Thoughts on Donovan right now

[SHO'NUFF]

Jeanie Buss would have fired him a long time ago.

[dougthonus]

The new minutes thread, and revisiting last season’s minutes really makes me believe Billy had no clue what the group was capable of without Zach.

If he knew Zach was (supposedly*) holding us back so much, then why play him to the tune of 11th most mpg in the league, and 3rd most total in the entire Association?

You do that when you believe that guy gives you the best chance to win.

* supposedly because, I don’t think it’s individually Zach at all.

If Kobe was resting behind Jordan in his prime, you could argue Jordan was holding Kobe back, but Jordan was still the better player.

Zach was the biggest reason, by far, for the Bulls 14-9 stretch where he averaged about 30 points on 50/40/90 shooting. The problem isn't that Zach just kills teams, the problem was at the start of this year, Zach was playing dramatically worse than his previous three year average.

We could even say, he was playing approximately like Coby White's previous three year average and Coby has come in and played approximately like Zach's previous three year average.

The team isn't playing better because they just can't figure out how to play with Zach and he's gone. They are playing better because Zach was playing like absolute horse manure and Coby is playing like a superstar. If Zach was currently playing like his previous self and Coby also stepped up, the team would be even better.

And I don't think Zach is a super-stud or anything, he's a player with flaws, but he wasn't delivering on his strengths, and that is the problem.

[Stratmaster]

Everyone loves "Mellow Yellow" but I'm more of a "Hurdy Gurdy Man" myself....to each their own I guess.

Well done

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[Ice Man]

Doug - Your post was perfect. From now on, I just need to link to that when addressing the alleged Zach Effect.

Speaking of which, after PatBev joined the Bulls last year, the team's aggregate on/off stats were +10 with PatBev on the court, +90 with PatBev off the court. The PatBev Effect was fake too.

But not, sigh, the Lonzo Effect. That unfortunately was real. That guy made the Bulls better.

[Wingy]

And I don't think Zach is a super-stud or anything, he's a player with flaws, but he wasn't delivering on his strengths, and that is the problem.

Quoted only a snippet, but good overall summary.

My post is somewhat tongue in cheek w/some degree of actual opinion.

1. Mostly that Billy hasn’t done anything magical with the current group. [toward the premise of this thread]

2. Zach isn’t some poisonous toad stool who was the cause of all our ills. [toward the pretty wide spread opinion voiced by many here]

[samwana]

The one thing we tend to forget is that it was Donovan who couldn't make it work before. He couldn't split up DDR and Zach, and he couldn't get them to play what he may or may not have told them to play.
I can't forget that and assume he can integrate Zach. He let DDR and Zach just do whatever they wanted, still doing that more or less with DDR.
Still mismanaging rotations, giving Vuc way too much time to lose games for us.
After mismanaging the team for so long, did he change or was it our new shooting coach that gave our young guys confidence in their abilities?
I would be happy to change coaches, I don't believe Donovan can bring us to the next level.

[dougthonus]

The one thing we tend to forget is that it was Donovan who couldn't make it work before. He couldn't split up DDR and Zach, and he couldn't get them to play what he may or may not have told them to play.
I can't forget that and assume he can integrate Zach. He let DDR and Zach just do whatever they wanted, still doing that more or less with DDR.
Still mismanaging rotations, giving Vuc way too much time to lose games for us.
After mismanaging the team for so long, did he change or was it our new shooting coach that gave our young guys confidence in their abilities?
I would be happy to change coaches, I don't believe Donovan can bring us to the next level.

I'm going to throw out another thought, coach doesn't really make that much difference as long as the team buys into him and he's got solid overall skills. Donovan seems to have both of those things. The team seems to buy into him, and he's obviously a quality coach from many perspectives.

Most of the complaints people have on coaches are in the unprovable/hindsight complaints. Ie, this isn't successful, so he should have done this other thing instead. Many times, fans are upset the coach doesn't yo-yo things like crazy and gives things time to succeed, ie, probably most Bulls fans were heavily pushing for Jevon Carter to replace Coby White in the starting lineup rather than for BD to give Coby time.

If coaches made 10 game movement swings in records, they'd make 50M+ a year. They don't make that big a difference. If you want to take a couple things though that seemed to go well for Donovan this year, he stuck with Coby against fan wishes, and he benched Pat and let him find his groove on the bench. Those things seemed to have pretty overall positive affects.

I'm not in love with everything Donovan does by any stretch (I've been complaining to play Drummond more for as long as he's been here), but I don't think he's doing anything egregiously bad when you factor in the human side of trying to keep everyone motivated and on the same page too.

I'd love to have seen him bring DeMar off the bench in a Manu role (but still close) as an example, but I also understand why in reality, it's not really practical to make that work personality wise.

[Stratmaster]

Hmmm... who was it that started Ayo all last season instead of Coby?

Who let Demar do whatever he wanted to and stall the offense?

Who insisted Williams should be played as a big?

Who alienated the most important player on the team?

