The Chicago Bulls are not merely refreshing their front office — they are overhauling its entire philosophy.
On Monday, the franchise hired Bryson Graham as its new Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, the first major domino to fall in what is shaping up as the most ambitious front-office reset in years. Yet Graham’s arrival is only the opening move. According to Chicago Sun-Times insider Joe Cowley, the Bulls are preparing a far more aggressive and modern push for their next general manager — one that deliberately breaks from the old-school, insular approach that defined the John Paxson–Gar Forman era.
For decades, the Bulls operated with a front office that many around the league viewed as under-resourced and philosophically behind the curve. Even after Arturas Karnisovas was brought in as Vice President of Basketball Operations in 2020 and invested significant money to upgrade personnel, the group still lagged behind the league’s most progressive organizations in scale, analytics depth, and salary-cap sophistication. Sources close to the situation tell Cowley the organization has had enough of playing catch-up.
“We’ve been playing checkers, and now it’s time to play chess,” one source told Cowley — a blunt acknowledgment that the Bulls intend to stop nibbling around the edges and start making decisive, high-stakes moves.
Central to that shift is a clear desire to counter the long-standing perception that Chicago simply does not spend on its front office the way championship contenders do. Graham’s hiring already signals a change in tone. Now the franchise is extending that momentum to the general manager search itself, refusing to settle for a safe, familiar name. Instead, the Bulls are targeting executives who combine elite salary-cap management, advanced scouting, and analytics-driven roster construction — the exact trifecta that has powered the league’s most successful recent rebuilds and title runs.
One name the organization is keeping firmly in its sights: Boston Celtics assistant general manager Dave Lewin.
Lewin, who was interviewed by the Bulls for the Executive Vice President role that ultimately went to Graham, remains a strong candidate for the GM position. Since joining the Celtics in 2022, he has played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in shaping the roster that captured the 2023-24 NBA championship. His reputation rests on a rare blend of financial discipline, traditional scouting prowess, and data-informed decision-making — precisely the modern skill set the Bulls have identified as non-negotiable moving forward. In 2024, Lewin earned national recognition when he was named to The Athletic’s prestigious NBA 40 under 40 list.
The timing is telling. While the Bulls continue their parallel search for a new head coach, the front-office priority has clearly escalated. By refusing to treat the GM hire as an afterthought, Chicago is sending an unmistakable message: the days of incrementalism are over. This is no longer about patching holes; it is about building a front office capable of competing with the league’s most sophisticated organizations on every level — from cap flexibility to player acquisition to long-term strategic planning.
Graham is scheduled to hold his introductory press conference Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. CST. While the focus that day will understandably be on his vision for basketball operations, the real story may lie in what the Bulls choose not to say publicly — yet are already signaling privately: they are no longer content to play checkers while the rest of the NBA has moved on to chess.
For a franchise that has spent the better part of a decade searching for sustained contention, this represents more than a personnel shuffle. It is the clearest declaration yet that the Bulls are finally ready to invest — not just financially, but philosophically — in the kind of front office that wins in today’s NBA.