Chicago Bulls: Home run hire made with Billy Donovan

The Chicago Bulls just made their next head coaching, and it looks like a good one with former OKC Thunder HC Billy Donovan.

The hire that a lot were looking out for arrived for the Chicago Bulls on Sep. 22, with former Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan replacing the departed Jim Boylen. Just over a month ago, Donovan was guiding the Thunder to a sneaky-good seed in the Western Conference playoffs while Boylen was on his way out of the Windy City after many Bulls fans figured the worst that he might be back heading into the 2020-21 season.

But the Bulls new front office regime came through in what wasn’t the longest coaching candidate search process with a hire in just over a month. Former Denver Nuggets general manager and new executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas found a hire much sooner than originally anticipated.

It sounded like this was going to be a very patient process for the Bulls to find their next head coaching hire. Karnisovas and former Philadelphia 76ers senior vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley (now Bulls general manager) made a seemingly solid and proven hire for the next head coach in Chicago too.

Donovan was nothing but a winner during his five years with the Thunder after taking over for Scott Brooks entering the 2015-16 season. All five years at the helm in OKC saw Donovan take the team to the playoffs. He was also a two-time National Champion during his long run as the Florida Gators head basketball coach.

But it was largely the lack of playoff success that cost Donovan his job in OKC. And it looks like the Thunder are close to tearing it down and going into full on rebuild mode. If they trade star veteran point guard Chris Paul this offseason, then the rebuild should begin soon thereafter in OKC.

Donovan registered a career regular season record of 243-157 (.608 winning percentage) during his five seasons with the Thunder. Meanwhile, Donovan registered a career postseason record of 18-23 (.439 winning percentage) during his run with the Thunder.

This year, Donovan and the Thunder fell short in the first round of the playoffs, as the five-seed, to the four-seed Houston Rockets in a thrilling seven-game series. The Thunder were literally a few seconds away from beating the Rockets and getting through to the second round.

There weren’t many more proven candidates out there that the Bulls could’ve hired than Donovan. He brings a ton of regular season success to the table right away for the Bulls, and has some parts of a decent postseason resume. The Thunder did at least make one run to the Western Conference Finals during his time as head coach there.

If nothing else is true, Donovan should be a much, much better head coach than Boylen. The Bulls now former head coach registered a record of 39-84 in his two years with the team. He led the Bulls to a record of 22-43 during the shortened 2019-20 season.