Who has called horrible out of time out plays his entire time here?

Who buried Drummond's minutes while watching other teams get offensive rebound after offensive rebound?

But the Bulls played a few good games against pretty bad lineups. So now he's a genius?

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[FriedRise]

Read on Twitter

Zach would never

[HomoSapien]

We have a guy capable of a 24 and 25 night performance and he rarely plays more than 14 minutes a game. That’s a pretty giant blind spot.

[SHO'NUFF]

Hopefully our idiot coach plays Drummond more.

[RSP83]

My thoughts don't change, he's a good communicator. This team struggled for 2 years after Lonzo injury, and he kept doing the same thing and the team stayed intact. Everybody thought he's lost the locker room, but apparently he's not. That shows he has really good PR ability with all his stakeholders (players and management). He's really good at communication.

He's bad with tactical coaching works. He's more of a "create a system" guy and let everybody figure out how to make it work. He would coach a little, but not over coach. I'm not saying this model is bad, but it does feel "soul-less".

Maybe I'm used to following coaches with strong tactical presence like Doug Collins, Skiles, Thibs. Even Phil despite having the triangle, he still have element of surprise tactically here and there. That's why I think among today's coaches I really like Spoelstra's approach.

[sco]

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2023/12/bulls-notes-drummond-taylor-derozan-terry.html

Donovan is turning to Dalen Terry to fill in for Torrey Craig while he recovers from a plantar fascia sprain, notes Annie Costabile of The Chicago Sun-Times. The second-year shooting guard was averaging 18.6 minutes per game over the last three contests prior to Tuesday. “He knows he’s got to get better,” Donovan said. “But I don’t want him totally focused on that. He’s going to play whether he’s missing or making shots. Even earlier on, when he was getting an opportunity to play, what impressed me was [that] his discipline has increased [his execution] on both ends of the floor.”

OK, that's a minus on Billy

[samwana]

Well that hot streak did not change much, we're back to BD is making bad decision after bad decision. I still think he needs to go. Small ball is his game and it doesn't work.

[RSP83]

The team is undermanned right now. We live and die by other players not named Demar or Coby. And nobody really showed up today, I'm looking at Pat, Ayo, Carter.

[sco]

IMO, Billy is more focused on maintaining his relationship with players than winning this season. He's got his deal and seems to be trying very hard to turn pieces of coal like Ayo and Terry into diamonds with minute entitlements.

Sanogo must have dented Billy's car.

[Charlesareed]

Billy needs to be fired he’s an incompetent coach it’s obvious we are getting killed instead and outrebounded because lack of size which he refuses to play the big men we have other the Drummond I guess once they figure out a direction they want to go with this team they’d get a new coach Zach & vooch needs to go for sure but how can they replace their production on the court the team lacks a reliable bench scorer

[kodo]

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2023/12/bulls-notes-drummond-taylor-derozan-terry.html

Donovan is turning to Dalen Terry to fill in for Torrey Craig while he recovers from a plantar fascia sprain, notes Annie Costabile of The Chicago Sun-Times. The second-year shooting guard was averaging 18.6 minutes per game over the last three contests prior to Tuesday. “He knows he’s got to get better,” Donovan said. “But I don’t want him totally focused on that. He’s going to play whether he’s missing or making shots. Even earlier on, when he was getting an opportunity to play, what impressed me was [that] his discipline has increased [his execution] on both ends of the floor.”

OK, that's a minus on Billy

He's an AK guy. Vucevic, Williams, and Terry will always be played otherwise AK looks like an idiot.

[Ice Man]

My thoughts don't change, he's a good communicator. This team struggled for 2 years after Lonzo injury, and he kept doing the same thing and the team stayed intact. Everybody thought he's lost the locker room, but apparently he's not. That shows he has really good PR ability with all his stakeholders (players and management). He's really good at communication.

He's bad with tactical coaching works. He's more of a "create a system" guy and let everybody figure out how to make it work. He would coach a little, but not over coach. I'm not saying this model is bad, but it does feel "soul-less".

Maybe I'm used to following coaches with strong tactical presence like Doug Collins, Skiles, Thibs. Even Phil despite having the triangle, he still have element of surprise tactically here and there. That's why I think among today's coaches I really like Spoelstra's approach.

That's a good summary of Billy. Since people are unhappy with the team, we hear constantly about Billy's tactical weakness. Which is fair. But we don't hear about his strength, which is that players really like him. They have done wherever he has been. And they have here, too. Despite the disappointing record and bad publicity that the Bulls get, with the articles about how they are the league's worst franchise and the team is most likely to be broken up, they are playing hard and there isn't a hint of public dissension. In that respect, he's the anti-Boylen.

[NecessaryEvil]

Well that hot streak did not change much, we're back to BD is making bad decision after bad decision. I still think he needs to go. Small ball is his game and it doesn't work.

My stance hasn’t changed in well over a yr

F I R E Billy

I damn near dislike this front office more than GarPax, which in itself is an amazing feat