Chatting with Lukas Katilius of BasketNews.com forward of Montenegro’s 27-point loss to Lithuania at EuroBasket 2025, a sport through which he recorded 20 factors, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, two steals and a block, Bulls heart Nikola Vucevic stated he has a powerful relationship with head of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas.
Vucevic has been the topic of commerce rumors for a number of months, together with hypothesis in late July a few potential mid-season buyout if Chicago is unable to finally discover a deal it likes.
“It has been excellent. Now we have good communication,” Vucevic stated of his relationship with Karnisovas. “He has all the time been fairly open with me. Even simply a few weeks in the past, when the buyout information got here out, he really texted me to inform me to not fear about it and to not learn into it.
“I’ve recognized AK for a very long time. After I did my pre-draft exercise, he was with Houston and took me out to dinner for an interview. So I’ve recognized him for a really very long time.”
Vucevic, who turns 35 years outdated in October, is on an expiring $21.48MM contract. He defended Karnisovas’ tenure, saying he favored a whole lot of the strikes the entrance workplace has made through the years, however famous the earlier iteration of the workforce battled accidents (Lonzo Ball, amongst others) and the Bulls weren’t certain methods to pivot till they determined to show to “barely youthful gamers.”
Vucevic stated earlier this month he has “virtually little doubt” that he’ll open the season with the Bulls and informed BasketNews he was very open to staying in Chicago, although he acknowledged that wasn’t essentially in his management.
“Sure, after all. I imply, it has been good for me there,” Vucevic stated. “We are going to see—I’ve yet one more yr left with them, so we’ll see what occurs if I keep or if one thing adjustments. However yeah, clearly, I might like to win in Chicago.”
Whereas he isn’t probably the most nimble defender or a terrific rim protector, Vucevic’s per-game manufacturing has been fairly constant over his Bulls tenure and he has additionally been sturdy. The 2-time All-Star had one in every of his best offensive seasons in 2024/25, averaging 18.5 factors, 10.1 rebounds and three.5 assists per sport with a capturing line of .530/.402/.805 in 73 common season appearances (31.2 MPG).
