Thoughts on Donovan right now

[madvillian]

I think Billy and staff have done a pretty good job navigating the team through an early season dumpster fire. The rotations/minutes aren't perfect (they never are), but they've somehow managed to mitigate the badness of the mid-3-minus-1 and also develop and empower all young players of consequence. And the young guys are executing and playing hard; they look like a well-coached team when DeMar isn't iso'ing triple teams and Vuc isn't clanking easy shots and playing traffic cone defense.

Starting to get some Scott Skiles and Curry vibes with Vuc. He could affect some more shots if he just tried jumping.

[ChettheJet]

No need for a poll, just go to the Fire Billy NOW thread and the people who had such strong opposition to him 2 months ago should either stick to what they said then or show their fair weather stripes and slither back changing their tune.

[Ice Man]

My thoughts are that he looks just fine when the Bulls are hitting 3s. When they went 5-14, the Bulls were making 11.5 3s per game. Then they went 7-3 making 14.3 per game. That's a +8 point increase, since they weren't taking more shots. And I can't see how that change possibly had anything to do with Billy.

[FriedRise]

I think any coach would look great when the team is winning. Hell, I was praising Monty Williams just a month ago when he made the likely tough decision to DNP-CD a recent #2 pick and the Pistons beat us for their 2nd win to go up 2-1 on their season.

Why wouldn't Billy do the same to Pat? He's clearly struggling.

But now, 24 losses in a row later? Yeah maybe not so much.

[madvillian]

I think any coach would look great when the team is winning. Hell, I was praising Monty Williams just a month ago when he made the likely tough decision to DNP-CD a recent #2 pick and the Pistons beat us for their 2nd win to go up 2-1 on their season.

Why wouldn't Billy do the same to Pat? He's clearly struggling.

But now, 24 losses in a row later? Yeah maybe not so much.

Monty Williams is gonna go from a COY winner to out of the league. Just goes to show how much context matters with coaches.

[FriedRise]

I think any coach would look great when the team is winning. Hell, I was praising Monty Williams just a month ago when he made the likely tough decision to DNP-CD a recent #2 pick and the Pistons beat us for their 2nd win to go up 2-1 on their season.

Why wouldn't Billy do the same to Pat? He's clearly struggling.

But now, 24 losses in a row later? Yeah maybe not so much.

Monty Williams is gonna go from a COY winner to out of the league. Just goes to show how much context matters with coaches.

Dwane Casey won COY, got fired by the Raptors, and then pretty much faded in Detroit.

Detroit really is where COYs go to die lmao

[jacoby1us]

I think any coach would look great when the team is winning. Hell, I was praising Monty Williams just a month ago when he made the likely tough decision to DNP-CD a recent #2 pick and the Pistons beat us for their 2nd win to go up 2-1 on their season.

Why wouldn't Billy do the same to Pat? He's clearly struggling.

But now, 24 losses in a row later? Yeah maybe not so much.

Monty Williams is gonna go from a COY winner to out of the league. Just goes to show how much context matters with coaches.

Dwane Casey won COY, got fired by the Raptors, and then pretty much faded in Detroit.

Detroit really is where COYs go to die lmao

Detroit signed him for $78M for six years, I don't see them firing him anytime soon with that type of owed money after termination.

[Mbrahv0528]

Monty Williams is gonna go from a COY winner to out of the league. Just goes to show how much context matters with coaches.

Dwane Casey won COY, got fired by the Raptors, and then pretty much faded in Detroit.

Detroit really is where COYs go to die lmao

Detroit signed him for $78M for six years, I don't see them firing him anytime soon with that type of owed money after termination.

Especially when that team being bad is not his fault.

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[chitowndish]

I just mainly voted that he changed my mind. I don't think I'm ready to say he's got brilliant schemes but I also don't think he has horrible ones. The last couple games his rotations seem to be working pretty well but sometimes he can pull guys that are hitting a groove which bothers me so again I'm kind of in the middle on those. I think the main thing is the pieces fit better and the team is actually listening to him which is comparing the difference between having a plan and having no plan. Not sure I'm ready to say it's a great plan but it's better to just have a plan and have everyone pulling in a direction than what we were.

I thought he was a below average coach because it seemed like he wasn't running the team he was basically a passenger but he seems to have everyone buying in so now I'd say he looks like an above average coach. Mainly because through all of this craziness the team still hasn't really given up on the guy, they never really seem to have a bad word to say about him, you have Pat Beverley coming out to bat for Billy saying he's a good coach so I'm leaning toward he's probably a good coach and I'd be happy to keep him around while we develop and build around the young guys.

