Grading the 2026 Arturas Karnisovas Trade Deadline Experience ...Middle East

The Chicago Bulls had themselves… some kind of trade deadline this season. Just as he did last year with now-Sacramento Kings shooting guard Zach LaVine, Bulls team president Arturas Karnisovas sold low on a flurry of veteran assets.

Karnisovas couldn’t land a single, solitary first-round pick, while offloading the contracts of expiring free agents Nikola Vucevic, Coby White, Ayo Dosunmu, Kevin Huerter, Dalen Terry, Jevon Carter (whom he cut), and Julian Phillips (he’s technically on a team option, which seemed unlikely to happen). He did, however, load up on second-rounders — a type of asset he had previously frowned upon.

Ultimately, Karnisovas brought back eight second-round selections (formerly nine, but Charlotte rescinded one after a physical revealed Coby White is hurt) and one second-round pick swap via the Boston Celtics, plus some further expiring deals and young recent lottery picks under team control.

Let’s grade some of the highs and lows of Karnisovas’ frustrating, belated roster teardown.

Adding A Bunch of Undersized Guards

Chicago offloaded a lot of the veteran depth that had led it to a middling 24-26 record to load up on small guards.

New to the Bulls:

And, while waiting for the dust to completely settle, the Bulls also promoted Mac McClung (6-2) to a two-way slot, where he joins Yuki Kawamura (5-7). The Bulls did bring in some frontcourt pieces, but it feels unlikely that 28-year-old center Nick Richards (who might… be their starter now?) and 30-year-old power forward Guerschon Yabusele will stick around. Richards is slated to make his Chicago debut on Saturday.

Beyond the young recent lottery picks (more on them in a second), the veteran new pieces seem fairly impermanent on this roster. Simons, Sexton, Yabusele and Richards are all on expiring deals. Are they auditioning for long-term roster spots or are they auditioning for the next teams?

My prediction is the latter, but time will tell. There’s little among this crop for fans to get excited about. Sexton has been weirdly more efficient than White this season, and Simons is a fun watch. So there’s that?

These Bulls have been “built” (retroactively) to lose.

Grade: I/C

Trading for “Second Draft” Upside Plays

The idea of adding recent lottery picks, still on their rookie-scale deals, who for whatever reasons didn’t hit with their first NBA squads is totally fine. Given Chicago’s current priorities, it feels like 6-foot-7 point guard Josh Giddey is the club’s only long-term backcourt piece. So it makes sense that Karnisovas opted to bring in Dillingham, the No. 8 pick in 2024, and Ivey, the No. 5 pick in 2022.

Dillingham showed very little during his brief pro tenure with the Minnesota Timberwolves, to the point where Bones Hyland became a core rotation piece over him (Ayo Dosunmu’s addition is now going to effectively demote Hyland). Still, the 21-year-old was a highly regarded prospect coming out of Kentucky. He’ll get plenty of opportunities to thrive on a losing Bulls squad.

But Ivey is the real prize. He showed real promise prior to a devastating knee injury midway through the 2024-25 season, and by the time he returned this year the Detroit Pistons were already rolling without him. He failed to make much noise off the bench in 2025-26, but with the Bulls he will likely start next to Giddey. He started on Thursday night during his Chicago debut, scoring 13 points on 5-of-12 shooting (3-of-5 from distance).

Grade: C+

Handling Outgoing Trade Assets

This was the horrible part.

Chicago held onto 35-year-old Nikola Vucevic way too long. They had flipped Wendell Carter and what wound up being two lottery picks to bring the sharpshooting big man aboard. The Bulls also clung to mid-career youth too long, with Dosunmu and White moved for oodles of seconds but somehow not netting a first.

Fans have been screaming from the rafters that Chicago needs to move on from Vucevic for years. White and Dosunmu are fun, semi-young players — but if the Bulls were unwilling to trade them in the summer anyway after their money expired, it would have made more sense for them to try to deal them away at the 2025 deadline. Both guards would likely have earned more pick equity at the time.

It’s brutal asset mismanagement, and ultimately it’s the reason no one should trust Karnisovas to capably handle this rebuild.

Grade: F

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