If the Chicago Bulls were playing darts in a saloon and the game was cricket, they just hit a big time bullseye. The throw by Arturas Karnisavas, the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for the Bulls, lands Chicago a big name for their vacant head coach job. Former Oklahoma City Head Coach Billy Donovan has a great track record in the NBA after coaching the Thunder to five straight playoff appearances. When the Covid shutdown happened across the NBA landscape, the Bulls decided to go into another direction and cleaned the house of horrors that was the Gar/Pax show. Gar Forman was fired. John Paxson moved to a different job in the organization. In came Arturas Karnisavas, a guy rising up in the ranks in the NBA front offices. Then Karnisavas’ first hire at the GM position was Marc Eversley. Eversley is a hard working guy who is well liked throughout the NBA world. Both new hires have been rebuilding the whole new Bulls front office from scratch, bringing the organization to the next century. Then they finally fired the final stooge which was Curly Jim Boylen who coaches more like Shemp.

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Billy Donovan gives the Bulls their first significant hire at head coach since moving Phil Jackson in on Doug Collins’ team before the dynasty took off. Donovan is the first Bulls coach they’ve hired coming in with experience since the one year wonder Scott Skiles. I did like the Tom Thibodeau hire because the Bulls played hard and he was not going to be a puppet like Fred Hoilberg coming in with just college experience. Hoilberg was in over his head instantly. The ink on the contract was not even dry. Plus, I don’t remember Freddie winning any NCAA tournament wins on the bench at Iowa State. Let’s not forget John Paxson punching Vinnie Del Negro, another hire who came with no experience. Closer you go to Michael Jordan retiring after the shot we thought was his last in the NBA, it gets very dissatisfying. Donovan is a big name guy in the NBA and has the respect throughout the league. Now perhaps a free agent may want to come to Chicago in their prime. Not throwing up a Hail Mary on a Dwayne Wade who was running on fumes.

Billy Donovan will get a 4 year agreement with the Chicago Bulls in a deal worth about 24 million. Donovan is 55 years old and has a nice head coaching resume which includes a 243-157 record in the NBA. That’s a .608 winning percentage if you’re keeping track at home. Let’s not forget his two National championships in college basketball for the University of Florida. I asked a former Gator alum about the Bulls hiring Donovan. His reply was simple and that he wished the coach had gone back home to the University of Florida. These are the roots that that Donovan has planted in his career and is still missed from a job well done.

Charles Barkley said about the Hiring of Donovan:

“Only 2 jobs worse than the Bulls head coaching job. The Captain of the Titanic and my fitness coach.”

Charles Barkley also went on to say Coach Billy Donovan should had waited for a better opportunity with another team. Main reason is Barkley thinks the players the Bulls have right now on their roster are nothing to write home to mom about.

The experts say Billy Donovan is leaving the Thunder because the organization was going to be headed into a rebuild. Donovan was offered a deal to stay in Oklahoma City, but he refused it. Instead, Donovan would rather be in Chicago. Arturas Karnisavas and Marc Eversley must have a grand plan in place to land Donovan. A plan Billy Donovan must be pleased about to come to Chicago, a place that has fallen off the basketball map. Chicago Bulls basketball has had some ups, but way more downs since the dynasty ended. It took practically the zombie apocalypse for the Bulls to finally gets things right. This is a solid choice, the hiring of Billy Donovan. Bulls seem like a Neegan or the Governor in The Walking Dead. Succeeding and thriving when the world is a mess. Hopefully Donovan and the rest of the NBA can bring back defense into this sport. It may bring me back to actually watch some games instead of flipping the channel off some of these crappy bubble games. Now we need Arturas, Billy, and Marc to hit some triples on the board and land some talented players with multiple skill sets.