[NecessaryEvil]

Trade him for a 2nd round pick pls

[LateNight]

My thoughts are that he looks just fine when the Bulls are hitting 3s. When they went 5-14, the Bulls were making 11.5 3s per game. Then they went 7-3 making 14.3 per game. That's a +8 point increase, since they weren't taking more shots. And I can't see how that change possibly had anything to do with Billy.

Well - for the sake of argument - if his offense was the system they’ve been running now (quickly initiate play, move ball fast, find open / good shots) and they weren’t able to run it before because - for some reason - someone refused to initiate a play correctly, or wasn’t in position, or wouldn’t move the ball - then Donovan could be partially responsible for the success now that the system is being run correctly.

Not sure that’s the case - probably a mix of luck and also that - but that’s the argument for him being relevant to the winning streak

[Chi town]

Billy looks good when he has a coach on the floor for him at PG.

When he doesn’t he doesn’t look good and his teams don’t play his style.

Coby is Billy on the floor.

[samwana]

I still would love to move on. He had 2 years to see that Zach and DDR don't work together and didn't have the balls to just split them up and see that they have as little as possible time on the floor together. Let one of them be in a Ginobli role. And it is okay to bench Vuc too if he's not the right guy on the floor. I'm not convinced yet. If Zach really comes back it will be interesting what he decides to do.

[kodo]

I hope people aren't changing their minds about Donovan because of a winning streak.
The two highest paid / best coaches in the league are leading their teams to a respective 2 and 4 win season, Pops & Monty. Is Pops the 2nd worst coach in the league?

But, I was cautiously excited about the Bulls adding a shooting coach over the summer in Patton and that really looks to have paid off.

“Working with (director of player development) Peter Patton helped me a lot. I finally started to learn my shot. Before this, everybody said I could really shoot so nobody ever taught me how to learn my shot. I kind of just shot the ball. He’s been a big help in helping me learn my shot, why I miss.”

White specified minor details like squaring up his body to the rim and holding his follow-through as crucial pointers that have helped him become a more accurate shooter.

Donovan is still Donovan, we still completely ignore weakside 3s and give up more 3s than any team in the league and that will never work in any actual contested game in the POs. But did the overall coaching staff including Patton help? Coby sure thinks so.

[WindyCityBorn]

Trade him for a 2nd round pick pls

You don’t think he is doing good a job now? Who would be better?

[nanokooshball]

Kind of good timing for this post and the following article. Seems like Derozan really respects Donavan

https://www.si.com/nba/bulls/news/demar-derozan-shares-hes-got-a-lot-of-respect-for-chicago-bulls-coach-billy-donovan

That’s why, when DeRozan was asked about Bulls head coach Billy Donovan, he had nothing but praise.

“I’ve played for Dwane Casey; he was coach of the year. I played for Gregg Popovich, arguably one of the greatest coaches of all time, and playing for Billy, my personal opinion, he’s up there with those two guys just from the respect, the effort that you get from him,” DeRozan shared.

“He’s a guy you want to go out there and gain success, not just for yourself but for him, as well,” DeRozan added.

“The love and respect that I have for Billy is right up there with what I had with the other two guys I mentioned. I’ve been lucky my entire career to have coaches like these guys. I tell a lot of the young players that you don’t really know what you have. To have such a great personable coach, hard-working coach in Billy, don’t ever take that for granted because it’s not always greener on the other side,” DeRozan shared.

[DuckIII]

Billy has made rotational decisions I strongly disagreed with at times and frankly I’m not entirely convinced that this is how he “wanted to play” when Zach was playing vs. an adjustment he made when Zach got a “swollen foot.”

There is plenty of evidence that: the prior hierarchy is exactly how he wanted it OR he had no leverage to get his Vet 3 to play the way he actually wanted to play.

Neither option is a good look.

Regardless, I always disagree with coaches on various things. I think BD is a fine coach, got no problem keeping him, and have considered him to basically not even be on the list of the real problems with the Bulls.

[Hangtime84]

Billy was right less hero ball. Shot profile demar is shooting more 3s or a high percentage. A lot of them been catch and shoot too. ( glares at Zach)

Defensively I would to see him with rim protector center to see how much his schemes change.

Young guys players seem to develop well under him if they are hard workers and have decent nba qualities coming into the league.

I’m still wondering about our off ball movement on offense. We still don’t feel like multiple action team.

Billy if Zach is playing like ass again you sit him. He isn’t better than the collective whole.

[NecessaryEvil]

Trade him for a 2nd round pick pls

You don’t think he is doing good a job now? Who would be better?

I’m not an expert on coach hires

But he’s been trash for a very long time and I’m not going to let 8 wins out of 11 games convince me otherwise

Oh yeah,

FIRE BILLY

[GoBlue72391]

He's the best coach in the league

If it was anyone else I would assume this is a joke.