What to Expect From Marc Eversley As Bulls General Manager
As a sports-starved nation continues to obsess over “The Last Dance”, the present-day Bulls keep making moves they hope will lead to the next dance. Late Sunday night, Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the organization had hired Marc Eversley as their new general manager. Eversley, most recently the senior vice president of player personnel with the Philadelphia 76ers, is the first African-American GM in Bulls history. After all the flak they took for apparently not interviewing minority candidates for what became Arturas Karnisovas’ job (they didn’t get permission to interview the minority candidates on their list), this had to be a welcome development.
Before taking the job with the 76ers, Eversley, a Canadian, worked in other NBA front offices. He was the vice president of scouting for the Washington Wizards after serving as director of basketball operations and then assistant general manager for the Toronto Raptors. He also is a former Nike executive who worked at the company for a decade.
The Bulls have made real progress in reshaping their front office recently. After Karnisovas was hired, he brought aboard J.J. Polk as assistant general manager for his salary cap expertise and Pat Connelly as vice president of player personnel. The work still appears to be going, too. According to K.C. Johnson, the Bulls have given Nazr Mohammed an interview for a role that isn’t known yet.
Whatever Eversley does has to be better than Gar Forman’s final few years with the Bulls. When Eversley stopped managing Nike stores to move into the company’s corporate office, he became the point person as far as its relationships with basketball players. There’s no question he has the respect of many in the NBA. Forman, meanwhile, alienated both current and former Bulls, and when that became clear to his bosses, the writing was on the wall for him.
Eversley is widely credited for the 76ers trading up in last year’s draft to take Matisse Thybulle. When the coronavirus stopped play, Thybulle was leading all rookies with 1.4 steals a game. That makes him a shrewd basketball eye the Bulls have been lacking for some time.
Since this is Eversley’s first time in a position this significant, the jury will be out on how complete of an NBA executive he is for some time. In fact, since this will be the first time most of these newbies in the front office are working together, they’ll need time to jell. They can start by putting their heads together to (hopefully) find the right coach to replace Jim Boylen. After that, they can collaborate with this person to determine the right roster going forward.
As general manager, Eversley will be one of the most visible faces for the Bulls. Any and all personnel decisions will be tied to him and Karnisovas more than anyone else. If he’s paid attention to the mess the Bulls have been the past several years, he’ll know screwing up in a sports-mad city like Chicago means getting run out of town on the rails (for the most part). But if you can’t take the heat, especially when it comes to a fan base like this one that’s starving for a winner, get out of the kitchen.
We’ll probably be questioning some decision Eversley made a year from now, but for the moment, he’s another in a series of breaths of fresh air for the Bulls. Though his hiring didn’t have nearly the same fanfare as Karnisovas’, it’s just as important, if not more so. We’ll know more about him once he gets through his first offseason. Until then, any change with the Bulls only can be good.
