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The Bulls have exooooooorcised the demons. This franchise is clear. On Monday morning, the Chicago Bulls decided to fire long-time GM Gar Forman.
Bulls announce Gar Forman is out as general manager and "will not be involved in the Basketball Operations Department"
— Jamal Collier (@JamalCollier) April 13, 2020
It had been 22 years for Forman with the Bulls, a run that included the Michael Jordan dynasty in the 90s. It also included very little after that. Forman will mostly be remembered for being a part of MJ and the Bulls two 3-peat teams. What fans will remember right now are a multitude of questionable decisions that left fans wondering if there will ever be change. That change is finally here.
The Bulls, along with the firing of Forman, announced the hiring of new VP of Basketball Operations Arturas Karnisovas. He comes over from the Denver Nuggets, where he was key in drafting Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Jusuf Nurkic, building the team back up to its current iteration. He was the first new face brought in to revamp the franchise. More high-profile hires are expected.
Forman was always synonymous with former Bulls guard John Paxson, who was Forman’s “PIC” to an extent. The two were the brain trust of the Bulls for nearly two decades. Paxson was brought in before 2003 as the GM to replace Jerry Krause, the real hero behind the scenes of those Bulls dynasties. Paxson wasn’t fired, but he isn’t touching any basketball decisions either it would seem. Maybe if Karnisovas needs some advice when picking out the best deep dish spot in Chicago. This is great news for the Bulls moving forward. The team can’t afford to screw up with a loaded roster of young talent.
Speaking of young talent, we should give GarPax some credit for drafting players like Wendell Carter Jr., Lauri Markkanen and Coby White recently. The two also pulled off the Jimmy Butler trade, which in my eyes was a win. Butler isn’t in Minnesota anymore and Chicago has Zach LaVine (a borderline All-Star) and Markkanen (a promising young big). Still, the results on the court were below average for a while.
Arturas Karnisovas said all the right things about player development, which has been a big part of Nuggets' rise in West. John Paxson and Gar Forman drafted well overall. Arturas said as much. Now, it's about development.
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) April 13, 2020
Outside of the Derrick Rose-Tom Thibodeau Bulls teams in the late 2000s, there was mostly disappointment. From the Baby Bulls all the way to the failed Fred Hoiberg experiment, the Bulls have mostly been a joke in the NBA since Jordan hung them up. D-Rose brought it back a little bit, but that squad blew up in the franchise’s face. Rose tore his ACL in the playoffs after a run to the Eastern Conference Finals the previous season and nothing was the same.