quality of the current team similarly, but definitely not the talent level. I think we're a pretty talented team at least in terms of players on the roster (and have been for years), but not assembled well nor executing well. However, we may possibly be more well assembled next year than we were the past few years, so I think we will be better than we're playing right now due to better skillset balance, more chemistry together, etc.

If you look around the NBA, the teams that win titles typically have at least one player that is radically better than anyone we've had on our roster since Jimmy Butler. With DeMar and Zach, maybe those guys could have been #2 and #3 if the #1 was Jokic, but that means you're still an MVP talent away from being anything. On the present team, I'd guess most contending teams have 3 guys better than our best guy.

That's a massive talent gap.

I guess it's just semantics but I view "talent" as distinct from performance. Zach and Demar are talented guys that figured out a way to translate their talent into a good amount of performance, whereas Matas and Giddey are equally talented players that mostly haven't translated their substantial talent into performance yet (though Giddey maybe seems to be emerging). Ball I definitely view Ball as more talented than Caruso. That's why I don't think our "talent" has been downgraded. I think a huge chunk of nba players could be like the third best guy on a title team, but most players never really get very close to their ceiling. Tyrus Thomas was talented enough to be the 2nd best player on a title team, but he never performed better than a basic rotation level player overall. I was watching some podcast clip from some known nba player who played a couple decades in our era recently (can't remember who, maybe Vince Carter or somebody like that) who said Andrew Wiggins was the most talented player he ever saw or played with, and Wiggins wasn't even close to the "best" player that this guy had ever played with.

[Dez]

I think it keeps getting lost that we got our pick back not just for this year but the protections for next year and the future are gone as well.

It's stupid that we had to trade for that but it was the right thing to do to fix the stupid mistake in the first place.

No.

You tank by design (see Wizards) for 2 years with predicted strong at the top drafts.

Follow Presti strategy and collect assets.

Bring vets on after that to disallow your young kids getting into the complete losing cycle. Like the Rockets and Pistons (who figured it out late) have done.

Then convey what’s much more likely to be a meh pick.

Don’t excuse the league worst incompetence of these idiots.

Where did I do that? Oh right I didn't.

[Wingy]

I think it keeps getting lost that we got our pick back not just for this year but the protections for next year and the future are gone as well.

It's stupid that we had to trade for that but it was the right thing to do to fix the stupid mistake in the first place.

No.

You tank by design (see Wizards) for 2 years with predicted strong at the top drafts.

Follow Presti strategy and collect assets.

Bring vets on after that to disallow your young kids getting into the complete losing cycle. Like the Rockets and Pistons (who figured it out late) have done.

Then convey what’s much more likely to be a meh pick.

Don’t excuse the league worst incompetence of these idiots.

Where did I do that? Oh right I didn't.

Please don’t be intentionally obtuse. The “you” obviously wasn’t meant to be literal.

You did call it “the right thing to do.” It wasn’t. It was completely unnecessary for any competent FO given situation, and protections.

[Dez]

No.

You tank by design (see Wizards) for 2 years with predicted strong at the top drafts.

Follow Presti strategy and collect assets.

Bring vets on after that to disallow your young kids getting into the complete losing cycle. Like the Rockets and Pistons (who figured it out late) have done.

Then convey what’s much more likely to be a meh pick.

Don’t excuse the league worst incompetence of these idiots.

Where did I do that? Oh right I didn't.

Please don’t be intentionally obtuse. The “you” obviously wasn’t meant to be literal.

You did call it “the right thing to do.” It wasn’t. It was completely unnecessary for any competent FO given situation, and protections.

It was the right thing to do, trading the pick in the first place was unnecessary but correcting that mistake was right especially given our situation.