The mystery surrounding former Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan’s next basketball career move was resolved on Thursday when ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Donovan agreed to join San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson’s staff as the lead assistant coach.
Billy Donovan has agreed to become the lead assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs and head coach Mitch Johnson, sources tell me and @PeteThamel. After 11 seasons as a head coach in Chicago and Oklahoma City, Donovan accepts the position with the Western Conference champions. pic.twitter.com/HdhjtsQG2K
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 2, 2026
Donovan’s addition to the Johnson’s coaching staff fills a void created by the departure of former Spurs assistant coach Sean Sweeney to fill the Orlando Magic’s head coach vacancy, created by the end-of-season firing of Jamahl Mosley.
In a bit of irony, Donovan was a competitor candidate to Sweeney for the Magic’s head coach role, according to reporting (subscription required) from The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer. In addition to Sweeney beating Donovan for the Magic’s head coach vacancy, the Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans, Milwaukee Bucks, and Portland Trail Blazers all hired new head coaches during the 2026 NBA offseason.
Given Donovan’s standing as a candidate in the NBA head coach market, it’s even more honorable that he stepped down as Bulls head coach to allow the Bulls' lead front office executive, Bryson Graham, the opportunity to start his rebuild with a fresh head coach voice for his Bulls locker room.
Six seasons is an NBA eternity
Billy Donovan’s Chicago Bulls coaching legacy is as complicated as his perception among Chicago Bulls fans. Donovan, before he arrived in Chicago, had already cemented his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame bona fides by winning two consecutive NCAA men’s basketball national championships as the head coach of the Florida Gators in 2006 and 2007, among a long list of NCAA men’s basketball head coaching accolades.
Donovan’s pre-Bulls accomplishments were canonized almost immediately before he coached a single minute of basketball for the Bulls, and his coaching reputation was rarely questioned as Bulls head coach, regardless of his team's on-court performance, until the very end of six seasons of mostly losing Bulls basketball.
Yes, the case can be made that Billy Donovan’s Bulls coaching record is influenced by the roster construction odecisions of his boss at-the-time, Arturas Karnisovas, who obsessed over acquiring journeymen NBA players as opposed to acquiring legit All-NBA talent on his roster.
At the same time, there was never a reasonable case to extend Donovan beyond his first contract. The Bulls' meteoric rise to the top of the NBA Eastern Conference during the 2021-22 NBA season proved to be fool’s gold, courtesy of a season-ending injury to Lonzo Ball and a gentlemen’s sweep in the first round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Donovan’s coaching bias towards veterans over younger players ultimately became a toxic recipe for mediocrity, when combined with Karnisovas’ own bias for accumulating serviceable role players over top-tier NBA talent, plus a mostly failed Bulls NBA Draft track record.
Donovan’s Bulls coaching history will forever be mediocre, and yet his choice of exit from the Bulls should forever be held in the highest esteem of Bulls fans.
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