After starting their search for a new executive to oversee basketball operations last week, the Chicago Bulls have decided to hire the General Manager of the Denver Nuggets Arturas Karnisovas. He will become the new executive vice president of basketball operations, according to Adrian Wojnarowski from ESPN.
ESPN story on the Chicago Bulls hiring Denver GM Arturas Karnisovas to run basketball operations. https://t.co/gIBY5Rl4cD
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 9, 2020
Karnisovas will replace John Paxson, who has been managing the team’s basketball operations since 2003. The first task in his new position will be to reshape the entirety of the organization and making hirings in basketball operations and scouting positions, as well as a new general manager.
Karnisovas prevailed amongst other candidates like the Utah Jazz general manager Justin Zanik and the Atlanta Hawks GM Wes Wilcox due to his ability for talent evaluation and endorsements from the Nuggets organization. Following comes from Adrian Wojnarowski.
“The Bulls were taken with Karnisovas’ history for talent evaluation and strong endorsements from Nuggets governor Josh Kroenke and president of basketball operations Tim Connelly about Karnisovas’ leadership, organization and ability to structure operations, sources said.”
Karnisovas spent 4 years playing college basketball in Seton Hall and played professionally for 15 years in Europe. After retiring, he worked for the league’s office and for the Houston Rockets front office before arriving to the Denver Nuggets as an assistant manager in 2013. In 2017, he became the Nuggets’ general manager after the franchise promoted Tim Conelly to president of basketball operations.
