Illinois Law School Grad J.J. Polk Hired By Chicago Bulls “To Establish Some Trust”

The new Chicago Bulls front office administration will include a graduate of the University of Illinois Law School.

The Bulls ownership confirmed the hiring of Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas as the franchise's executive vice president of basketball operations, which was reported by several outlets last week. Amongst the changes in the Bulls front office, which included the termination of general manager Gar Forman and the reassignment of John Paxson to the title of senior adviser of basketball operations, Karnisovas announced the hiring of J.J. Polk from the New Orleans Pelicans to serve as an assistant general manager.

The hiring of Polk was first reported by NBC Sports Chicago reporter K.C. Johnson. Polk graduated from the University of Illinois Law School in 2004 after getting his bachelor's degree in political science at Rice University in 1997 while playing three years on the Owls basketball team.

After spending six years as an associate at the St. Louis law firm of Bryan Cave, Polk began to work in the analytics/basketball administration department with the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans in Sept. 2010. Polk is renowned for his salary cap expertise.

Karnisovas hired Polk and Pat Connelly for assistant general manager roles as both men have ties to Karnisovas' former boss, Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. Polk joined the New Orleans Pelicans in 2010, around the same time Tim Connelly became the Pelicans' assistant general manager. Tim Connelly moved to Denver in 2013 and hired Karnisovas, who was working for the Houston Rockets as an international scout. Pat Connelly, who was the assistant general manager of the Phoenix Suns from 2013-18, is the younger brother of Tim Connelly.

"In terms of adding J.J.Polk and Pat Connelly, those are the hires I wanted to make quick,” Karnisovas said Monday for his first on-camera interview with NBC Sports Chicago. “Those hires will help me right away to establish some trust. There also are a lot of talented people on the staff right now who are established and I know some of them personally. We are ready to get to work. We’re going to evaluate our scouting department and what we need to add, where the blind spots are. The work already started.”