The Chicago Bulls became what no team in a major market ever should be: an afterthought. They were worse than a really bad team. They were mediocre. Nobody took them seriously from either side. Tank enthusiasts knew they were no threat for the #1 overall pick, while competitive fans understood they never had the firepower to compete in the Eastern Conference. Most of the blame for this fell at the feet of former VP of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas. Not only did he do a poor job evaluating talent, but he coupled it with a stubborn refusal to rebuild. After six years, enough was enough. He was fired in favor of Bryson Graham.
People weren’t sure what to expect from the new VP. All they understood was he’d spent most of his career in New Orleans, a second-class organization by NBA standards, and had a reputation for strong scouting. More than anything, fans wanted to know if he’d make the same mistakes Karnisovas did. Among them was ignoring his scouts when they warned against taking certain players, as happened with Patrick Williams in 2020. According to Jamal Collier of ESPN, Graham has been a breath of fresh air inside the building.
Bryson Graham has something AK didn’t: a vision.
Still, inside the organization, there was more clarity about the process than there’d been in years, multiple team sources said.
Current Bulls staffers said they saw a clear vision after the draft, when the team rounded out the roster with veterans such as center Nic Claxton, acquired in a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, and used its cap space to sign forward Norman Powell to a two-year, $45 million deal and re-sign center Zach Collins for two years, $17 million.
That vision, team sources said, is developing the younger players on the roster while remaining conscious of the team’s record as the league’s new lottery odds punish teams in the bottom three of the standings.
And doing so without sacrificing the future: Powell and Collins have team options in the second year of their deals.
“There’s a very, very, very different vibe,” a basketball operations staffer told ESPN. “Everybody feels it. We’re meeting. A group. Beyond four people. Talking about the draft, free agency, hiring a coach. It’s not under a cloak of secrecy. We’re not finding out from an [ESPN alert].”
Bryson Graham has work to do, but he’s off to a good start.
So often, the worst mistake many top executives make is failing to have a clear understanding of what they want. Many of them get the job and just start making decisions based on what feels right. Acquire talent. Worry about identity later. That is a backward way to build a basketball team. To get where you want to go, you must first start by knowing the kind of roster you feel gives you the best chance to win a championship. Once that is done, then you attack free agency and the draft, looking for those types of players.
For all of the grief Jerry Krause got during his time running the Bulls, he understood that much. That team had a clear identity of great athletes with length who can defend. Bryson Graham is going down that same path. He believes the best teams have size, length, athleticism, and play physical. You saw it work with the New York Knicks this past season. There is no reason it can’t in Chicago again, especially if Wilson morphs into the type of player everybody believes he can be.
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There is no telling how well Graham’s tenure will go.
Good talent evaluation is a core part of every executive tenure. However, it is more than that. It must be about maintaining leadership during the down periods, knowing when to make moves and when not to, and always being truthful to oneself about the state of the team. That was a lesson Karnisovas never learned. He remained stubborn that the team was one or two moves away from being a contender. Meanwhile, the best teams in the East kept running circles around them.
It will be a while before the Bulls are back in the mix. Much depends on how quickly Graham can assemble a viable roster. He seems to have a credible head coach in place. Wilson and Matas Buzelis offer a promising young core to build around. He has plenty of cap flexibility and all of his future 1st round picks. If he’s committed to doing this through the draft, then his goal should be to acquire more capital whenever possible. There should be opportunities in the future.
