Jake Fischer Latest: All eyes on the Windy City this (NBA) shopping season

No team, as Fischer explains in his latest dispatch, is being monitored by rivals for potential trade activity more than the formerly trade-shy Bulls

We walked to lunch, Artūras Karnišovas and I. Back in November 2019, when the Chicago Bulls' executive vice president ranked second in command in Nuggets basketball operations, this reporter shuttled west to Denver to learn more about the blossoming contender being built around Nikola Jokić.

Karnišovas was charismatic, funny, telling tales of nearby hikes, followed by stories from a staff-wide preseason whitewater rafting trip. There was something in that thin Colorado air. Something palpable.

"I think the success is gonna get attention for everybody," Karnišovas told me that afternoon. "Players get new contracts, coaches stay in the same place, [the] front office gets rewarded."

Within six months, Karnišovas had been hired to run the Bulls. Sweeping moves over the ensuing year-plus surrounded All-Star guard Zach LaVine with Nikola Vučević, DeMar DeRozan and Lonzo Ball. You know by now that Ball's knee injuries derailed a team that briefly held the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference — for two years and counting. I've often thought about how difficult that outcome must be to digest for Karnišovas after finally being afforded the chance to run his own front office. Ditto for Ball after he started so splashily as a Bull. Isn't that what we all want?

Now success for that quartet of players will likely be judged on what Karnišovas — after signing-and-trading DeRozan to Sacramento in the summer — can generate on the trade market for the veterans who remain in Chicago. Such is the vicious life cycle of NBA team-building.

If you want trades this holiday season, you and general managers alike need the emergence of true sellers in the NBA's marketplace. It's no secret that the Washington Wizards have veterans to move. Utah, Portland and Toronto likewise belong on that list.

Yet no discussion of likely sellers, in today's NBA, starts without Karnisovas' Bulls.

Chicago entered Thanksgiving at 8-12, tied with Detroit for the league's eighth-worst record. That's already dangerous territory for the Bulls, whose 2025 first-round selection must be conveyed to San Antonio if it falls outside the top 10 after the draft lottery is conducted in May.

No surprise, then, that Bulls executives, according to league sources, have been messaging to rival front offices that they are willing to discuss the majority of their roster in trade talks leading up to the Feb. 6 trade deadline. Most notably, sources say, Chicago has expressed a desire to move LaVine, Vučević and Ball — who collectively command nearly $85 million in salary this season.

"Arturas is trying to drive up attention for all of his guys — he's smart," said one league figure with knowledge of the Bulls' thinking. "The fact they were willing to move DeMar and [Alex] Caruso [this past offseason], they're willing to move anybody [now]."

Rival executives have also openly questioned Chicago's inaction since that initial flurry of acquisitions in 2021 … especially when the Bulls could have been a significant seller during last February's deadline activity. Golden State believed it nearly had a deal for Caruso before the 2024 deadline buzzer sounded, sources said, which would have delivered multiple first-round picks to Chicago. Philadelphia was ready to send several second-round picks to Chicago for Andre Drummond, sources said, only for the Bulls to abruptly take Drummond off the market … and then watch him walk to Philadelphia without compensation in July in free agency.

There has long been a directive from Bulls ownership to make the playoffs at all costs. "That's been the mandate for 30 years," said one player agent. Yet that tune purportedly changed this past summer and the Bulls duly dealt Caruso to Oklahoma City in exchange for 22-year-old point guard Josh Giddey — albeit with no draft picks surrendered by the Thunder in the exchange. Chicago then helped facilitate the sign-and-trade that landed DeRozan in the California capitol, bringing back to two future second-round picks along with Chris Duarte.

LaVine has looked healthy thus far this season and is sniping a career-best 43.4% from distance. In his fourth full season since Orlando dealt him to the Bulls, Vučević remains a nightly 20-and-10 deliverer and, at 34, is hitting almost 45% from deep. Ball, meanwhile, is just back from a wrist injury after making a triumphant return on Opening Night from a years-long absence thanks to his troublesome knee.

Sources say Chicago will huddle with the representation for both LaVine and Vučević in December about the Bulls' approach to this February's deadline. Representatives for other veterans on the Bulls' roster are monitoring possibilities, too, to steer their clients to contending situations. To take on any Chicago player earning a significant salary, more than one rival team told The Stein Line that they would be seeking former first-round pick Dalen Terry and recent second-round selection Julian Phillips as part of any package.

"He's got some playmaking, he's got some length, he's starting to hit 3s," one Western Conference scout said of Terry, who's up to 36.4% from beyond the arc.

Said the scout of Phillips: "He gets to his spots. Defensively he can really switch. He's shown a lot of improvement in catch-and-shoots. He's more patient, especially in transition."

Forecasting potential landing spots for LaVine remains challenging — not because of his on-court production but due to the inescapable reality that the 29-year-old has two seasons to go beyond this one on his five-year, $215 million contract. It is no secret that Chicago has explored the trade market for LaVine for months … and realistically even longer. While Sacramento harbored interest for LaVine this past summer, sources say that the Kings are no longer an option after they landed DeRozan. Golden State also weighed a LaVine pursuit internally, sources said, but the Warriors do not presently have much interest. Detroit, once upon a time, might have loomed as the greatest possibility for a LaVine trade, but that was when the Pistons had proven sharpshooter Bojan Bogdanović to move. They have since installed a new leadership structure under Trajan Langdon. I've been advised that Detroit is not a likely destination for LaVine, either.

Zach LaVine in action this week … via the Bulls' Twitter feed.

Vučević's $20 million salary, with a third and final season to go at $21.5 million in 2025-26, is far more palatable for teams to absorb. One GM told me he would put the two-time All-Star's likely price point in a trade at two second-round picks.

Few rival executives, meanwhile, expressed much interest in swingman Patrick Williams, whom Chicago rewarded with a five-year, $90 million deal this past offseason. There had been chatter around the league about Charlotte, Oklahoma City and Toronto potentially lurking for Williams when he entered restricted free agency in June.

Giddey's future remains yet another to monitor. Chicago curiously made no contract offer to the fourth-year guard during this fall's rookie extension window, sources said, even after surrendering the highly coveted Caruso to acquire him. A consistent message has circulated that ownership wanted to observe and assess Giddey in a Bulls uniform before committing any significant long-term salary to the Australian floor general. He's poised for restricted free agency this summer, while currently receiving erratic minutes under head coach Billy Donovan.

Elsewhere in Chicago's backcourt, Jevon Carter's $6.5 million salary should be easy for playoff teams looking for guards to absorb. It was only a year ago when the additions of Carter and Torrey Craig were supposed to help vault the Bulls back up the standings.

The affable Vučević, in an interview in Manila at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, told me entering last season that Bulls vets understood then that "it's kind of our last chance as this core of guys to do something."

DeRozan and Caruso have since departed and, as December and NBA trade season draw near once again, it clearly feels as though more change looms in the Windy City air.