Lincicome: One of us is getting it wrong, and there’s a chance it’s the Bulls

The special pleasure of being a sports columnist is the opportunity to be wrong. Harmless enough and without real influence on anything or anyone, including the Bulls, a Chicago sports team so irrelevant that even other states don’t want it.

As I said, I could be wrong. Maybe Nashville is panting at the chance to join the NBA or Omaha sees itself as the next Oklahoma City. If all it takes is a suggestion, let the rumor start here.

In the meantime, an obligation remains to be wrong about the recent rearranging of the Bulls, a bit of tidying up that posed the question, “Wasn’t Arturas Karnisovas the failed draft choice that came from the Jimmy Butler deal?”

As it turns out, no. Though possessed of diacritics over letters in his name — an NBA requirement these days — Karnisovas was not a player at all but a front-office drone who had been around the Bulls for years.

Karnisovas’ actual function remained a public mystery up until the day Bulls CEO Michael Reinsdorf thanked him for his service, whatever it was, assuring Bulls fans that ownership had noticed things had not been going well.

Excused along with Karnisovas was Marc Eversley, apparently the Bulls’ general manager, although the definition was neither entirely clear nor helpful.

The two of them have since been lumped into the discarded collection of bunglers charged with restoring glory to a franchise once admired and regaled. Say hello to John Paxson and Gar Forman, fellas.

What seems of particular note here, and typical of the Bulls who consistently do things the wrong way round, is the lack of blame for the coach, a certain William Donovan, known to his friends and employers as Billy.

Defying sports procedures older than any of the Reinsdorfs, the coach was not blamed for any of the failures. I could be wrong, though history and practice are on my side here, but when things go bad, the coach is the first to go. You fire from the bottom up, like cleaning a wound.

Coach Billy, however, seems to be the one true beacon of hope, shining gloriously atop the pile of anonymous gunk that the Bulls have become, however high Donovan has helped to pile it.

In his six years, Donovan has lost more games than he has won, has made only one playoff appearance, consistently lost play-ins, and yet is admired widely for results that are decades old.

NBA teams are apparently interested in Donovan, not counting the Bulls, of course. The Bulls love him, as a dog loves his flea collar.

I could be wrong, but Donovan is the only current Bulls personality anyone beyond 1901 W. Madison has ever heard of, and that not so much because of any success with the Bulls but because of winning in a former life in a warmer climate.

The Bulls are the franchise, remember, that once hired a college cipher from Iowa State — his name escapes me — to replace Phil Jackson, beginning what has since been the Curse of Krause, to put a name to it.

There is no better explanation for the consistent misery, no urgency to fix things, flawed trades and limited plans, lingering futility, probably best typified by the injured and endured Lonzo Ball, the expensive burden, always just a bit away from being the franchise lynchpin.

Those Bulls passing through, like Butler, or DeMar DeRozan or Lauri Markkanen, Alex Caruso, Zach LaVine, all on their way to something better, might have made a presentable NBA team.

It is not entirely clear if Donovan will be able to hire his own bosses, or even if he would want to. Or even if Donovan wants to stay with the Bulls. Such is the exalted status of a losing coach.

Reinsdorf has implied that any executive candidate interested in the Bulls front office must like Billy. If not, they don’t like the Bulls.

So at the risk of being wrong again, I say anybody serious about taking the job under those conditions has no self-worth nor sense of mission. And why the Bulls would be interested in someone like that is misguided and unhelpful.

But I could be wrong.