If Karnišovas Needs Direction, All He Has to Do Is Listen to Donovan
- Drew Stevens (@Drew_H_Stevens)
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
Over the years, Billy Donovan has often been positioned as a shield for Artūras Karnišovas, fielding questions that the Chicago Bulls’ vice president of basketball operations rarely confronts himself.
So as the head coach continues to call attention to his team’s circumstances — going so far as to say, “We’re not talented enough not to play desperate” earlier this season — his words sound less like frustration and more like daggers aimed upstairs.
That candor carried into Monday, when Donovan let loose after the team’s blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, calling out his team’s execution and toughness as a two-possession game devolved into a 35-point defeat amid injuries to Coby White and Josh Giddey.
“We’re not gonna ever be a matchup team. We’re not throwing the ball to anybody on our team, like [the Timberwolves] do with [Anthony] Edwards and saying ‘ok, let’s space the floor. Go do your thing. If they double you, here’s your outlets.’ We’re just not built that way. We can’t play like that.
“Can we play to an identity, covering for each other on defense, helping each other on offense, moving the basketball, playing the right way, not turning it over? To me, there’s certain things I feel we can do as a basketball team. Now, are we good enough to actually overcome to go and win games? Remains to be seen. But I know if we don’t do those things, we have no chance. To me, just doing that for our team, if we have injuries, that’s just the price of admission to be in a competitive situation.”
Given his history of romanticizing play-in tournament berths and leaning on small sample sizes as evidence of progress, it’s fair to question whether Karnišovas grasps how far this team remains from tangible success, now several seasons into his tenure.
But with the Bulls on pace to barely surpass the 31 wins from his first season, Karnišovas’ ears should be ringing, especially with the trade deadline less than six weeks away and seven players set to hit free agency after this season.
“We don’t talk about that,” Donovan replied after the team’s second-largest margin of defeat of the season, when I asked him if he thought Karnišovas is heeding the warning behind his words. “He’s probably looking at a 30,000-foot view.”
If Karnišovas could zoom out that far, the Bulls wouldn’t be stuck in their all-too-familiar loop. They’d already be moving forward.
Even if it lasted all of four games, you can almost see him clinging to how the team looked fully intact before the injury bug came back for thirds.
The irony is that, with White and Giddey joining Zach Collins on the mend, the strength-in-numbers Bulls are left leaning on Patrick Williams, Julian Phillips, and Dalen Terry — three of Karnišovas’ draft picks who essentially never saw the floor when the team was whole.
“You give me 10 guys that are really gonna compete, play hard and play together,” Donovan said, “you have a chance to line up, play and be in a position to win games.”
With a 12-9 record in the clutch, the Bulls don’t have a problem being in position to win games.
Their problem is they haven’t been in position to play meaningful ones ever since Karnišovas has been using Donovan as cover.