Billy Donovan's Future?

[Lunartic]

Yeah, I've been a detractor for a while now, he's a bad coach. The Bulls are never prepared for their opponents. They play like they don't understand how to rotate on defense past the first help, the bulls get burned by corner threes so often it almost seems like a feature rather than a bug.

The offense is just trash and reliant on Lavine/DDR and the occasional hot roleplayer to create baskets. This is exactly what the OKC offense turned into, KD and Westbrook taking turns ISOing and it always fails. When KD said he can't win with those cats, don't think for second that he excluded Donovan from his criticism.

Fire Billy and throw gobs of money at Carlisle. A coach that actually can create high level offense and utilizes roleplayers and screening action.

The lack of sophistication in the Bulls offense is just astounding.

[FriedRise]

Hard to say which is more of a problem; roster construction or the coaching (likely a little bit of both). But a team with 3 offensive minded players as their Big 3 shouldn’t struggle this much at scoring the basket.

At this level, head coaching is less about the X’s and O’s - but rather about having a voice and influence over the roster to play the way you want the team to play. If all we’re getting is just guys doing whatever they feel like doing - on both ends of the floor - then the coach isn’t very effective.

[samwana]

i've never been a fan, i didn't want him and i haven't seen anything from him that changes my mind. he has no real offense, no real defense, no real development, ingame decisions are mediocre at best, he gets out-coached most of the time, there never seems to be a real game plan or a change ingame.
we seem to go through the motions and try to do more of the same even if it is obviously not working.
i've lost interest, i quit ilp for the first time since it came on the market.

billy was the copout marketing hiring of a coach. it's boring. call me when he does something unexpected and creative. akme should fire him and get a young creative basketball junkie that wants to change things up and use all players to their strength, not only ddr


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[drosestruts]

I like Donovan - if you can get a better coach do it. Therein lies the problem, If we replaced Donovan I'd want a known proven commodity, which there's not a plethora of good coaches unemployed just waiting around for a phone call. Doesn't mean there's not any though, right now I feel like the only available coach I'd be happy getting in Billy's place in Quinn Snyder.

[greenl]

Two things can be true:

BD is an average-to-below-average coach who shouldn’t helm a team that’s trying to go deep in the playoffs.

- And -

This roster isn’t built to win one playoff series let alone several, which means BD isn’t high on my list of concerns.

As to the question, I think BD will be a scapegoat firing at the end of this season or during the next.

Agree here- well said. Maybe a better coach squeezes an extra 4-5 wins out of this roster. But the talent and make up of the team is paramount. I wouldn't pay Donovan top dollar- but I wouldn't be quick to run him off either. Barring some serendipity- the Bulls are staring down the barrel of another re-build.

[Red8911]

Billy has his flaws,his rotations and the offense isn’t the best but he seems to have the locker room under total control and has good relationships with the players, they respect him. That is actually a big part of coaching. That’s why he can be a championship coach with the right talent. Coaches usually come and go but for now my guess is Billy’s job is safe.

[chefo]

When BD had to get creative (half season before the Vuc trade), he did fine. That's the best ball the Bulls have played in years. Players seemed to fit the system.

Thad was having a career year. Lauri was having a career year before he got benched after the trade. Zach was having a career year. WCJ was starting to turn it around as well. Coby was a train-wreck, but it looks like that's more the baseline than the exception.

I've said it before and explained my reasons in detail, but it's pretty obvious to me why the Bulls O seems to struggle when it shouldn't, and that's on AKME, not Donovan per se.

He's got his 3 main 'stars' who can only really play high-level ISO ball. Vuc used to pop a lot in Orlando, but unless he's shooting lights out, other teams are perfectly happy with him jacking up shots. DD and Zach are pretty useless off-ball, DD because he's not a shooter, and Zach because he's usually lazy and clueless when he doesn't have the ball in his hands. So, all 3 guys like to play outside the paint, in the mid-range and out, jacking up jumpers. When they're hot, they'll look good. When they're not, they'll get blown out, because all 3 are net negative defenders to boot.

So, you have 2 guys that more or less take turns and Vuc screens for them and gets 1st option touches out of the P&R. In effect, three 1st option dudes, none of whom are ANY good at consistently creating offense for anybody but themselves. None of them play with pace. There's no real PG on the team, Lonzo is the only above-average passer on the squad.

You have no size in the paint on D and no consistent volume shooting. The Bulls tried to be cool and go against every NBA trend. Volume 3 Shooting? Nah. Rim protection from your bigs? Nah. Switching D with mobile bigs instead? Nah. We'll drop cover our lead-footed C instead.

The Bulls 'bought' names without much consideration of how they fit and complement each other. And, outside of these 3, they are pretty thin on high-end productive NBA-level talent. Lonzo is broken-down, Pat's the same old Pat, Coby hasn't gotten any better however many years in. Caruso is who he is, an 8th-9th man, that the Bulls need to produce like a 5th option.

The 3 main guys the Bulls have are just not good enough two-way players to make it work with the cast around them. And they take home $90M+ ($110M when you add Lonzo) on a team where ownership is not going to pay the lux tax until they're sure they can get that $ back by going deep in the PO.

On paper, the Bulls big 3(4) should make sense, until you realize that you need to play a slower tempo game to accommodate 2 out of the 3, and then further have the epiphany that you don't have the horses to play a half-court game because you've got no floor general and no shooting, to go with no paint protection. Poorly constructed team overall, and now with a maxed-out Lavine to boot. They need to outperform their talent level to win more than 0.50 this year, IMO.

