Billy Donovan has his share of critics from Oklahoma City, but don’t get it twisted. Almost everybody agrees the moment the Thunder let him walk, he became the best basketball coach available for hire. The guy has two national championships in college and never missed the playoffs in five years with OKC. So for the Chicago Bulls to even consider going after him?
Let’s just call it ambitious.
League insiders were quick to report the team added him to their list of interviews. According to Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, the Bulls brass reached out to him via a phone call shortly after the news of his exit broke. By the sound of things, Donovan didn’t seem all that enthused about the idea.
“But immediately after the Thunder announced two weeks ago that Donovan would not return to Oklahoma City after five seasons, the Bulls’ brass jumped at an unexpected opportunity. They reached out with a preliminary phone call, to which they were met with initial disinterest.
Donovan had just finished guiding the Thunder through an exhausting seven-game series against Houston. All he wanted was to leave Orlando and decompress.”
So why did Billy Donovan change his mind?
It would’ve been easy for the Bulls to get discouraged and just move on to the next guy. Gar Forman and John Paxson probably would’ve. That was not the case with the new VP of Basketball Ops Arturas Karnisovas. He recognized a big opportunity and was going to do everything he could to seize it.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN revealed that the man flew down to Donovan’s home personally to meet with him. Karnisovas apparently made quite an impression. Mayberry corroborated that in his own story.
https://twitter.com/ChiSportUpdates/status/1308775417793437698
“According to one person with knowledge of the negotiations, Donovan came away impressed as much with Karnišovas and new general manager Marc Eversley as he was with the job they were selling him. After the two sides concluded the interview process, there was a shared feeling that the marriage was a natural fit.”
While the Bulls have underachieved to this point, Karnisovas sold him on the plan he has for the organization and the young core of talent they have in place. Donovan liked what he heard and everybody knows the rest. Chicago has their new head coach. Easily the most proven they’ve ever hired. If he lives up to that reputation, this team could see success in fairly short order.