Billy Donovan as next Brad Stevens? Bulls' Michael Reinsdorf would listen to idea

Atlantic76ersCelticsKnicksNetsRaptorsCentralBucksBullsCavaliersPacersPistonsSoutheastHawksHeatHornetsMagicWizardsSouthwestGrizzliesMavericksPelicansRocketsSpursNorthwestJazzNuggetsThunderTimberwolvesTrail BlazersPacificClippersKingsLakersSunsWarriorsScores & ScheduleStandingsThe Bounce NewsletterNBA DraftPodcastsFantasyNBA OddsNBA PicksPlayoff Matchups As Of TodayInside NBA Sneaker CultureHistory of NBA GrowthAnalysisBilly Donovan as next Brad Stevens? Bulls’ Michael Reinsdorf would listen to ideaBilly Donovan ranks fourth among Bulls coaches in regular-season wins. Kenneth Richmond / Getty Images Share full articleIf loving Billy Donovan is wrong, the Chicago Bulls don’t want to be right. The Bulls haven’t formally started their search for their next head of basketball operations, but president/CEO Michael Reinsdorf made one thing clear Tuesday: whoever gets the job will have to inherit Donovan as coach. That is, if Donovan wants to stay. “If Billy wants to be our coach,” Reinsdorf said, “and someone’s not interested in that, then they’re probably not the right candidate for us.” Reinsdorf cited Donovan’s Hall of Fame career, his multiple national titles at Florida and a deep playoff run in Oklahoma City, noting that “given the team that he was given (in Chicago), I think he achieved really good results. Not the results we wanted, but that’s not because of Billy.” Donovan is 224-254 in Chicago going into Tuesday’s game against the Washington Wizards. He has made the playoffs once in six seasons. In an email responding to follow-up questions from The Athletic, Reinsdorf wrote that Donovan’s status won’t be taking “precedence in the process.” “The point I was making is that he is a good coach,” he wrote. “I don’t think there’s a candidate out there who would not want to interview with us because I’d like Billy to remain as our coach.” Donovan, who signed a multiyear contract extension last summer, was in the mix for the North Carolina job, but he had been adamant about waiting until the Bulls’ season was over to decide on his future. He will meet with Reinsdorf next week once the season concludes. Asked how Donovan’s decision might affect the team’s approach to the summer — the NBA’s Draft Lottery will be held May 10, with the combine during the next week — Reinsdorf said, “I don’t think it’s going to take Billy a long time to come to a conclusion on what he wants to do.” When Donovan was hired in 2020, he said he wanted input on player acquisitions — though after the Jaden Ivey debacle, he said he wasn’t consulted on that move — and Reinsdorf said that won’t change with the next hire. “I probably will push Billy to be more involved,” he said. Donovan hasn’t expressed interest in moving into a front-office role, but if he did, the Bulls would entertain the idea. “If he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I may want to do a Brad Stevens situation,’ I would sit down and listen to Billy,” Reinsdorf said. “I don’t think that’s where his head’s at. I don’t think Billy cares about titles. Billy cares about being a head coach, and he cares about the players and cares about the organization.” On Tuesday afternoon, Reinsdorf talked to Chicago reporters on a video call for 30 minutes about how the organization got to this low point and what he’s going to do to make sure the Bulls return to relevance and the playoffs. “What we’re going to do through this process is we’re going to look at all the organizations and say what are things that we really admire about these teams?” Reinsdorf said. “What are they doing that we haven’t been doing? What can we do differently?” The Bulls didn’t have much success under the former regime, so when did Reinsdorf decide to make a drastic change? “Over the last few months, I started looking at where we were at, and I thought to myself, how are we going to get out of this mess?” he said. The Bulls will use a search firm for the first time in hopes of casting a “wide net.” Reinsdorf said the firm will “help organize the candidate pool,” but he isn’t sure how the process will go yet. Reinsdorf said he’s not sure who else will be in the room with him for interviews. John Paxson, the team’s longtime head of basketball operations, will help him as a consultant, and Pat Connelly and JJ Polk, assistant GMs during the recent regime, will also help guide the search. The Artūras Karnišovas search in 2020 was novel in the organization’s modern history. Paxson was hired as the Bulls’ GM in 2003, replacing Jerry Krause, who took the job in 1985, replacing Rod Thorn, who predated Jerry Reinsdorf’s buying the team. What is the younger Reinsdorf looking for this time around? “I want someone who’s process-oriented,” he said. “I think some of the biggest mistakes we’ve made over the years is we have not followed a process. I think that’s really important. Conviction. I think we need someone who is not afraid to pull the trigger. Communicator, OK? We have a history at the Bulls in the top position, other than (Paxson), they haven’t always been the best communicators, going back to the days of Jerry Krause. It wasn’t one of Artūras’ strengths in terms of communicating with the media. I want someone who’s really strong in communication, not just internally within the organization, but also externally. “When he’s talking to people like you, talking to our fans, I think that’s really important. What are we trying to accomplish? What is the plan? Our fans have a right to understand what we’re trying to accomplish. So, I think that’s incredibly important.” At the very least, Reinsdorf, who took over as president/COO of the team in 2010, seems to now have a better assessment of the organization’s failures over that time. “We haven’t always recognized the trends of where things are going,” he said. “Back in 2012 or ’13, whenever the 3-point shooting started to increase, I bet you had we anticipated that more and how much that was going to change, we probably would have had a different decision-making on some of the players that we drafted,” he said. “So, you’ve got to stay ahead of this. That’s something Sam (Presti) is really good at, is anticipating. So, we’ve got to anticipate.” Aligning with the Reinsdorfs’ position on rebuilding/tanking/teardowns also seems to be among the caveats awaiting the next decision-maker. “Everyone out there who knows anything about my dad, they know how much he believes in being real and doing your best to win games,” Michael said of his father, Jerry, who has been the lead owner of the Bulls and White Sox since the 1980s. “And it’s unfair to the coach. It is unfair to the players. It’s actually unfair to our fans. Sure, there are some fans, many fans who might say, ‘Lose games on purpose, tank, do whatever you can to hopefully win the lottery.’ But there are a lot of fans that go to the games who aren’t there to see us get blown out every game and who want to see us compete. “Whoever comes in and takes this position, they have to understand, we want to win, but we don’t want to win if it’s not sustainable.” For the candidates still on the line, Reinsdorf laid out what he considers the attractions for the Bulls job: The Bulls own all their first-round draft picks, presumably entering this year’s draft with the ninth-best odds and potentially (finally) receiving a first-round selection in the midteens if the Portland Trail Blazers advance to the playoffs; an unknown commodity in rookie Noa Essengue, who Reinsdorf said is “almost like having a second top-10 pick because he didn’t play all last year”; and roughly $65 million to toy with in cap space. A clean slate, he called it, some time after noting the next decision-maker possibly won’t hire their own coach and should forget about tanking. What then becomes the bar to measure said candidate’s success? “You define success in many different ways,” Reinsdorf said. “But ultimately, for our fans and for the media, I think it’s going to be about wins and losses.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms