Arturas Karnisovas is back in the NBA spotlight, just not in the way Bulls fans expected after Chicago cut ties with him on April 6.
Three months after the Bulls fired him and second-in-command Marc Eversely, Karnisovas has landed a new job with the league itself. Joe Vardon of The Athletic reported that the NBA has hired him as a consultant for building NBA Europe, a major project the league has pointed to repeatedly as it pushes to expand its reach overseas.
The role sounds broad, and that’s the point. Vardon reported that Karnisovas will advise Adam Silver and Company on a range of issues, including league rules and possible ways to connect the two leagues down the line. He’ll also work with multiple basketball bodies as the NBA tries to build out a stronger partnership.
For the league, Karnisovas brings a very specific résumé. He’s a Lithuanian native who played for his national team and went pro, and he’s long been viewed as someone with real ties in Europe and a strong feel for the game there. On top of that, he’s spent time in major front office roles with the Denver Nuggets and the Bulls, giving him a perspective that stretches well beyond one market.
That front office track record in Chicago, of course, is where things went sideways. The Reinsdorfs moved on after a 31-51 season that featured a baffling trade deadline, one that basically signaled the front office had given up on its own roster build. The Bulls shipped out a pile of players and got little more than second-round picks back, and the mess had grown too large for Karnisovas and his staff to clean up.
Chicago’s search for a replacement was more deliberate than usual. The team brought in an outside firm and gave serious thought to candidates without any previous connection to the franchise. A few weeks later, the Bulls officially hired Bryson Graham, a rising executive from the Atlanta Hawks.
Graham’s approach stood in sharp contrast to Karnisovas’. He didn’t shy away from the word “rebuild,” and he made communication a point, both inside the building and publicly.
Karnisovas, by comparison, was far more rigid. Even Michael Reinsdorf later acknowledged that communication wasn’t his strength, and fans grew tired of his refusal to fully accept how far behind the organization had fallen.
That frustration only deepened because Karnisovas kept leaning into Play-In Tournament goals instead of bigger-picture ambitions. His top achievement in Chicago was one postseason appearance, and that ended in a sweep. Beyond that, the Bulls became one of the few teams in NBA history to reach three straight Play-In Tournaments, and they lost all three to the Miami Heat.
Still, the league clearly sees value in him. And the timing makes this an interesting next step for a former team executive who may not be done with that side of the business either.
It would not be a shock if Karnisovas eventually finds another front office role. Plenty of people once viewed him as a strong hire for the Bulls, and his growing network in Europe could make him even more appealing in the future. There’s also the reality that Chicago often lived in the middle of the conference under his watch, a place that used to feel like a dead end but now carries different value under the NBA’s flattened lottery odds designed to discourage tanking.
For now, though, Karnisovas has a significant assignment in front of him. The NBA is putting him to work on a project with real ambition, and it gives him a chance to shape something much bigger than a single roster.
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