Should Billy Donovan Stay As Bulls' Head Coach? Let's Debate

It wasn’t the time to discuss his future when Billy Donovan wanted to concentrate on the rest of the season. Now, it’s time.

With the Chicago Bulls’ season effectively over, the current head coach’s future has become the franchise's most pressing and genuinely complicated question. The support is there. Michael Reinsdorf wants him back. Matas Buzelis and Josh Giddey also made their feelings public and meant every word of it. Adding up to North Carolina, which even forfeited its pursuit and turned to hiring Mike Malone, the decision now comes to Donovan's own, which probably won't drag past next week, as both Billy and Reinsdorfs will meet sometime this week (or they’ve met).

Before the result comes out, let’s put all the suspense and suspicion aside and have a debate: whether he should stay. 

Whatever you want to say about the record, Donovan won the locker room — and that's not meaningless. His years of college coaching gave him a natural instinct for developing young players, and the results showed up this season in ways the standings don't capture. Buzelis leaped with an average of 16.3 points and 5.8 rebounds in 76 starts. Giddey put up career-highs across the board — 17.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 9.1 assists — and looked like a legitimate franchise piece for the first time. Those weren't accidents.

His player-first system keeps everyone involved, which sounds like a participation-trophy philosophy until you watch Rob Dillingham and Leonard Miller flash real potential in the middle of an injury-riddled mess. He appreciated players’ hustle, and he rewarded them — seeing how the former two-way trio, Yuki Kawamura, Lachlan Olbrich and Mac McClung made their way to the NBA court. These are players who could actually matter next season. Donovan is already building the chemistry with them, even if the scoreboard hasn't cooperated.

And practically speaking, Reinsdorf specifically wants Donovan involved in the front office search, because who better to identify what this team needs than the guy who's been on the sideline watching it fall short for six years? That institutional knowledge is worth something.

Six seasons. One playoff appearance. Three Play-In exits. And this year was the worst of all of them.

To be fair — and fairness matters here — the former front office, led by Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley, who were both dismissed last week, took the most blame. Donovan largely worked with whatever AKME handed him, which was often a roster held together with tape and optimism. He didn't build this mess. But he also coached in it for six years without ever finding a way through it, and at some point, the record is the record.

His high-tempo system is a legitimate winning formula — just not with the wrong personnel, and the Bulls never really had the right personnel. The midrange aversion, the offensive principles, none of it lands without the right players executing it. He's been coaching around that problem for years rather than addressing it.

There's also the tanking question, which is uncomfortable but real. Donovan's competitive spirit, genuinely admirable, kept this team competitive enough to miss the lottery in years when better ping-pong ball odds might have changed the franchise's trajectory entirely. Befriending the Play-In had wasted time building for the future.

And then there's the personal angle, which feels almost wrong to bring up but can't be ignored. Donovan lost his mother-in-law in February, and his father just eight days prior. Two losses in a very short period, but he only missed one practice session and gameday. Nobody would blink if he stepped back from the sideline to be with his family — and nobody should. 

Beyond the personal, there's also just the exhaustion of coaching a rudderless franchise through years of mediocrity. Lack of talents, clueless trades, always mean something. It wouldn't shock anyone if Donovan decided he was simply done with the sport.

If Donovan stays, the rhetoric from the organization’s side probably comes down to this: Donovan is a good coach who deserves better, and this franchise is going to give him what he wants. Or in his individual rhetoric, whether staying means he finally gets it depends entirely on whether the Bulls' next front office hire is actually any good.

Not much different, unless he decides to quit.