A draft-night trade first connected Arturas Karnisovas to the Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls have hired Arturas Karnisovas to be their new vice president of basketball operations. Here we look back on a night that first connected him with the Bulls.

June 26, 2014. The 2014 NBA draft. The Chicago Bulls had the No. 16 and No. 19 picks in the first round. They were coming off a rough season, having lost Derrick Rose in the 11th game to another season-ending knee injury. Rose had torn the meniscus in his right knee, after missing the entire 2013 season with a left knee ACL tear.

Somehow, led by Joakim Noah and an emerging Jimmy Butler, the Bulls battled their way to 48-wins and homecourt advantage in the first round. They quickly lost to the Washington Wizards in five games.

The off-season dream was signing free-agent forward Carmelo Anthony. Anthony planned to visit Chicago in July and was reportedly leaning toward signing with the Bulls. Ultimately, Anthony got cold feet and re-upped with the Knicks.

The Bulls were still hopeful on draft night that they could get Melo and wanted to have salary-cap space available. They also coveted Doug McDermott — for some reason. In an effort to shed one of their draft pick contracts and get McDermott, the Bulls packaged both picks to move up to No. 11, where they drafted McDermott.

The team on the other end of the phone was the Denver Nuggets, who selected Jusuf Nurkic at No. 16 and Gary Harris at No. 19. They also took a chance of Nikola Jokic with the No. 41 overall pick in the second round.

Arturas Karnisovas had joined the Nuggets in July of 2013, one year prior to the 2014 draft. He was their assistant general manager reporting to executive vice president of basketball operations and general manager Tim Connelly.

Draft night 2014 started to transform the Nuggets franchise into a Western Conference contender. Jokic did not come to play until a year later, and drafting Jamal Murray in 2016 was another boost. Denver selected Donovan Mitchell in 2017, but traded Mitchell to Utah. No one is perfect.

But the connection between Chicago and Karnisovas started in 2014 making a deal with the Bulls.