Arturas Karnisovas Has Already Failed the 2025 Off-Season

Despite these miscalculations, their consequential mistake was not moving on from Coby White. With several teams interested in him and his struggles alongside Josh Giddey, it made the most sense to trade last year’s runner-up for Most Improved Player.

After the trade deadline press conference, Chicago Sun-Times insider Joe Cowley revealed that the front office prioritizes Giddey over White. If the assessment of White has truly changed, Arturas Karnisovas had the opportunity to capitalize on White’s impressive January performance just before the trade deadline, when he averaged 19.4 points per game while shooting 42% from beyond the arc on high volume. Since the deadline, White has averaged 14.9 points, shooting 32.1% from three-point range.

While Karnisovas may assert he laid the groundwork for the off-season, past results indicate otherwise. He’s once again hesitant to move on from a player who is struggling with the team’s direction. White is a talented player with a valuable skill set, but due to his recent challenges, teams may not express the same interest in him this summer as they did at the trade deadline.

To add insult to injury, the Golden State Warriors, the only team interested in Vucevic, cannot trade for him due to losing access to their expiring matching salaries. As Vucevic’s market dwindles, Karnisovas may exploit his expiring contract and reacquired draft picks to rekindle the summer success of 2021-22 by aggressively pursuing a mid-tier star to pair with Giddey via trade. Karnisovas is repulsed by the thought of a rebuild, so expecting him to resort to previous methods feels inevitable, regardless of the Bulls’ historical finding success through the draft.