Chicago Bulls: Marc Eversley hiring puts NBA at ‘forefront in diversity in sports’
The hiring of Marc Eversley for the Chicago Bulls and Troy Weaver for the Pistons as new general managers made waves beyond the NBA.
During the novel coronavirus pandemic-induced 2019-20 NBA regular season hiatus, there were two franchises that made good use of the downtime by making necessary changes to the look of their front offices. And both of those franchises sit in the Central Division. The Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons made moves to hire two African-American front office candidates during the COVID-19 induced hiatus, and it caught headlines in the meantime.
The Bulls made the move to hire former Philadelphia 76ers vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley to be the next general manager. Eversley was brought aboard by the former Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas a little more than two months ago.
Karnisovas is replacing the former vice president of basketball operations John Paxson as the lead voice in the Bulls front office. And Eversley is taking over for the former Bulls general manager Gar Forman, in the same role.
Pretty much all Bulls fans have to be excited about what Karnisovas and Eversley bring to the table compared to that of GarPax.
According to a piece from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, getting a new direction for the rebuild is not the only thing that the Bulls and Pistons were at the forefront of entering their 2020 offseasons. This piece mentioned that the NBA had two of their teams (the Bulls and Pistons) spark a move that showed the mentality of the entire league. Here’s what that piece had to say on this subject.
"As a leader of the NBA’s efforts to diversify leadership, he believes the league has shown a good history of inclusion. Recently, the numbers of African American executives and coaches have fallen. During the league’s shutdown the Chicago Bulls hired Marc Eversley and the Detroit Pistons hired Troy Weaver, both African American, under the title of general manager.“The NBA has been at the forefront in diversity in sports. It doesn’t mean we can’t move further,” Embry said. “When it comes to hiring, those things go in cycles. But the NBA always looks to improve and we will still have the incentive to continue doing that.”"
The Bulls hired Eversley away from the Sixers and the Pistons hired the former Oklahoma City Thunder vice president of basketball operations Troy Weaver to be their next general manager. Both the Bulls and Pistons are looking to get back to the top of the Central Division standings for the first time in more than five years.
Eversley and Weaver were two of the bigger front office hirings that happened entering the 2020 offseason for the teams that won’t be competing in the NBA’s restart plan next month. The NBA has 22 teams planned to compete, with games starting on July 31, at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL.
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The Bulls finished up the 2019-20 regular season slate with a record of 22-43 through their first 65 games. That’s where the Bulls season finished up as the COVID-19 pandemic put it all on hold back in mid-March. Meanwhile, the Pistons finished up with a record of 20-46 prior to the season’s hiatus.