Chicago Bulls: Contract details released for Billy Donovan

Contract details are out now for the recently hired Chicago Bulls head coach (formerly of the Oklahoma City Thunder) Billy Donovan.

The details of the contract for the Chicago Bulls recent head coach hiring of Billy Donovan (formerly of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Florida Gators basketball program) are starting to emerge. The Bulls reportedly (Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium on Twitter on Sep. 24) gave Donovan a four-year contract worth $24 million.

This is a more public deal than the Bulls had when they had originally extended the contract of former head coach Jim Boylen, which occurred last offseason. After a rather uninspiring year as the interim head coach in place of the departed Fred Hoiberg (now Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach), John Paxson and Gar Forman for some reason handed Boylen a three-year contract extension last summer.

Boylen finished up his coaching tenure with the Bulls, over the course of two years, with a record of 39-84. He led the Bulls to wrap up the 2019-20 shortened season with a record of 22-43, good for 11th place in the final Eastern Conference standings.

The departing of Boylen was expected with all of the front office changes that were made back in spring. The Bulls got the GarPax regime out of power in the front office and replaced them with former Denver Nuggets general manager Arturas Karnisovas and ex-Philadelphia 76ers senior vice president of player personnel Marc Eversley.

Karnisovas will replace Paxson as the lead voice in the front office, and as the executive VP of basketball operations. Meanwhile, Eversley replaces Forman as the Bulls general manager.

And it didn’t take very long for Karnisovas and Eversley to make their mark on internal organizational changes. They’ve now shifted much of the look of the front office, coaching staff, and scouting department. The roster construction should be up next.

However, Donovan certainly brings a proven resume to the table in terms of regular season success. He finished up his five year run as the Thunder head coach with a regular season record of 243-157 (.609 winning percentage).

Donovan also found a lot of success during his long run as head coach of the Florida men’s hoops program. He won numerous SEC Championships, and two National Championships, during his more than decade-long head coaching career in Gainesville.