What Chicago actually needs in a GM — and how to tell if they're hiring the right one

The Bulls fired Artūras Karnišovas and Marc Eversley with less than a week left in the regular season, ending a six-year regime that produced a 224–254 record, one winning season, and a single five-game first-round exit. The AKME era is over. The question now isn't what went wrong — it's what Chicago needs next, and how to evaluate whether they're getting it.

Most coverage will grade the hire based on the GM's résumé and reputation. That's a starting point, not an analysis. The right question is: does this person's profile match what the phase demands?

What Phase Chicago Is In

The Bulls are in Phase 1 (Reset). The initial steps have already happened — Karnišovas and Eversley are gone, the roster has no clear star, and ownership has signaled a full reset. What comes next is the Foundation phase: accumulating assets, identifying the draft core, and building the evaluation infrastructure that makes the next three to five years of drafts count.

The skills required in Phase 2 are specific and different from what most "successful GM" narratives celebrate. They are:

Draft evaluation at every slot. Phase 2 teams aren't necessarily picking first overall every year — they're picking 10th, 14th, 19th. The GMs who win rebuilds find stars at those slots. Presti found SGA, Holmgren, and Jalen Williams in that range. That requires a scouting infrastructure that sees what others don't, not just the ability to pick the consensus best player at #1.

Asset patience. The temptation in Phase 2 is to move too early — to trade picks for a "veteran presence" or overpay in free agency to signal competitiveness. The GMs who destroy rebuilds do exactly this. The right Phase 2 operator says no to those deals for two to three years.

Ownership management. Chicago's ownership has a history of interference and impatience. The new GM needs political durability — the ability to keep Jerry Reinsdorf from forcing a premature move toward contention before the foundation is ready.

The Scouting Infrastructure Question

Here's the question nobody is asking: who does the incoming GM bring with them, and what happens to Chicago's existing scouting staff?

Gary Sacks is Chicago's current Director of Scouting. Ivica Dukan has been Chicago's international scouting anchor across multiple regimes. Vanja Černivec joined in 2020 as the team's first female international scout. These people have institutional knowledge and network connections that take years to build.

The incoming GM will face a decision: bring their own trusted evaluators and rebuild the scouting department from their network, or assess the existing staff and retain the ones who are actually good. Neither answer is automatically correct. But the decision reveals something about how the new GM thinks.

If they purge and rebuild: They're betting their own network is better than what Chicago has. That's fine if they're right — and it's how most GM transitions work. The risk is losing institutional knowledge and network relationships built over years, particularly on the international side.

If they retain and evaluate: They're signaling confidence in assessing existing talent rather than defaulting to their own people. This is harder politically but can be more effective — particularly if the existing scouting staff is actually good and the problem was at the GM/EVP level, not the evaluator level.

Watch specifically whether Gary Sacks survives the transition. His retention or departure is the clearest leading indicator of how much the new GM trusts the existing infrastructure.

The Three Red Flags

Red Flag 1: Hiring a Phase 3 or Phase 4 GM. Some GMs are elite at optimizing around an existing star or making the closer move. Those skills are valuable — in the right situation. In Chicago's situation, they're exactly wrong. If ownership hires a "win-now" optimizer into a Phase 2 rebuild, the Doug Collins mistake is being made at the front office level. The mismatch is the problem, not the person.

Red Flag 2: No proven draft track record. Phase 2 is won or lost in the draft. A GM without a demonstrable history of identifying non-consensus players — people they drafted outside the top 5 who became meaningful contributors — is a gamble Chicago can't afford. Ask: what is the highest-impact non-lottery pick this person has made in their career?

Red Flag 3: The committee structure. Chicago could hire a "head of basketball operations" who sits above a GM — a POBO/GM split like Detroit is now running. This structure can work (see Miami, OKC). It can also produce diffused accountability and no clear final-say — which is what the Pelicans are currently navigating. If Chicago installs a committee, watch immediately for clarity on who has final say on the draft board. Ambiguity there is a warning sign.

How to Grade the Hire — Before the Results Come In

We'll update this piece when Chicago announces their hire. The grading framework we'll use:

Phase fit (40% of initial grade): Does this GM's career show evidence of Phase 1/2 competency — successful rebuilding, strong drafting outside the lottery, asset accumulation? Or are they primarily a Phase 3/4 operator being asked to do work they've never demonstrated?

Scouting infrastructure signal (30%): Do they bring a trusted evaluator at the Director level? Do they have international scouting relationships? Do they retain or assess the existing staff rather than defaulting to a full purge?

Ownership clarity (30%): Is the mandate clear and the authority real? Does the new GM have genuine final say on the draft board and roster decisions — or is this a hire that sets up the same committee dynamics that plagued the AKME era?

The results of the rebuild will take three to five years to evaluate properly. But the phase fit, scouting infrastructure signal, and ownership clarity are visible at hiring. Those are the leading indicators. Everything else is outcome bias.