BOSTON — It was a rare state of the union address from Arturas Karnisovas.
The Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations has been very regimented when he speaks publicly, keeping the schedule of preseason media day, the trade deadline, and a postseason wrap up.
On Tuesday, however, Karnisovas read the room and opted to go off script.
“We see what everyone is seeing and are just as frustrated,’’ Karnisovas said in a quick conversation with the traveling beat writers. “We’re disappointed, but I’m not running from it. It’s my responsibility.’’
It is, and he seemingly gets it.
The Bulls were an underwhelming 5-13 going into the Celtics game, losers of four straight, and statistically failing in almost every category that mattered.
The next question Karnisovas will have to answer, however, is how will he change it, because change is coming.
The idea of coach Billy Donovan being in danger is not — and hasn’t been — on the table. That has been made very clear whenever Karnisovas has met with the media and isn’t changing anytime soon. The feeling from the front office — fair or unfair — is Donovan is trying to do everything he can to turn this ship around and remains tireless in that approach.
Where the change will come is obviously with the roster construction.
“Continuity’’ was the path Karnisovas and the front office chose, and it brought them to a dead end. Now it’s about this management group finding the best way to burrow out of it. It’s not right now, and it likely won’t show itself until closer to the February trade deadline when all the teams involved are sitting at the table showing their hands.
Until then, however, the hope is that the product will play better just to help raise the trade value of as many Bulls players as possible. It doesn’t mean Karnisovas is in on a full rebuild, but it keeps his options on the table.
Karnisovas wasn’t alone with that hope for a turnaround.
Veteran DeMar DeRozan again found himself trying to explain how this team has stepped in mud and stayed in it spinning, especially after a positive destination training camp in Nashville in which they built relationships and found common ground on how to have tough conversations with each other.
“We’re still connected for sure,’’ DeRozan said of his teammates. “That’s where a lot of the frustration is coming from because we’re connected, everybody is comfortable having those tough conversations that we didn’t have before. It’s having it all click on the same page and that comes with winning. Everyone is eager and hungry to want to win, we just got to put it together.’’
Then again, there was a small grenade thrown into all of this when Zach LaVine and his representation did nothing to squash trade rumors that they wanted to be elsewhere. The Bulls have gone 1-6 since that report came out.
“From my perspective being in the league so long, it’s just really hard for me to get caught up in that,’’ DeRozan said when asked if LaVine’s future was a distraction. “I’m not even lying to you all. I just don’t see it. I look at it as with anything in life when something seems to be going wrong it’s easy to point at something else.’’
What DeRozan did somewhat surprisingly point too? Donovan has openly questioned his players’ ability to handle adversity in crunch time and the toughness it takes to do so.
DeRozan sees a group that has more of a basketball IQ issue than a toughness one.
“It’s just a lack of understanding and IQ with certain points of the game that become critical, and it kind of steamrolls for us from there where we miss shots or make mistakes defensively, turning the ball over,’’ DeRozan said. “The next thing you know we’re down 10 when we just got back in the game.’’
