JUST NOW: Chicago Bulls Owner Jerry Reinsdorf has passed away.
The Chicago Bulls have not made a trade before Thursday’s NBA trade deadline for the third straight year.
Bulls vice president Arturas Karnisovas repeatedly expressed his satisfaction with the team’s recent performance and his expectations for it to “remain competitive” in a video conference with reporters shortly after the deadline, despite the fact that the Bulls came into Thursday in ninth place in the Eastern Conference with a 24-27 record.
“We would take a step back, which we don’t want,” said Karnisovas. Competitive is the word of choice. We have an obligation to this community to be competitive and advance to the postseason.
After missing the playoffs the previous season, the Bulls are fighting for a spot in the play-in tournament. They trail the Pacers by 4½ games for the No. 6 spot as of Thursday. Nonetheless, Karnisovas pointed out that the teams are “bunched together” in the middle of the conference and that nearly all of them plan to go higher in the standings after reaching a settlement by Thursday.
“I recognize that this is a results-oriented organization,” he said. “I’ll take responsibility for my errors. It’s still far too early to say, though, to define what success and failure look like. There are still thirty games. We’ll see what this squad is able to do.
The Bulls are the only team in the last three seasons to have not made a move the week before the trade deadline, according to data from ESPN Stats & Information. (The Cavaliers and Heat did not specifically make deals on that day; they reached an agreement immediately prior to the deadline.)
Before the trade deadline, Bulls guard Zach LaVine—who was one of the team’s most talked-about players—voiced his displeasure with the team’s losing record in November and refused to answer questions regarding his wish to be transferred earlier in the season. But LaVine was limited to just 25 games due to injuries. According to Karnisovas, the star guard underwent foot surgery on Thursday, marking the beginning of his four- to six-month recovery period.
Karnisovas continued, saying he gets along well with LaVine and he wasn’t concerned about LaVine’s future employment with the company.
“We are better with Zach on the team,” said Karnisovas.
According to sources who spoke with ESPN, the Bulls held exploratory negotiations with teams about a number of other players, including Andre Drummond and Alex Caruso, before the deadline. Chicago wanted to compete for a postseason berth, so it was hesitant to deal Caruso. The Bulls placed greater value on players received in exchange than draft picks.
Chicago also decided to hold onto forward DeMar DeRozan, who can become an unrestricted free agent this summer. It was comparable to how the Bulls never actually thought about trading Nikola Vucevic before the deadline last season, opting instead to offer him a new three-year contract in the offseason. Declaring on Thursday that he would like to go in the same direction, Karnisovas
