{"id":2040542,"date":"2026-07-13T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T07:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2040542"},"modified":"2026-07-13T10:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T07:00:52","slug":"adam-silver-hires-former-bulls-executive-arturas-karnisovas-as-consultant-for-nba-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2040542","title":{"rendered":"Adam Silver hires former Bulls executive Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas as consultant for NBA Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LAS VEGAS \u2014 The NBA hired former Lithuanian star and Chicago Bulls vice president Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas as its consultant for building NBA Europe, according to sources with direct knowledge of the hiring who were granted anonymity to discuss a personnel matter that had not been formally announced.<\/p>\n

Karni\u0161ovas, 55, will advise NBA commissioner Adam Silver and his deputies on governance and game rules for NBA Europe, how to identify and recruit talent, how to create pathways for players into the new league and potentially from the new league to the NBA, and how to expand the continent\u2019s already strong youth player development model, those sources said. He will be a liaison between the NBA and the new European competition, NBA Europe and NBA teams, and FIBA, the international governing body for basketball that is partnering with Silver to stand up his new league.<\/p>\n

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The NBA Board of Governors will review the second round of bids from potential NBA Europe owners on Tuesday and consider next steps. Those sources who disclosed the Karni\u0161ovas hiring said the NBA and FIBA are making tremendous progress and are in the final stages ahead of their planned October 2027 launch, and there could be further action by the NBA Board of Governors during its annual summer meetings in Las Vegas this week.<\/p>\n

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Those sources, who have direct knowledge of the bidding process for NBA Europe, and were granted anonymity to share information that is protected under non-disclosure agreements between the NBA and prospective European owners, said the league has received \u201cmany\u201d bids within and exceeding the $500 million to $1 billion range and in each of its 12 target cities, including from more than 20 existing basketball and football clubs, many of which are current EuroLeague teams.<\/p>\n

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Every one of the NBA\u2019s shortlisted clubs and investor groups has extended a bid, and there are also bids for teams outside of the NBA\u2019s original target cities. Those targets are London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens, Manchester, Istanbul, Berlin and Munich.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the NBA is continuing discussions with the EuroLeague on a possible merger, while EuroLeague clubs being recruited by the NBA have renewed their license agreements. Those agreements, The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s sources said, include out clauses of roughly 10 million euros. Among the soccer powerhouses that also have a EuroLeague basketball team and have re-upped their license with EuroLeague is Real Madrid, a club also considering joining NBA Europe.<\/p>\n

No team will be able to obtain an NBA Europe license without paying the league\u2019s entry fee. In addition to the 12 permanent members, NBA Europe is expected to initially add four teams each season that qualify by performance in their domestic leagues and FIBA tournaments.<\/p>\n

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European sources said the EuroLeague\u2019s new model mirrors an NBA Europe concept of converting shareholder clubs into permanent franchises and selling permanent franchise spots, but on the cheap.<\/p>\n

The value of the reported total investment to become a EuroLeague shareholder is 1.2 billion euros, whereas NBA Europe has received multiple $1 billion bids for a team in London alone.<\/p>\n

Karni\u0161ovas won two Olympic bronze medals for Lithuania and starred on the European pro circuit in the 1990s. He was an assistant general manager for the Denver Nuggets, where he played a role in scouting Nikola Joki\u0107, and took over the Bulls\u2019 front office in 2020. He was criticized for failing to either completely tear down the Bulls\u2019 roster or build a championship contender in the East, guiding a team that struggled at the bottom of the conference and routinely failed to get out of the Play-In tournament. The Bulls\u2019 lone playoff appearance under Karni\u0161ovas was in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 The NBA hired former Lithuanian star and Chicago Bulls vice president Art\u016bras Karni\u0161ovas as its consultant for building NBA Europe, according to sources with direct knowledge of the hiring who were granted anonymity to discuss a personnel matter that had not been formally announced. Karni\u0161ovas, 55, will advise NBA commissioner Adam Silver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2040542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2040542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2040542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2040542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2040542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}