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This is pretty much the first year I can remember where we haven't discussed our head coach much. Usually this is a hot topic, for the wrong reasons.

While a ton of credit is rightly going out to Derozan, Caruso, Lonzo, Lavine, etc.. there's been zero credit going to Donovan. Is he along for the ride, or is he genuinely been coaching at a high level? Bulls are trotting out crazy lineups with 6' 4" Caruso at PF, 6' 4" Javonte at PF, 6' 6" Derrick Jones Junior at C and still maintaining elite defense. Most of the league is just a carbon copy of each other, Bulls are winning doing unusual things like focusing on mid-range shots, not taking 3s, not rebounding, etc..

If the Bulls keep this up all season (which is questionable), he's probably a serious COY contender given how pessimistic the predictions for the Bulls were this offseason. But Billy has been criticized as a "better than Boylen" but not elite coach.

Stats as of 11/16:
Offensive Rating: 10th
Defensive Rating: 6th
Net Rating: 4th
SRS: 4th

3PM: 30th
3P%: 4th
2PM: 3rd
2P%: 17th
FTM: 3rd
FT%: 1st
REB: 28th
STL: 10th
BLK: 20th
TOV: 6th

First off, the bad:
- The offense is rather bare bones. There aren't a lot of sets in it, the off ball movement is poor, etc.
- The base defense is great but there really aren't many variations of it. When there is an issue, there is no plan B.
- The rotations seem to be set in stone before the game. Frequently hot players will get pulled for cold players to come in.
- I'm still irritated that Donovan went away from putting the roll man in the middle. He seems to have fixed that but it was rather obvious.
- In game tactical adjustments seem to be almost nonexistant

The good:
- There seems to be rather great feedback to players after the game on in game decision making. On a game to game basis, you can see individual players learn from their mistakes. Ayo has commented on this.
- I have seen lots of evidence of game to game adjustments on a team wide tactics basis
- The base offense is fine and offers a lot of flexibility.
- He seems to be great at getting players to buy in and execute his schemes. Whatever his teaching method is, it works. I don't see a lot of evidence that players are on different pages.
- The rotation might be fixed but its pretty smart. He doesn't have a completely inept group out there every night for a few minutes.


Overall, I would give Donovan a B+ so far for the season. IMO, Rivers, Kerr and Thibodeau outcoached him in individual games so far this year preventing the A.

Jim Boylen thinks Billy Donovan is doing a great job. Boylen got a job on NBATV as an analyst.

Billy does seem to take the time to understand how players like to play and what they think they do well, and use that to define their roles. I think by doing this, he is able to get players to listen to him and he is able to get them to fix those 1 or 2 things that they do that most negatively impacts their game.

I think he's been great. The rotations have been on point, the defense has been far better than most people (including me) thought it could ever be and he keeps making good adjustments in-between games. I also like his offensive approach and think we're not even close to reaching our potential on that end. He'll probably never be an elite in-game tactician, but otherwise he's been close to perfect so far IMO.

He's doing a great job having been dealt an undersized front line. Starting Green at the PF even before Vuc had to sit down required some faith that teams wouldn't find a way to exploit him in the post. It's worked out and seems to be working with Caruso starting. To me that's a failure on the part of the opposition coaches to not hammer on what's always a mismatch. They do lack rebounding at times with the small lineups, Green does a credible job, DJJ does the job, Brown in the last game he played hit the boards. The thing is Zach is never a triple double threat because he doesn't get in the lane to rebound very often where as Lonzo and Caruso do their fair share on the glass.

It's hard to argue with the offense of the starting 5, the bench with Caruso needed Demar or Zach to score, now with Green on the second unit they are really short on shooters, I think it will pick up once Coby is ready for heavy minutes. DJJ has looked good the last few games, cutting and being ready for passes, if they had one more big who could shoot I think they'd try starting him. In fact if Bradley gets wit the flow once Vuc returns i can imagine him going out at the 7 minute mark like DeRozen does now for Bradley then Vuc and Demar returning with White and 2 others from the bench at the quarter. That would be a scoring lineup.

Billy is making good moves and some great and for once coaching, going back to Boylen and Fred and Thibs at the end, is not an issue. Honestly I think healthy team when Vuc returns they'll really go on a long winning streak

A team starting 4 guards and Tony Bradley shouldn't be this dominant.

Also, a team starting 4 guards and Tony Bradley shouldn't need this much passing and decision making by Tony Bradley.

