When the Chicago Bulls hired Arturas Karnisovas on April 9th, 2020, he was tasked with turning around a franchise that had finished at or below .500 for four straight seasons. At the beginning, he had no idea Billy Donovan would be a part of that process.

Jim Boylen, the Bulls head coach at the time, had faced criticisms for misusing players, conducting excessively physical practices, and generally being thrust into a role he wasn’t ready for by an incompetent front office.

For lack of a better word, the Bulls were a shitshow. Karnisovas (AK) took time evaluating the team and the coaching staff, and made the decision to fire Boylen on August 14th, 2020. AK was committed to finding a coach that players could relate to and win with. Before ever even taking an interview with a new head coaching candidate, AK said this about the process:

“During this research, they’re one of the components of the criteria and evaluation so they were a part of it. Players are always a part of it.”

Arturas Karnisovas

Billy Donovan Becomes Available

At the time, the top head-coaching candidates included recent Nets send-off Kenny Atkinson and up-and-coming assistant Wes Unseld Jr, who AK worked with when he was GM of the Denver Nuggets. On September 8th, 2020, however, something unexpected happened. Billy Donovan, coach of the over-performing Oklahoma City Thunder, agreed with the franchise to “mutually part ways.”

Donovan was coming off an impressive run with a team that many thought was tanking. AK knew who he wanted, and dropped everything to get him. On September 22nd, 2020, it was announced that Billy Donovan would be joining the Bulls as their next head coach. 

After the hire, Donovan revealed that initially he was not interested in accepting the position. It was only after spending time with AK and Bulls GM Marc Eversley, discussing the future of the franchise, the culture they wanted to set, and the players they were building around, did Donovan agree to join the team.

The Donovan era started under strange circumstances. The Bulls hosted a bubble of their own for off-season scrimmages, but Donovan was not able to join the team due to health and safety concerns. The preseason was abridged, and the regular season started swiftly in December mere months after free agency and the NBA Draft. 

Donovan was tasked with getting to know his new squad with extremely limited practice time, frequent COVID-related absences, a tight regular season schedule, and oh yeah, developing the fourth overall pick and youngest player in the NBA.

The Chicago Bulls 2020-2021 NBA Season Begins

AK’s lone free agency acquisition, Garrett Temple, provided a surprising surge, and despite the early-season injuries to Wendell Carter Jr, Otto Porter Jr, and Lauri Markkanen, Donovan found success in using Thaddeus Young as a small-ball five and inserting Temple into the starting lineup. It’s also worth mentioning that Zach Lavine was having an All Star season and his best yet as a pro.

With Young providing a much-needed lift in playmaking and defense, two players poised to take leaps fell far short of expectations. Coby White was not becoming the point guard of the future the Bulls needed him to, and Lauri Markkanen continued to struggle on defense and with shot selection.

The Bulls finished the first half of the season 4th in pace and were shooting threes among the best teams in the league. All in all, Donovan’s first half to the season was a modest success. The team was playing better than the year prior with essentially the same personnel, but there were still concerns with the team’s frontcourt depth. 

During Wendell Carter Jr’s absence, Daniel Gafford was inserted into the starting lineup and promptly got torched on the regular, including giving up a career-high game to Magic center Nikola Vucevic (more on him later).

Between an underwhelming season from starting center Wendell Carter Jr and a serious lack of depth off the bench, the team was still facing an uphill battle for a spot in the NBA’s play-in tournament, and many fans felt that it was time for the team to make a drastic move. Arturas Karnisovas heard their pleas. 

Bulls Shake Things Up

At the NBA Trade Deadline, Billy Donovan watched his roster, the one he had just started to gain some footing with, turn upside down completely. I’ll spare the specifics since you’ve heard them non-stop at this point, but Donovan now had a few new assets to work with: veteran big men Nikola Vucevic and Daniel Theis, young wing depth in Troy Brown Jr and Javonte Green, and somewhat of an enigma in Al Farouq Aminu.

This era started… slowly. Donovan did not get an opportunity to conduct a practice with his new squad until May of 2021. The problem? It was still March. The new squad started off with horrendous losses to the Spurs, Warriors, and Suns, but put up a pretty good fight against the then league-best Jazz. 

During this stretch, Donovan played with numerous different rotations to try to get a feel for his new guys. 

He tried a starting lineup including Vucevic and Markkanen in the front court. It didn’t work.

He tried giving Al Farouq Aminu minutes. It didn’t work.

He tried starting Tomas Satoransky instead of Coby White to give the team better defense in playmaking. It… kinda worked.

He increased Troy Brown Jr’s minutes every game, culminating in a big win against the Brooklyn Nets in which Brown had key offensive rebounds and saves. It really worked.

After the sluggish start to the second half of the season, Billy’s Boys picked it up for a solid three-game winning streak. They started to resemble and NBA team again.Then, on April 9th, the Bulls squared off against the Hawks in Atlanta. Zach Lavine was unconscious. He had 39 points at halftime and finished with a career-best 51 points. No way the Bulls lose this game, right?

Well… Donovan made questionable decisions down the stretch that helped decide the fate of this game. Despite getting burned consistently by the Trae Young-Clint Capela pick and roll, Donovan rode Lauri Markkanen and Coby White for an extended stretch in the 4th quarter, with Vucevic and Lavine helplessly watching from the bench.

When Lavine checked back in with four minutes left to go in the game, it was too late. The Hawks held on to their lead and never looked back. In retrospect, this game was one of the most glaring examples of lineup mismanagement that Billy Donovan displayed all season long. 

Donovan faced criticism for his rotations for much of the season. Some argued that he left Coby White in the starting lineup for too long during his early-season struggles, and others wondered why Luke Kornet was getting minutes over Daniel Gafford pre-All Star Break. Putting Lauri Markkanen on the court at the same time as Nikola Vucevic failed miserably, though it’s worth mentioning that this pair did not play together nearly as frequently as some make it out to be.

Things Get Even More Complicated…

In light of these rotational issues, what happened next further complicated the story. Zach Lavine exited the rotation and entered the NBA’s health and safety protocol, missing much of the remainder of the season, and up-and-comer Troy Brown Jr exited with an ankle injury. Donovan got some solid late-season minutes out of returning starter Coby White, but the team could not overcome the loss of Lavine and failed to make the play-in tournament.

Grading Billy Donovan’s First Season As Bulls Head Coach

Through his first season, Billy Donovan faced many roadblocks and challenges. Injuries, COVID, trades, and factors out of his control did not help the first-year Bulls head coach. That said, at times he did not help himself, either, with questionable rotations and a lack of player development.

That said, players throughout the season and since the season ended have expressed appreciation for the way Donovan treats them. He is seen as a player-first coach, and is a huge breath of fresh air from the hot air that previous coaches had been blowing. 

Next season, Zach Lavine will go into his first season with the same head coach for consecutive years (mind-blowing). Donovan made adjustments later in the season to run the offense more through Nikola Vucevic, and with a full offseason together, can continue to install plays for him and build chemistry with his teammates.

It’s hard to be totally fair to Donovan one way or the other. Some will argue that he’s being given too many excuses, and others will argue that he hasn’t been given a fair chance. That said, Billy Donovan gets a solid C+ for the 2020-2021 NBA season. While he did not do enough to elevate the team to new heights on his own, he is a part of a total culture reset in Chicago. He weathered challenges, and kept the ship upright to see a new day. Next season, expectations will be higher and there will be less margin for error. Billy Donovan has his work cut out for him.

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