During his more than five year run with the Nuggets front office, how did current Chicago Bulls lead exec Arturas Karnisovas do in the NBA Draft?
Fortunes for former Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas during his run as a lead executive in the Mile High City in the NBA Draft and in free agency and the trade market. Karnisovas was really good with the way he constructed the Nuggets roster over the course of the last half-decade or so. The hope in the Windy City is that he will do the same as the lead executive with the Chicago Bulls front office.
Last month, the Reinsdorfs made the move to finally re-shift the personnel in the front office by hiring Karnisovas as the executive vice president of basketball operations to replace John Paxson. Karnisovas then hired former Philadelphia 76ers vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley to replace Gar Forman as the Bulls next general manager.
Two other key hires that Karnisovas made to fill out the front office of late included former New Orleans Pelicans executive J.J. Polk as an assistant general manager. And Karnisovas brought Pat Connelly over from the Nuggets to be the Bulls next vice president of player personnel. Polk and Connelly both saw recent success with their previous franchises, so these should be lauded as solid hires.
While the Bulls didn’t necessarily draft poorly under the GarPax regime, they had a really hard time developing that talent and assembling the proper roster pieces around those players.
Here’s a look into the three best NBA Draft picks that Karnisovas had during his time as the Nuggets general manager that can be used as a learning point as he takes over as lead executive with the Bulls organization.