Starting Alex Caruso at PF is weird man, but good god it's been working. We basically just double down on the lack of size, own it, swarm all the big men, and maximize our perimeter defense by pairing Caruso with Lonzo. It's some mad scientist ****.

Billy definitely has his flaws but he also has his good. I feel like his good outweigh the bad and the players seem to love him. Even ex players are always walking up to him and hugging etc. I believe in him

BeatDaCavs420 wrote:Billy definitely has his flaws but he also has his good. I feel like his good outweigh the bad and the players seem to love him. Even ex players are always walking up to him and hugging etc. I believe in him

He outcoached the 73 win warriors team for a half a series before Kerr adjusted and Klay went nuts. I'd say he's shown he can be close to a championship level coach.

The Clippers announcers were praising him to the high heavens on Saturday. I don't see how you can have any complaints about him with how much they've over-performed. Of course, some people will still complain no matter what because of course they know better, but I feel like we're fortunate to have him.

Checks all my boxes:

1. Players love him (past and present, inc. Noah, PG13).

2. Great in-game rotations imo. Kinda sets a consistent pattern, but also shows zero hesitation DNP’ing a consistent guy who has a bad match-up, or calling a rookie or deep bench guy for a different look.

3. Great communicator. Articulate, and sums up my thoughts and provides deeper insights in press conferences. Says it how it is, but also really nice and respectful about it. Think about last year’s looming Lauri situation; no minutes, no future in town, no defense, but his camp wanted more touches and a contract. What a professional way to handle it? There was never a locker room meltdown, despite a lot of guys getting iced in a way. Not to mention the disappointing losses.

Lastly, honorable mention… everyone’s asking him to challenge more calls… I actually like that he doesn’t complain about calls a lot. He does when they’re very blatant, but he even last night motioned DJJ to stop complaining and get back on transition D. I hate sobbing arms-up players. He’s clearly not about that culture.

coldfish wrote:First off, the bad:
- The offense is rather bare bones. There aren't a lot of sets in it, the off ball movement is poor, etc.
- The base defense is great but there really aren't many variations of it. When there is an issue, there is no plan B.
- The rotations seem to be set in stone before the game. Frequently hot players will get pulled for cold players to come in.
- I'm still irritated that Donovan went away from putting the roll man in the middle. He seems to have fixed that but it was rather obvious.
- In game tactical adjustments seem to be almost nonexistant

The good:
- There seems to be rather great feedback to players after the game on in game decision making. On a game to game basis, you can see individual players learn from their mistakes. Ayo has commented on this.
- I have seen lots of evidence of game to game adjustments on a team wide tactics basis
- The base offense is fine and offers a lot of flexibility.
- He seems to be great at getting players to buy in and execute his schemes. Whatever his teaching method is, it works. I don't see a lot of evidence that players are on different pages.
- The rotation might be fixed but its pretty smart. He doesn't have a completely inept group out there every night for a few minutes.


Overall, I would give Donovan a B+ so far for the season. IMO, Rivers, Kerr and Thibodeau outcoached him in individual games so far this year preventing the A.

I've been wondering that maybe the offense being bare bones and the defense not being varied is purposeful. This team was rebuilt basically overnight and with such drastic changes in personnel skillset that there may not have been enough time to develop more complex offenses and defenses. Hopefully donovan's plan was to get the basics down and built on it once the team gets more comfortable with the system and each other.

I think the offense relies on ISO too much with not enough ball movement. Other than that, my main criticism of him is that he plays his starters too much in lopsided games. This is a thin team - he needs to find ways to get guys as much rest as possible.

I don’t think he’s an elite coach but he’s a pretty good one. I think he scrapes into the top 10.

His defensive schemes are great but his offense leaves a lot to be desired and is mostly saved by having great one on one scorers. His challenge usage would have to be close to the worst in the league. Very solid in game rotation manager and uses timeouts effectively as well. He seems very much a players coach.

I think Donovan is excelling in managing egos/personalities. This team seems to have better chemistry than most if not all our past teams and in him some ways I'm including the dynasty since these guys seem to genuinely love and support each other. It's also the first time in forever where we don't have a player that's obviously disgruntled about their role.

On the negative side, I think Donovan has clear blindspots. He doesn't challenge calls enough, our offense at times is a little too unstructured, and I believe that he's likely the one who is pushing for us to be this small which I think will eventually be our downfall.

All that said, this is this team's first year of existence. Teams rarely win a ring the first season they're assembled, so he deserves the chance to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Overall I'd give him a B+.

