Team president Michael Reinsdorf, who spearheaded the search that landed on Karnisovas, has long been well aware of Bulls fans' discontent and/or apathy with the direction of the franchise. He appreciates that fans have been so passionate, but he also made a point to mention that he didn't act because of their anger. The Bulls' changes included former head of basketball operations John Paxson being reassigned into an advisory role and longtime general manager Gar Forman getting fired.
"I certainly don't want to say what the fans were saying or what the season-ticket holders or the people I was reaching out to were saying didn't have any affect on me, but it's not the reason you make changes like this," Reinsdorf said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Wednesday morning. "Because nobody really knows what's going on inside the organization. People out there may think we made a change because we were unhappy with a draft choice that we made or something like or the things you can see. For me, it was more about I was really listening to John (Paxson) and looking at the organization and thinking about our process and what was going to happen going forward. To me, it just seemed like now was definitely the right time make these changes."
Much has been made about how Paxson approached Reinsdorf in December and expressed his belief that the Bulls front office needed to undergo change. That was a "kick-start" to the process, as Reinsdorf said, but he also confirmed that he would've initiated an overhaul of sorts no matter what approach Paxson took. Because he himself was upset with what he was seeing.
"No, I don't think so," Reinsdorf responded when asked if it would've remained status quo if Paxson hadn't spoken up. "It wasn't like it was all of a sudden a drop-dead date that boom, this conversation that we had (changed it all). John and I had been talking for a long time. I wasn't thrilled with where we were as a team, as an organization. And I shared that information with John. We continued to try to effect change and improve the organization, but at some point, John did have that heart to heart with me and he just said, 'Mike, I'm not the right person to lead this organization for the next 10 to 15 years.' I think it's really important that you have the right person working with you, so that really was the kick-start to it."