Bulls willing to take a look at philosophy when it comes to tanking

WASHINGTON – It isn’t very often that Michael Reinsdorf speaks publicly about the state of the Bulls.

Then again, it wasn’t very often that the team president has made the decision to remove a front office before a season ended and before it had at least a decade on the job.

He did both in the last 24 hours, pulling the plug on vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley, and then discussing the decision Tuesday afternoon.

And while the younger Reinsdorf went through a list of what they need to see from their next front office, how they will now use an outside firm to help with that process, and how he plans on taking a more hands-on approach in trying to get the organization back to having sustainable winning, he was also very transparent in their flaws and doing what it takes to fix those.

The overlying philosophy from the Bulls has been they would not be a tanking organization. Michael Reinsdorf reiterated that philosophy but also admitted they need to be better in understanding league trends and being in front of those trends rather than chasing them too late.

There was a report that the former front office was trying to sell ownership on tanking but were told no on that mindset, but that was absolutely inaccurate. Or members of the former front office trying to do damage control.

Either way, Karnisovas – both publicly and privately – always stood on “competitive integrity” and the idea of winning games no matter what the standings say.

Could Reinsdorf start changing his stance on that when he sees where Detroit and San Antonio now sit in the standings after tanking in previous years?

“We don’t know where the lottery changes are happening,” he replied. “We know what’s out there and what’s being talked about, but we have to see where the league goes. Once we see where the league goes, that’s really important, understanding that trend. We haven’t always done that. We haven’t always recognized the trends on where things are going. Back in 2012 or ’13 when the three-point shooting started to increase, if we would have anticipated that more and how it was going to change, we probably would have had different decision making in some of the players we drafted, so you got to stay ahead of it.”

Autonomy, smutonomy

Reinsdorf did also admit that while front offices – both with the White Sox and Bulls – have been given full autonomy in most cases, that mentality has to be re-examined, at least with the Bulls.

“I have to hold myself accountable too,” Reinsdorf said. “We do give a lot of autonomy to our people, but that doesn’t mean they can just make any decisions they want. It’s our job to ask the right questions and to push back when needed. So it’s not just going to be like, ‘OK, we hired you, now we’re done, we’ll see you in a few years. Hopefully we’re good.’ We’ve got to really ask the right questions.”

Not missing much

There aren’t many certainties on this roster moving forward, but Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis seem to be two of them.

Both players were left back in Chicago for the two-game mini-series against the Wizards, as Giddey was dealing with his hamstring issue and Buzelis was still fighting an illness. Coach Billy Donovan did say Buzelis could rejoin the team for Thursday’s game, but that was up in the air.

Not that either were needed as the Bulls hammered the Wizards 129-98, and watched Rob Dillingham score a career-high 26 points.