Editor's note (April 13): This column has been updated with the news that the Bulls have officially hired Arturas Karnisovas and fired Gar Forman.
How far are the Chicago Bulls away from contending new executive VP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas?
The Bulls announced Karnisovas as their new decision-maker on Monday, the week after it was reported they would hire him away from his role as GM for the Denver Nuggets and move John Paxson to the role of senior advisor. In a related move, former GM Gar Forman was relieved of his duties.
How much ability will Karnisovas have to remake Chicago's roster in the short term? And, in the long term, how far are the Bulls away from returning to contention and their first playoff series win since 2015? Let's take a look.
Chicago locked into roster for 2020-21
Although the Bulls want to give Karnisovas time to prepare for the next NBA offseason -- whenever that might be -- the fact is their ability to reshape the roster for 2020-21 will be limited. Unless forward Otto Porter Jr. declines a $28.5 million player option, which seems unthinkable given the likelihood the salary cap will stay the same or even decline because of the revenue the NBA has lost during its stoppage, Chicago will have minimal cap space at best.
Including Porter, the Bulls have 12 players under contract for 2020-21 in addition to an expected lottery pick. So the only chance of making dramatic changes to the roster in the short term would come via trade.
For now, the biggest decision Karnisovas will face is whether to retain Jim Boylen as head coach. Boylen's unorthodox, trap-heavy defensive scheme -- per Second Spectrum tracking, Chicago has blitzed more pick-and-rolls with a second defender than the next four teams combined -- has proved unexpectedly successful. The Bulls have improved to the NBA's 13th-best defensive rating after ranking 25th in 2018-19, when Boylen replaced Fred Hoiberg midseason, and 28th the year before that.
Yet the tactics Boylen has brought with him from the college game (he was head coach at the University of Utah from 2007 through 2011 before returning to the NBA as an assistant coach, having previously served as an assistant at both levels) haven't always appeared to sit well with his players. Long practices became an issue after Boylen first was promoted to head coach, and this season Boylen's tendency to call timeouts late in blowout losses has become a flashpoint issue.
Although Boylen signed a multiyear contract extension during the 2019 offseason, it would be reasonable for Karnisovas to bring in a handpicked coach before the 2020-21 season and give this core of players another chance, hoping they can stay healthy (Porter missed 51 of the 65 games Chicago played before the season was suspended, and guards Zach LaVine and Tomas Satoransky were the only starters not to miss at least 14 games) and return to the postseason.
Bigger decisions await in summer 2021
When Paxson and Forman were putting the current roster together, they gave themselves an out in the summer of 2021. By then, Porter's contract will be up, while last summer's marquee additions in free agency (Satoransky and forward Thaddeus Young) both have partial guarantees that would allow Chicago to waive them and stretch their salary.
That leaves LaVine, who will make $19.5 million in the final season of his contract, as the only Bulls player under guaranteed contract for 2021-22. (Several young players on rookie contracts have team options Chicago will almost certainly pick up before then.)
By then, the Bulls should have a better idea of whether their core is good enough to jump in the East standings based solely on internal development -- a strength of the Nuggets that Karnisovas will surely hope to replicate. In LaVine, they have developed an offensive anchor. He's increased his usage rate in each of his three seasons in Chicago, reaching a career-high 32% of the Bulls' plays this season, without sacrificing anything in terms of efficiency. (His .568 true shooting percentage is largely unchanged from the .576 mark LaVine posted in his final year with the Minnesota Timberwolves, when his usage rate was just 22%.)
The challenge has been putting capable role players around LaVine, and a healthy Porter looms large there. According to NBA Advanced Stats, Chicago has outscored opponents by 0.7 points per 100 possessions when Porter plays with LaVine this season and had an even better plus-4.5 net rating with both LaVine and Porter in 2018-19 after the latter was acquired at the trade deadline.
Besides Porter's health, the biggest question about the Bulls' upside is the development of starting frontcourt mates Wendell Carter Jr. and Lauri Markkanen, both recent lottery picks. Since announcing his presence with a strong rookie season at age 20, Markkanen has seen his game stagnate. His efficiency has barely ticked up, and after playing a larger role in the offense in Year 2, Markkanen's current usage rate of 21% is the lowest of his career. He's also seen his defensive rebounding numbers suffer due to the departure of center Robin Lopez, who excelled at boxing out opponents while Markkanen secured the rebound.
Carter has progressed as a rebounder and scored more efficiently in his second season. Yet his advanced value statistics have ticked downward because Carter is blocking fewer shots and playing a smaller role in the offense, with a 16% usage rate. Carter's mobility on the perimeter is crucial to executing Boylen's defensive scheme, but in an era where productive centers have never been so easy to find, it's not yet clear that justified using a high lottery pick on one.
Chicago will have to make a decision about Markkanen's future by the 2021 offseason, when he can be a restricted free agent if the two sides don't agree to an extension prior to the 2020-21 campaign. With Markkanen coming off a down season and with a new decision-maker expected, that prospect seems unlikely. Even if Markkanen does break out, the Bulls can still benefit by waiting and utilizing his relatively modest $20.2 million cap hold.
While it's reasonable to believe that Chicago could soon return to the playoffs with better health, the team's current starting five seems likely to top out as a low-end seed in the Eastern Conference. If the Bulls are going to rise above that with this group, it will likely be through the development of 2019 lottery pick Coby White.
Playing almost exclusively off the bench as a rookie (he made his first career start in the last game Chicago played), White has been an unrepentant gunner, attempting 8.1 3-pointers per 36 minutes -- the second-highest mark ever for a rookie with at least 1,000 minutes played behind Alex Abrines in 2016-17 with Oklahoma City, per Basketball-Reference.com.
Given that style, White's value has fluctuated wildly based on whether those 3s go in. In the 23 games where he's made at least 40% of his 3s, he's averaged a 12.7 game score according to Basketball-Reference. When White hits 30% of his 3s or fewer, a 34-game sample, the average game score drops to 5.2.
Before play stopped, there had been more makes than usual. Over the Bulls' final nine games, he shot 43% from 3, fueling an average of 26.1 points per game over that stretch, which included three consecutive games with 30-plus points.
Consider me skeptical that kind of play is sustainable. Overall, White has made just 35% of his 3s, and his .506 true shooting percentage this season is far worse than league average.
But if White can become a knockdown shooter at a similar level of volume (he increased his attempt rate over the last nine games, attempting 9.5 per 36 minutes), he could help lift Chicago to a new level of play. And that would make the options for Karnisovas far more promising.