[PaKii94]

The roster isn't doing him any favors BUT he's also not at the level where he can significantly improve the team's baseline

[iqureshi]

Im sorry but AKME has put this team in a very tough spot. They've done a HORRIBLE job building this squad and i dont think Billy is the issue. The roster construction might be one of worst in the league tbh.

This team went into the offseason with a glaring weakness of 3 point shooting, size and a starting power forward and those issues were not addressed at all.

What was the rationale for that?

I'm starting to think AKME are incompetent. Maybe not quite GarPax levels of creating a toxic environment in addition to being incompetent, but incompetent nonetheless.

I disagree, I think gar pax would've stumbled into a competitive roster naturally. Even Pacers and kings are drafting promising rookies. Akme stopped the rebuild to leverage our future on aging past their prime stars. Reminds me of how Colangelo ruined the process. This trash roster isn't Donovans fault. How long have we been hung up on PW/Ayo, at their absolute ceilings none of them are 2 time all stars, more then half the league has young stars with far more promise. In a time in the league where almost everyone is loaded with talent, we went all in for a .500 team. Will take years to truly clean up this mess AKME made, and knowing how cheapo granpa operates, we'll keep prolonging mediocrity with more bad to meh moves.

[MGB8]

The roster isn't doing him any favors BUT he's also not at the level where he can significantly improve the team's baseline

I don't know. The blowout against the Cavs is concerning. The Bulls were without Lonzo, but the Cavs without Garland. The Bulls theoretically should have been competitive - the "big 3" offensive players plus role-players.

That they weren't... suggests fairly big issues.

Who has Donovan developed - either on the Bulls or elsewhere? SGA was good before Billy... so what are his success stories? Why did OKC let him go?

Billy was and is worlds better than the incompetent Boylen... but it sure looks like he's more a "name" than anything else... kind of like Vuc is a name, and even DeRozan (a hit) is a "name" player.

There are big questions about AKME's competence, but just as much, maybe moreso, about Billy's.

Right now, the Bulls to me look like not even a playoff team, despite the win over the (old) Heat team. Not even a "good but not great, treadmill-type" team. The rest of the East is generally better - and the Bulls seem to be the same embarrassment that we saw at the end of last season.

If that trend continues... I think you have to blow it up at the trade deadline, and start from the bottom yet again. Which is sad... but it's a risk when you swing for the fences.

I remember that AK made some snarky remark at the Vuc trade deadline about some team's management thinking they were in a better position than they were... looks like he was really talking about himself. So far, AKME get a D... and it's trending down.

[mmmmmbeeer]

The fact that Lonzo makes such a huge difference in this team…. Very concerning.

How many teams lose their starting PG, a vet who they paid good money for, and don't see a huge difference in the performance of the team? BD has a lot of shortcomings in game management but, personally, him not being able to compensate for the loss of Lonzo doesn't come close to making the list.

[Stratmaster]

Am I the only one not impressed with AKME ? Their drafting is terrible. Besides the Demar sign and trades . The rest of their trades have been terrible . And Billy Donovan is a underwhelming coach

The basic problem I see is AKME almost never gets a bargain. Like, even getting Demar, which was great, was not a bargain because they give up a 1st, Thad, and gave $27M to a guy who was likely going to give $12-17M if we hadn't made that offer.

If you want a gallon of milk, that's great. Go to Meijer and get a gallon of milk for $3. Don't pick it up from the gas station for $6.

Worrying about the 26 mil that goes to Demar is kind of foolish when youre paying an inferior player in Zach Lavine 40 mil to miss 25 games.

When did Zach miss 25 games? He played 72 on one leg last season.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Billy may not be an elite coach, but I think people are being a bit too tough on him here. Let's not forget that the one year he had a fully loaded OKC team in 2015-16, he got one game away from the Finals.

I think the big issue with this team is flawed roster construction.

We have star players who thrive on isolation offense and it leads to the team offense being inconsistent and exploitable.

We have two highly-paid players dealing with knee injuries.

We have a size deficiency in the frontcourt that weakens our defense.

And we have a #4 overall pick who seems like he may simply not be working out.

Very little of this is Billy's fault.

[Stratmaster]

Billy finally found (most of) the combination I have been asking for when he brought Lavine back in with Caruso and Green on the court. That lineup, with Vuc and Demar should be the Bulls starting lineup.

If he starts PWill next game Billy needs to have his head examined.

[Gregnice33]

I have to say his rotations seem solid this year. Last night Boston was making a run, Billy called TO. I say to myself he needs to put ayo, ac, Demar, Jones and vuc in, and that is exactly who he went with and they stopped the run. I was shocked.

[samwana]

time to get this thread back up.

how often do we need to see bd lose the coaching matchup and the game before akme pulls the plug?

he may have been somewhat useful to start coming back to being respectable after hoiberg and boylen. right now though we need a coach that can manage games and lineups. why not play bradley wenn we need size? bd's love for undersized lineups/players is ridiculous and it loses us games we don't have to lose.

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[Muzbar]

Who do you replace Billy with? Who are some (available) coaches that will push this team to another level?

[Axolotl]

Who do you replace Billy with? Who are some (available) coaches that will push this team to another level?

Ime Udoka...

[Muzbar]

Who do you replace Billy with? Who are some (available) coaches that will push this team to another level?

Ime Udoka...

That aren't dirt bags.

Didn't think I'd have to disclose that.

[TheSuzerain]

Who do you replace Billy with? Who are some (available) coaches that will push this team to another level?

I'd give Nash a shot.