Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

The Bulls Hire Billy Donovan

It's been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change gon' come, oh yes it will

-Sam Cooke

Good Morning Chicago! It’s a great day to be a SGCTC subscriber and it’s a great day to be alive!

Remember: Tell a friend to subscribe and tell another subscriber to get this newsletter out of their promotions tab and drag it to their primary inbox — that’s why a lot of readers have been missing out. Do it now! Please! Thank you.

Read yesterday’s newsletter: https://sgctc.substack.com/p/still-gotta-come-through-chicago-402

Subscribe, tell a friend:

And don’t forget to leave a comment…

Less than a day after a report came out that the finalists to be the Bulls next head coach were Wes Unseld Jr., Darvin Ham, Ime Udoka, and Kenny Atkinson, the Bulls shocked the basketball world — or at the very least me — and hired Billy Donovan.

And I would have been happy with all of those four candidates. Like a dog that’s been abused, even just a full bowl of water or a loving pet from a stranger would’ve been enough for me. A thorough and legitimate coaching search that ended with an unproven assistant heralded by his peers would’ve been enough to satisfy this beaten down canine.

When Billy Donovan parted ways with the Oklahoma City Thunder after their Game 7 loss against the Rockets a few weeks back, I got excited, at least momentarily. The thought that he was even an option, that he may even accept an interview, was enough for my imagination to wander.

Not in a million years did I think that he’d actually land in Chicago. When Arturas Karnisovas was hired, AKA AK-47, AKA The Renaissance Man, my hopes were high. They stayed high, and then they briefly wavered. Now, I am as confident about the Bulls future as I have been in a decade.

Comparing Billy Donovan to any coach the Bulls have had since Phil Jackson would be disrespectful to him. Even Tom Thibodeau, the best Bulls coach this century, didn’t and doesn’t have the pedigree that Donovan has.

He’s a two-time national champion. He’s won over 60% of his NBA games. He’s come within a game of going to the NBA Finals. And this year, his first without Russell Westbrook or Kevin Durant, he took a rebuilding team projected to win 32 games on a 50-win trajectory and came within seconds of bringing them to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.

The facts are simple: Billy Donovan is the most respected coach — in basketball generally and among players — that the Bulls have had in more than two decades.

His players love him. Joakim Noah has sung his praises at every single point in his career. Bradley Beal does the same. Chris Paul thanked Donovan in an emotional video after the season for all he had done for him this year. That’s Chris Paul, the stubborn, future hall of famer who played one year under him in his 15th season.

Even Zach LaVine responded joyously to the news yesterday.

It’s hard to fathom that the Bulls got what I believe to be the best coach available in this market. There were so many good ones, and a slew of much more talented teams vying for them. Apparently Donovan likes the Bulls young core, which could be extremely worrisome given that I have no idea what he could see in this team, or encouraging given that a basketball lifer likes some of our guys.

What a wonderful day in Chicago sports. Chicago, the greatest city in the world to be a fan of the game, is officially back. God knows we deserve it.

More than anything, what Donovan is about to bring this basketball team is respect, something that has long been missing from this organization. It sounds cliche but it’s undeniably true. For once, players are going to want to play here. The players we do have here will actually listen to the coach.

The players respected Tom Thibodeau but not all of them liked him. They liked Fred Hoiberg but didn’t respect him. They didn’t respect or like Jim Boylen.

With Donovan, they’re going to both respect and like him. He invests time and energy into his players, so when he yells a command, it won’t ring hollow.

The man sounds like the son of a mobster. One with a New York accent that’s still evident, but with a vocabulary that has surpassed his father’s. He hasn’t killed fifteen people with no remorse, but he’s still got enough of a look in his eye for you to know that he will if he has to.

The league is on notice. The Bulls have been a sleeping giant due to their own incompetence over the last couple decades. But watch out, ladies and gentlemen, they’ve just gotten out of their own way.

Now let’s talk basketball.

If I hear one more person say ‘He’s not a championship-caliber coach in the NBA!’ I’m going to blow a gasket. Who the hell thinks we’re ready to compete for a championship next year anyway? My God, I love the enthusiasm, but the Bulls didn’t exactly lose in the Eastern Conference Semis this year.

That talk is reminiscent of the post-Draft Lottery chatter. What do the Bulls need at the fourth pick? Uh, a point guard. A shooting guard. A small forward. A power forward. A center. And then a few other things. We’ve won less games in the last two years than Donovan won this year in a shortened season with a team that purposely stripped itself of talent last summer.

Secondly, a “championship-caliber” coach is wildly subjective. He’s won two championships in the NCAA and had immense success in the NBA, albeit with a lot of talent. But this year, mostly void of that talent, he had his best coaching year since entering the league, in my opinion — a year where he received 134 total votes for the NBA Coach of the Year award, right behind Nick Nurse and Mike Budenholzer.

Not just that, he’s completely adapted to the talent he’s had at his disposal. As Stephen Noh pointed out in his column, Donovan completely transformed his defense this year in consideration of his new roster.

Besides his first year, when the Thunder ranked 11th in defensive rating, he’s led top-10 defenses in each of his NBA seasons. Last year, they finished 4th. This year, with a completely new roster and scheme, they finished 7th.

The only knock on Donovan at this level has been the lack of innovative offensive schemes and the prevalence of iso-ball, but that can largely be chalked up to having two of the most ball-dominant, iso-prone guards of all time on his team in Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul.

With a team that he has full autonomy over, rid of superstars that want to do it their way off the bat, that will undoubtedly improve. Plus, Karnisovas is well-known for his free-flowing, pass-first philosophies, so the two working together should help in that areas as well.

The fact that he was able to even manage Westbrook in his first NBA coaching tenure while he stole rebounds from his teammates on a team-damaging MVP campaign is a testament to his ability to deal with NBA personalities.

The upgrade from PAX-GAR-BOYLEN to KARNISOVAS-EVERSLEY-DONOVAN is so vast I can’t even think of a good comparison right now, so I’ll just try to workshop them in real time.

Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit on MNF last week versus Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland a year ago? That doesn’t even do it justice. Having a Bud Light in a bottle for the first time after drinking warm Busch Lites out of cans for years? Nah.

The only fair comparison is having a tin can and a wire to speak to your neighbor for years and then getting an iPhone.

Good riddance to the old, I can’t wait for the new.

GarPax, thanks for nothing, besides this headline, which is the most unintentionally funny thing, and the only note I will remember fondly from management over these dreadful years:

The Dark Ages are over, Bulls fans. For those of you that left, welcome back. We’re so glad to have you. Welcome to… the Renaissance.

Still Gotta Come Through Chicago.

P.S. Bring back Joakim Noah!