Chicago Bulls: Jerry Reinsdorf calling the shots, not Karnisovas

It would be a big mistake if the Chicago Bulls do wind up keeping current head coach Jim Boylen around beyond this offseason.

Possibly the most frustrating news in a long time for the Chicago Bulls arrived on July 22 when the report dropped that they could potentially be keeping head coach Jim Boylen around after all. The Bulls would be making a big mistake to keep Boylen around as head coach, despite gaining some momentum in the public eye with their recent front office makeover.

But this tends to be all part of the sorrow in the life of a Bulls fan nowadays. Ownership can’t get out of their own way. Namely, long time Bulls and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has always care more about lining his pockets than the actual success of each franchise. Reinsdorf might be making another move that could hurt the Bulls franchise over the long haul just to do what’s safe and save a few bucks next year.

According to a report from Marc Berman of the New York Post on July 22, the Bulls are expected to “stand pat” with Boylen heading into the 2020-21 season. That news has to come to the dismay of Bulls fans everywhere. And it’s sad news for the potential reshaping of this rebuild heading into its fourth year.

Here’s more on what that piece had to say concerning the Boylen situation (in comparison to the New York Knicks head coaching search).

"The Knicks are the only team without a coach and sources indicated the Bulls are expected to stand pat with Jim Boylen.“In trying to be thorough and doing everything perfectly, the Knicks are dragging it out to a new level,’’ one NBA source said. “I believe they know who they’re going to hire, always have. They just need to make sure.’’"

The rebuild had legitimate potential to get a solid turnaround starting this offseason with former Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas and Philadelphia 76ers vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley in the fold. Karnisovas took over for John Paxson as the overall lead voice in the front office. His official title is executive vice president of basketball operations.

Meanwhile, Eversley is taking over for Gar Forman to be the Bulls next general manager.

But the ownership reigned over all other powers that be in the Bulls organization so far this offseason as they might be keeping Boylen around.

What this move shows is really two things. The first is that Reinsdorf is still keeping the power to himself in this organization, despite trying to push the narrative that Karnisovas had the control over the complete basketball operations. That appears to not be the case now.

And the second part to this is that the Bulls are going to hold the rebuild back for at least another year or two in some regard since Boylen can’t be the best head coach to develop this young core. While the Bulls took a step back in the season that was, there’s still a good amount of potential spread across the projected roster for next year.

Give the Bulls another lottery pick, and they were sitting in good position to make a run at leaping into playoff contention with a solid young core next season. One of the final pushes to make that happen this offseason was figuring out the coaching staff, and keeping Boylen around is 99 percent chance not going to be the solution.

This organization as a whole really won’t be able to take a complete step forward to true consistent contender status with the way they are managed from the top-down under the Reinsdorfs. They manage to get in the way of a lot of good things that the Bulls team could’ve accomplished in the last three decades alone.

Just because of what this New York Post piece said doesn’t mean that the Bulls are for sure keeping Boylen around, but it appears that they aren’t set on making any moves to conduct a coaching search anytime soon. Nonetheless, the patience of this fan base has to be running really thin despite the front office changes made concerning Karnisovas and Eversley.