Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley are far from a picture of perfection, but the Chicago Bulls' front office duo isn't as putrid as some make it out to be, either. The franchise's lead decision makers are not the second-worst in the NBA.
Sam Quinn of CBS Sports has a different take: In his latest front office rankings, Quinn has the Bulls ranked 29th in the league, ahead of only the newly installed group in New Orleans led by Joe Dumars.
Karnisovas, the franchise's Vice President of Basketball Operations, and Eversley, its General Manager, have made plenty of questionable decisions.
Acquiring Nikola Vucevic from the Orlando Magic in exchange for Wendell Carter Jr. and two first-round picks is one of them. Both of those selections eventually landed in the lottery and became Franz Wagner and Jett Howard. Wagner is a centerpiece on a rising Orlando team projected to compete near the top of the Eastern Conference this season.
Waiting too long to trade Zach LaVine was an error. The same could be said for DeMar DeRozan. Handing then-restricted free agent Patrick Williams a five-year, $90 million contract before another team could even submit an offer sheet may be the most egregious blunder of any.
But it hasn't been all bad. An argument could be made that Chicago is finally on an upward trajectory.
Chicago Bulls front office is taking excessive heat from national media
It's hard to argue with the Oklahoma City Thunder being at the top of Quinn's rankings. The franchise has just won a championship, boasts a young core trio that's under contract for the foreseeable future, and features last year's MVP.
And, technically, the Bulls moved up one spot from February's rankings, when they were dead last.
But are Karnisovas and Eversley worse than a Sacramento Kings group that's made the playoffs one time in the last 19 years? That had the coach of the year and executive of the year just two seasons ago and fired them both?
Worse than the Phoenix Suns, who may have the bleakest future of any organization in the NBA at the moment?
Was it the Bulls who made the worst trade in basketball history by sending Luka Doncic to the Lakers but somehow miraculously covering their tracks by landing the No. 1 pick and Cooper Flagg?
Quinn uses the Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey trade as an example of Chicago's poor decision-making. The Bulls could have dealt Caruso for draft picks instead of Giddey, he argues; the same Giddey who shot nearly 38 percent from three last year, almost averaged a triple-double after the All-Star break, and has become the driver of the team's new transition-heavy offense.
That "mistake" is apparently evidenced by the front office's reluctance to pay Giddey the $30 million per year he wants, which, according to Quinn, serves as confirmation that acquiring the 22-year-old floor general was a poor decision in Chicago's eyes.
He attacks this summer's deal that sent Lonzo Ball to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Isaac Okoro and Okoro's overlap with Patrick Williams, calling both "athletic wings who can't really shoot." Well, the 24-year-old Okoro has drained 38.3 percent of his triples over the last two seasons, and while Williams may be a bust, he's a bust who's a career 39.2 percent shooter from deep.
The Bulls front office hasn't been successful. The team has finished in the East Play-In Tournament but short of a playoff berth each of the last three seasons. But not every move has been a dud, and Chicago is trending in the right direction. Karnisovas and Eversley aren't deal-making gurus, but they aren't one of the two worst decision-making tandems in the league.