Of course the league has its buyers and sellers with the trade deadline now just over a week away, but mostly there’s just a lot of teams waiting.
According to several sources, that’s where the Bulls and executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas currently reside. Waiting to see if a can’t-say-no offer comes his way, and waiting to see if there’s a scenario in which Karnisovas actually adds rather than sell.
One NBA executive said on Tuesday that the popular opinion is the Bulls stay pat when the Mar. 25 deadline comes and goes.
But that could means nothing has wowed Karnisovas just yet or he’s already really good at this poker face thing his first year as an NBA VP.
He did say a few weeks back that because of the 10-team play-in format, there will likely be very few sellers, and it sounds like that’s how it’s playing out so far, according to coach Billy Donovan.
“For me, being in Oklahoma City for this and obviously here now, everything always seems to go up until the last day, where there’s really the most activity,’’ Donovan said prior to the game with the Thunder. “I think like anything else, I think all front office people are on the phone talking and communicating, but I think they’re still maybe a little bit less than 10 days or so, two weeks, whatever it may be, and I still think there’s a lead-up time to it, but I think Arturas has been on the phone, taking phone calls, just like everybody else in this league, doing his job, but I think it just seems to me, just being in the league that everything seems to really transpire the more you get up to those last 48 hours, closer to the deadline, is when people maybe start making those types of decisions.’’
Who could the Bulls part ways with in a trade? The two most likely candidates would be Thaddeus Young because of how well he could impact a contending team, and then Lauri Markkanen, who is on his way to be a restricted free agent this summer.
Because Otto Porter Jr. has an expiring contract, he could jump on a team’s radar now that he’s healthy, but that would also entail the Bulls possibly taking a bad contract back in return. If a solid draft asset was included in that package, Karnisovas could explore that option, but they are far enough in the rebuild process where they no longer need to do that.
“I don’t know all the conversations,’’ Donovan said, discussing the details of what Karnisovas has been up to. “Obviously he and I have been talking every day and we speak, he updates me, but again, I don’t know what that’s going to look like as we get closer to I think the dates the 25th.’’
Ankle wait
Garrett Temple is out of the boot that’s been stabilizing his sprained left ankle, but as far as a timetable for his return, Donovan could only say the news was improving for the veteran guard.
“He’s progressed in I think a very, very positive way, maybe even more than what we expected,’’ Donovan said. “Still not really a timeframe, but I think coming out of that game against Miami and needing maybe a couple days just to see what his ankle looked like, going through the treatment he’s gone through, he’s responded really, really well. Hopefully we can keep him on that trajectory. Right now not really a timetable, but pretty positive news the last 24 hours just the way he’s responded.’’
