Of Old Dogs and Leopards

Well, all that losing Ha finally paid off for the Bulls.  No, they didn’t net the #1 pick in the upcoming draft, and they haven’t turned the proverbial corner in their rebuild.  But losing breeds apathy, and apathy leads to a drop in attendance, and a drop in attendance leads to red ink, and that the Bulls don’t like.  If nothing else, though, it’s something they understand.

 

So, Bulls’ owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his COO son Michael have gone out and reportedly hired Arturas Karnisovas to be the team’s new head of basketball operations.  The highly regarded Karnisovas will be leaving Denver, where for the past three years he was general manager of the Nuggets.

 

Talent has never been the top priority in front-office hires for either Reinsdorf team; with both the White Sox and Bulls, it’s always been about loyalty first.  Larry Himes had an extraordinary eye for talent as Sox GM, drafting the likes of Alex Fernandez, Jack McDowell, Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura.  But to work for the House of Reinsdorf  requires a certain willingness to genuflect, and that Himes never developed.  So, out he went.

 

Jeff Torborg proved to be a pretty good manager, but I suspect he was another underling who got the genuflecting thing wrong.  Ditto Ozzie Guillen (oh, did he ever).  Ironically, the Bulls had two of the greatest non-genuflectors of all time in Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson.  They stayed around until Reinsdorf-trusted GM Jerry Krause convinced his bosses to let him dump both player and coach; Krause was certain the Bulls would keep on winning after a slight adjustment period.  That slight adjustment is 22 years and counting, I think.

 

You’ll know how much power Karnisovas has and to what extent the Reinsdorfs have changed by what they allow him to do with members of the old front office.  GM Gar Forman is as good as gone, but that doesn’t mean anything; he’d been rumored for some time to be on the outs with ownership.  Now, what about team VP John Paxson, advisor Doug Collins and coach Jim Boylen?

 

Karnisovas can probably finesse his way around Collins and Paxson, who’s expected to become yet another senior advisor.  But Boylen, he of the last-second timeouts in blowout losses?  If Karnisovas lets Boylen stay, the Bulls are still bust.