Former OKC Thunder head coach Billy Donovan was a surprise name to emerge on the coaching market this year, and the Chicago Bulls hired him fast.
Apparently just like many other teams felt, the Chicago Bulls reportedly didn’t think that they were going to get a shot to hire the now former Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan to assume the same role in the Windy City this offseason. Donovan was anticipated to be one of the more respectable head coaches around the NBA heading into the 2020-21 season.
At the conclusion of the 2019-20 regular season, in the bubble after the restart at Disney World, the former Thunder head coach Donovan found himself as a Coach of the Year finalist. The Coach of the Year honors wound up going to Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. But the two-seed Raptors were bounced in the second round of the playoffs by the three-seed Boston Celtics.
Very soon after Donovan was announced as a finalist for the Coach of the Year honors, the Thunder parted ways with him. He would finish out his five season run with the Thunder with a regular season record of 243-157 (.609 winning percentage) and a playoff record of 18-23 (.439 winning percentage).
The Thunder were bounced as the five-seed in the first round of the playoffs in the Western Conference by the four-seed Houston Rockets. But Donovan’s squad really pushed superstar guard James Harden and the Rockets to the brink, coming down to a one-point victory for Houston in Game 7 .
Like many, Bulls didn't anticipate Billy Donovan becoming available, per source. But new Bulls boss Arturas Karnišovas moves quickly to lock up a proven coach to lead Chicago's rebuild.
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) September 22, 2020
However, after the Thunder parted ways with Donovan it looked like a number of suitors were going to line up to see what he could bring to the table. And one of the early potential suitors that emerged in the race to hire Donovan were the Bulls.
A report on the Twitter timeline of ESPN’s Chris Mannix on the evening of Sep. 22 shows that Arturas Karnisovas and the Bulls new look front office didn’t expect that Donovan would come available. And once he did, they moved “quickly to lock up a proven coach to lead Chicago’s rebuild”.
The Bulls finished up the 2019-20 season with a record of 22-43, with Boylen still at the helm. That was good to wind up in 11th place in the final Eastern Conference standings. Boylen rounded out his coaching tenure in two years as Bulls head coach with a record of 39-84.