The NBA has brought in a familiar basketball mind to help steer its most ambitious international project. Former Lithuanian star and Chicago Bulls vice president Artūras Karnišovas has been hired as a consultant for NBA Europe, according to sources with direct knowledge of the move.
Karnišovas, 55, is set to advise commissioner Adam Silver and his staff on a wide range of issues tied to the league’s European push. That includes governance, game rules, talent identification and recruitment, and building pathways for players to move into the new league and, potentially, from the league to the NBA. He will also work as a bridge between the NBA, NBA Europe, NBA teams and FIBA, the international governing body that is partnering with Silver on the project.
The timing matters. The NBA Board of Governors is scheduled to review the second round of bids from prospective NBA Europe owners on Tuesday and discuss what comes next. Sources said the NBA and FIBA are making tremendous progress and are in the final stages before the planned October 2027 launch, with additional action possible during the league’s annual summer meetings in Las Vegas this week.
The bidding process has already drawn major interest. Sources familiar with it said the league has received “many” bids in the $500 million to $1 billion range and beyond across all 12 target cities: London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens, Manchester, Istanbul, Berlin and Munich. More than 20 existing basketball and football clubs are involved, many of them current EuroLeague teams.
Every club and investor group on the NBA’s shortlist has submitted a bid, and there are also offers for teams outside the original target markets. At the same time, the NBA is still talking with the EuroLeague about a possible merger, even as EuroLeague clubs being courted by the NBA have renewed their license agreements.
Those agreements, sources said, include out clauses of roughly 10 million euros. Real Madrid, one of the soccer giants with a EuroLeague basketball team, has renewed its license and is also considering NBA Europe.
No club will get an NBA Europe license without paying the league’s entry fee. The league is expected to begin with 12 permanent members and then add four teams each season through qualification based on domestic league and FIBA tournament performance.
European sources said the EuroLeague’s new model resembles an NBA Europe idea of turning shareholder clubs into permanent franchises and selling permanent franchise spots, but at a lower cost.
The numbers underline the gap. The reported total investment to become a EuroLeague shareholder is 1.2 billion euros, while NBA Europe has already received multiple $1 billion bids for a team in London alone.
Karnišovas brings both European and NBA experience to the job. He won two Olympic bronze medals for Lithuania, played on the European pro circuit in the 1990s and later served as assistant general manager for the Denver Nuggets, where he helped scout Nikola Jokić.
He became the Bulls’ top basketball executive in 2020, but his tenure drew criticism for not fully rebuilding the roster or pushing the team into contender status in the East. Chicago made the playoffs once under Karnišovas, in 2022, and otherwise spent much of that stretch near the bottom of the conference and stuck in the Play-In mix.
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