He's been great and obviously a HUGE upgrade over the last guy, but I wonder if he thinks that he gets one challenge a season. It's per game, Billy! I feel like he puts way too much trust on the system and the judgement of the referees over his own players. One successful review could mean 1 fewer foul for your player and/or possibly up to a 6-point swing. It could turn the tide when the game is down to the wire.

Plus, is it really losing a timeout if the game stops anyway during a coach's challenge? You can still draw stuff up and talk to your players while the refs are reviewing the play. At worst, it's a regular timeout and you get your guys a little breather while they're waiting. I just don't understand the logic against using it.

MrSparkle wrote:Checks all my boxes:

1. Players love him (past and present, inc. Noah, PG13).

2. Great in-game rotations imo. Kinda sets a consistent pattern, but also shows zero hesitation DNP’ing a consistent guy who has a bad match-up, or calling a rookie or deep bench guy for a different look.

3. Great communicator. Articulate, and sums up my thoughts and provides deeper insights in press conferences. Says it how it is, but also really nice and respectful about it. Think about last year’s looming Lauri situation; no minutes, no future in town, no defense, but his camp wanted more touches and a contract. What a professional way to handle it? There was never a locker room meltdown, despite a lot of guys getting iced in a way. Not to mention the disappointing losses.

Lastly, honorable mention… everyone’s asking him to challenge more calls… I actually like that he doesn’t complain about calls a lot. He does when they’re very blatant, but he even last night motioned DJJ to stop complaining and get back on transition D. I hate sobbing arms-up players. He’s clearly not about that culture.

I’m with you on the honorable mention. He has to lead by example with that. Zach is always pouting about calls and that is a weakness of his. If BD is just shrugging off the challenges and saying let’s play, that is a culture thing and I personally like that. My thought in all sports is do better so that one call doesn’t change the game. If you can’t do better, either learn how to or accept that the other team was better that night. The no challenge last night on the ball that went out of bounds… it was the wrong call, he didn’t touch it, but at the same time there could just as easily have been a foul called. I get the complaint but I have always liked a level headed coach myself.

He is also like Thibs, where he seems to be able to squeeze a lot of juice out of his players, but unlike Thibs it doesn’t seem like he runs them into the ground.

I know college success means nada in the pros but still back to back national championships is a really tough feat. He actually was out in OKC for doing poorly, but because he wasn’t able to tank. I’ll take that guy as a coach.

Real interesting what happens when you get a coach who has a pedigree and coaching experience. I mean could have tried a 3rd Jim Boilan

IMO a great coach is one that has made the transition from being a teacher/developer to being a strategist/preparation/motivator.

The 1st step(s) is/are for the FO to bring in the players that are established, know the NBA, and still want to win a championship.

So, I think that any discussion about BD has to be centered on how well prepared the team is for each game that it plays.

In that regard, I've been very impressed with how the team has performed against most of the teams that they've played. I've never had the impression that they weren't prepared or motivated.

But I do feel that they've failed to execute (missing wide open shots, and sometimes even layups). That can't be blamed on BD.

In-game adjustments (especially after halftime) can always be criticized when the team loses, but I've been impressed by how the team has performed in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

The end effect is that the team does not appear to have peaked yet. They've played some games that were near perfect (especially defensively) but there is still room for improvements in execution, especially against superstar players.

But every other team in the NBA has the same problem, and preparing for the combination of DDR and Zach must be a nightmare for most coaches.

Then, if they somehow manage it, you have to be impressed with their coaches for being able to pull it off. And that makes the rematches something to anticipate, and really fun (from the perspective of seeing the strategy and preparation) to watch.

I think the NBA HEAD coaches job is to manage egos, not deal with calling plays and rotations.
This is what the assistants are for.

The head coach watches the game, looks at what players are doing and makes substitutions based on what he sees.

But before and after the game, Donovans main job is to build chemistry with players and get players to build chemistry with each other.
Very clear this team, all gets along right now. They have all said it, they like each other.

But what happens when we start to lose games and run into adversity.
That's when we'll see how Billy D does.......


Last night Stacy was talking about how calm and composed Billy is. Never too up or down.
Then minutes later Scott Foster makes a bad call and Donovan is yelling at him.

but then 1 minute later you see him approach Foster all calm and respectful.
Seemed to say to him he knew he just yelled at him during the heat of the moment and was apoligizing for it.

That kind of stuff matters int he playoffs when it comes to crucial calls.
NBA refs bank that stuff and do make favorible calls in favors of respectful coaches and players.
You can't convince me otherwise after watching trhe NBA for decades. These guys (and girls) are humans and want to be respected.

Donovan seems to get that and it will matter in the playoffs.