Timeline of Billy Donovan's decorated path to Bulls
Billy Donovan’s road to becoming the 21st full-time head coach in Bulls history is as long as it is decorated.
Let’s put it this way: When Artūras Karnišovas said Donovan “has won everywhere his career has taken him” in the statement announcing the hire, he wasn’t kidding.
From high school hardware in New York, to becoming a disciple of Rick Pitino at the college level, to building the University of Florida into a blue-chip program, to a solid run of NBA success with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Bulls are getting more than a hope and a prayer in their next head coach. They’re getting a proven performer.
How he fares with the keys to the current rebuild remains to be seen. Butt let’s take a look back at how Donovan got here.
Donovan is an east coast kid; he grew up on Long Island in Rockville Centre, NY. And his basketball roots run deep. Billy’s father, Bill Donovan Sr., played four years at Boston College from 1958-1962, was the fourth player in program history to tally 1,000 career points and in 2000 was inducted into the B.C. Varsity Club Athletic Hall of Fame.
Before realizing his Division I or professional basketball dreams, Billy led his and his father’s high school alma mater — St. Agnes Cathedral High School — to a Long Island Catholic School League Championship in 1983.
Then, it was off to Providence for four years of college ball. Donovan was nothing spectacular in his first two years as a Friar, averaging 2.3 points and 3.2 points per game in his freshman and sophomore seasons, respectively.
But he made a leap in his junior (15.1 ppg) and senior (20.6 ppg) years after head coach Rick Pitino took over for Joe Mullaney. Donovan helped lead Providence to the Final Four in 1987, starting all 34 games at point guard and racking up 20.6 points, 7.1 assists and 2.4 steals per game. Along the way, he earned the (affectionate) nickname “Billy the Kid” from the Friar faithful.
Donovan parlayed his successful run at Providence into being a third-round draft choice (No. 68 overall) of the Utah Jazz in the 1987 NBA Draft, but was waived by the team in November of that year.
Soon after, Donovan inked a contract with the New York Knicks, his hometown team. He played just one season in New York — and the NBA — appearing in 44 games off the bench and tallying 2.4 points and two assists per game under first-year NBA coach… Rick Pitino. There, Donovan also crossed paths with Bill Cartwright, who would be traded to the Bulls the following offseason and coach the Bulls from 2002 - 2004.
Upon petering out after brief runs in the NBA and CBA, Donovan sought to break into coaching by joining Pitino’s staff as an assistant at the University of Kentucky in 1989.
When Donovan and Pitino arrived, the Wildcats were beginning a two-year postseason ban for recruiting violations. After going 14-14 in their first season, UK accrued a 108-24 record in Donovan’s next four in Lexington, making a run to the Final Four in 1993. Though Donovan had departed by then, he helped recruit several members of Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team.
Where did Donovan go? In March 1994, he agreed to become Marshall’s head basketball coach, then the youngest head coach in the Division I ranks at 28 years old. A program that went 9-18 the season before he arrived finished a combined 35-20 across Donovan’s two years there, winning the 1995 Southern Conference regular season championship.
That gave way to a run of unparalleled success at the University of Florida beginning in 1996. Across 19 seasons in Gainesville, Donovan propelled the Gators to powerhouse status, winning 467 games, accumulating a .715 winning percentage and seizing back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007. He reached four total Final Fours (including 2000 and 2014) and won six SEC titles in his tenure. Only six coaches in NCAA history — Mike Krzyewski, John Wooden, Phil Woolpert, Adolph Rupp, Henry Iba and Donovan — have won back-to-back national titles. Donovan is also one of 120 to win 500 games at the college level.
Among a litany of notable NBA products Donovan fostered during his time at Florida: Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Bradley Beal, Corey Brewer, Jason Williams (who transferred from Marshall after playing for him there), Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Matt Bonner, David Lee, Marreese Speights, Chandler Parsons and Dorian Finney-Smith.
In 2007, Donovan very nearly made the jump to the NBA by accepting the Orlando Magic’s head coaching job (he was even formally introduced by the team). But within a week, he decided to stay with Florida, and in doing so, agreed to not coach in the NBA for at least five years.
His eventual move to the association came then in 2015, when he was brought in to coach an Oklahoma City Thunder team headlined by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. That squad made the Western Conference finals in Donovan’s first season — squandering a 3-1 lead to the 73-win Golden State Warriors — and Durant parted for the Bay shortly thereafter.
Across five seasons in Oklahoma City, Donovan coached to a 243-157 record (.608) and made five consecutive playoff appearances, losing each of the final four in the first round. The Thunder’s 44-28 finish in a truncated 2019-20 season marked the second-highest individual regular-season winning percentage of his tenure — a surprise finish after shipping away Westbrook and Paul George in the 2019 offseason for (cumulatively) Chris Paul, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari and a stable of future draft choices. Moves which appeared to signal a full-blown rebuild. Donovan co-won the NBCA Coach of the Year award, voted on by his peers, for 2019-20 along with Mike Budenholzer.
Donovan and the Thunder mutually agreed to part ways when his contract expired after the season.
Donovan marks the first head coaching hire of Artūras Karnišovas’ tenure, and the 21st full-time head coach in Bulls franchise history.
The move is significant for a number of reasons, but chief among them: Donovan is the first Bulls head coach since Scott Skiles (2003) to have prior NBA head coaching experience at his time of hiring, and only the third of the Reinsdorf era, along with Stan Albeck. Donovan’s .608 career regular-season NBA winning percentage is better than every Bulls coach to suit up except Phil Jackson (.738) and Tom Thibodeau (.647); his 18 playoff victories would be tied with Dick Motta for third on the franchise leaderboard.
He was the most accomplished candidate in a market flush with desirable openings. But the Bulls got their man.
