After six seasons with the Chicago Bulls, Billy Donovan is stepping down as the team’s head coach. This comes after the cleaning out of the Bulls front office. The Bulls Vice President of Basketball Operations, Arturas Karnisovas, and the General Manager, Marc Eversley, got their walking papers. The Bulls owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, and his son Michael, who is the CEO & President of the Bulls, wanted to retain Donovan as the team’s head coach. Whoever you hired would have to pretty much agree to keeping Donovan instead of hiring their own guy. Donovan may have felt handcuffed continuing down the road with the Bulls organization. Relying on buffoons to hire top notch front office people to help the sinking ship which is this basketball organization. This is the organization that has given Donovan nothing but dark clouds over his coaching legacy. You know he wants to revive his coaching career somewhere else in the NBA or back on the hardwood floors of the college game. He will be in big demand. They say it was mutual agreement, but you know Donovan wanted out of this shipwreck where he was treading water instead of jumping off the ship earlier with the women and children.

Billy Donovan is 60 years of age and has been a head coach in the NBA for 11 seasons. Before taking the Chicago Bulls job, he made the post-season every year as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, which was 5 straight seasons. His record with the Thunder was 243-157. In 6 seasons coaching the Bulls, Donovan had a losing record of 226-252. This past season the Bulls record was 31-51 and as usual, the franchise missed the post-season once again. Under Donovan the Bulls only made the post-season once, in 2022. The Bulls were quickly eliminated only winning one game in that 2022 opening round of the post-season. Overall Donovan still has a winning record in the NBA as a head coach because of what he did in Oklahoma City. In 11 seasons he has a 469-413 record. In post-season he has certainly failed there. In 46 games in post-season he has a 19-27 record

Billy Donovan may want to go back to the college game where he really had more success as a coach than he did in the pros. His college record is insane!!! His record is 502-206 in 19 seasons with the University of Florida and two seasons with Marshall. For the Gators his record was 467-186. He led the Gators to back to back NCAA National Championships back in 2006 & ’07. He has guided 14 teams to the March Madness NCAA tournament. He has gotten 4 teams to the Final 4. You could see some of the basketball power houses wanting Donovan’s services. If only this had occurred earlier, Donovan could have landed the North Carolina University gig that went to Mike Malone instead. There were questions about whether Billy Self was coming back to Kansas University next season. Self did say he is returning to the Jayhawks next season. Donovan would be an upgrade over Self if Kansas decided to make a change. In the college game, coaches are more hands on and get the say on which players they do want. The NBA has a general manager and a team that creates the roster which the head coach may have some say or majority of the say on roster moves. Certainly Donovan would still know how to recruit the talent which would be like riding a bike for him. He may have to get used to the transfer portal where these players are like free agents.

The Chicago Bulls have not really done much on the court since Michael Jordan left the building. Yes, the Bulls had some solid years with Derek Rose. Then after Rose wrecked his knee, the team returned to subpar basketball. It does not surprise me that Billy Donovan’s house in Chicago went on the market like the next day when the news came out he was stepping down. You take the Jordan years away from this franchise & it would be totally pathetic. Phil Jackson has the most wins ever in Bulls franchise history with 545. Which makes sense because he had Jordan and that group winning 6 titles. Dick Motta in the late 60’s and 70’s is second all-time on the Bulls head coach list with 356 wins. Then the guy the Bulls fired because they blamed Tom Thibodeau for destroying Rose’s knee. Thibs had 255 wins. Then comes Donovan with his 226 wins, a guy who only took 1 team to the post-season. The Bulls franchise still employs John Paxton who was promoted after a dismal run operating the front office for years. You wonder why Donovan has fled the scene. He knows how this dysfunctional franchise operates as he saw it up close and personal for 6 years. I would not blame Donovan for going back to the college game. What the NBA game has become is a joke. No defense. Shooting three pointers all night long running up high scores. Going back to the college game is what made guys like Donovan fall in love with the sport. The recruitment process. Building the program from scratch. Then watching your program turn over talent like a basketball power house factory. The game itself. With defense. Sure the three pointer is still popular. Feeding the ball down to the big man and letting him do his stuff is an art that seems to die off on the NBA courts. My gut feeling is Donovan will have some university coming soon to the March Madness tournament. I hope it’s some kind of small potatoes school where he revives the program. See the love of the game back on his face instead of hus NBA career ending with dark clouds in Chicago. With a train wreck of a franchise that is not going anywhere any time soon.