(670 The Score) The Bulls did nothing as the trade deadline passed Thursday afternoon, but a day later, executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas hinted that moves of significance are on the horizon this summer.
"In this market, there were a lot of buyers and not a lot of sellers,” Karnisovas said on the Mully & Haugh Show on 670 The Score on Friday morning. “Every team still thinks that they’re still in it. That creates the market that it’s very hard to make deals. We thought the best opportunity for those deals were going to be during the draft and free agency."
At 26-29 and ninth in the East, the inconsistent Bulls will play out the final 27 games with the same group they entered the season with, but they’ll eventually come to a crossroads and need to shake up the roster. Which player(s) will be involved is the big question.
The Bulls and Knicks held preliminary trade discussions centered on Chicago star guard Zach LaVine recently, but no deal came close to being agreed upon, according to reports. The teams could certainly revisit those talks in the offseason.
Bulls star forward DeMar DeRozan didn’t land in the trade rumor mill at all as the deadline came and went, but if Chicago can’t find a LaVine deal to its liking, DeRozan would be the other trade chip that would significantly alter the composition of the roster while netting a return of substance. He has one year left on his contract after this season and will be extension-eligible in the offseason.
Another member of the Bulls’ core is center Nikola Vucevic, whom the team seems set on retaining as unrestricted free agency looms for him. Vucevic enjoys playing in Chicago, and the Bulls are “confident” they can re-sign him, Karnisovas said Thursday.
As Karnisovas explained it, no deal of any sort materialized Thursday that would’ve helped the Bulls. And from the sounds of it, he never seriously considered being a seller either.
“History will tell you that a lot of trades at the trade deadline don’t help you the rest of the way,” Karnisovas responded when asked if the Bulls considered being sellers. “(Trades) will probably help you during the draft and offseason because you have more time to put the team together. Two years ago when we made a trade and we traded five players, the result was the same – we missed out on the playoffs. It’s hard to make these kind of changes, where you change players, they come to you, they’re still in shock and you got 27 games left right now that you need some consistency (in).
This group has a chance now to put together a run and see what happens.”
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