New Chicago Bulls coach could get chance to shape his identity
Billy Donovan has been an NBA head coach for five seasons. His .608 winning percentage during that span is among the best in league history, ranking 16th among those who have coached at least 100 games and sitting behind only three active coaches: Nick Nurse (.721), Steve Kerr (.709) and Greg Popovich (.675).
Yet there still are lingering questions about the Chicago Bulls new coach after a stint with the Oklahoma City Thunder during which he appeared in the playoffs every season. The uncertainty centers around his coaching identity. It’s why during his introductory news conference last week Donovan was asked (by longtime Bulls writer Sam Smith), “Ideally, how would a Billy Donovan team play?”
Although Donovan did not directly answer the question — deferring instead to the second part of the question focused on analytics and 3-pointers — he did offer insight about what could be his best trait as a coach, which is his ability to adapt.
“The first thing I’ll do is watch a lot of film,” he said. “But I also think too, one of the things I’ve always felt like is important when you’re building out different things offensively, is you’ve got to spend time with players to let me hear from them how do they want to be used. How do they feel like they’re most effective? What are things they feel most comfortable doing? How can you take advantage of their skill set and their offense?
“You go through that with the players and talking to them and getting their opinions and their thoughts. And then you build out from there of how you want to play.”
Taking over a young team that Donovan can more easily mold could give him an opportunity to shape his philosophy more clearly.
His teams in Oklahoma City went through drastically different phases. Donovan’s first year with the Thunder in 201516 was also Kevin Durant’s last with the team, with expectations to go to the Finals. After Durant left, Russell Westbrook was the lone star and went on to average a triple-double and win the league’s Most
Valuable Player award. The Thunder then got Westbrook some help, pairing him with Paul George — and Carmelo Anthony briefly — for two seasons before George forced a trade to the Los Angeles Clippers. And the Thunder shifted gears again this season, which many consider Donovan's most impressive coaching job after they traded Westbrook to the Rockets for Chris Paul and surrounded him with young players.
This Bulls roster cannot match the star power the Thunder had in any of Donovan's seasons in Oklahoma City. Even the most optimistic view of the Bulls would characterize them as a team capable of competing for a playoff berth because of the lack of depth at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
But the Bulls core of Zach Lavine, Coby White, Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. have all shown flashes of talent. Donovan seems better equipped to unlock their strengths than Jim Boylen, who attempted to mold players to fit his system rather than take advantage of their best traits. That approach explains why Markkanen sounded so encouraged after just one phone conversation with Donovan. Pair that young talent with a couple of solid veterans in Otto Porter Jr. and Thaddeus Young and some better injury luck, and it's easy to see why the Bulls have expressed growing optimism lately.
“You will see a quick turnaround in terms of the output that these players give,” general manager Marc Eversley said, “by going out and getting a Billy Donovan, who brings a different voice to the gym. He brings winning. He brings leadership. He brings player development.
“And if you put that voice at the top of this thing, I think our players will grow. I don't know if it's going to be immediate, but they're going to grow. This team is better than a 22-win team, the talent is. If we tweak it and do some little things, we'll see some results that are positive.”
While Donovan's coaching style might still be in question, his ability to make adjustments from season-to-season based on his roster is not.
The Thunder never won fewer than 47 games during the regular season under Donovan but lost in the first round of the NBA playoffs the last four years. And aside from finishing second in offensive rating with Durant, perhaps the best offensive player of his era, those teams had mostly middling offenses. The Thunder offense ranked 16th in 2020, 17th in 2019, seventh in 2018 and 16th in 2017. There also are limits to an offense centered around a heavy-usage Westbrook.
But this season Donovan also took a Thunder roster few thought could fight for a playoff spot and created a three-guard lineup in Paul, Devin Schroder and Shai Gilgeous-alexander that finished with the best net rating of any three-man combination in the NBA.
The Bulls should benefit from Donovan's addition next season — and from the lessons he learned in Oklahoma City.
“The end result is how good of shots can you create on a nightly basis,” Donovan said. “That's what you've got to be able to do is create good shots. And how you go about doing that utilizing each guy's skill set? The same thing defensively. How do you build out? How are you going to guard pick-and-rolls? How are you going to guard certain screening actions, certain movements? And you build out from there.
“But certainly offensively, I'd want to talk to those guys about where they think they're at their best, where they think they can be most productive and effective. And then you partner with them and you work with them and you build out something where there's going to be a level of sacrifice by every player. Every player is not going to have the chance to do everything that they want to do. But how do you mesh all of those guys together to get the whole to be better than the sum of the parts as a team? That would be my philosophy.”