Here's Shams. I'm not sure I totally believe that Billy isn't getting a parting gift:
> “They offered him any amount of years that he wanted to stay as coach, any type of extension he wanted, even a high-ranking managerial role. But Billy Donovan wanted to keep coaching and he actually had an option in his contract for next season and he decided to decline it and step down as head coach,”
Michael: We’d love for you to stay, Billy. Just name your price.
Billy: That’s nice of you, but I think it’s time for me to go.
Michael: Do you want more money? Years? A promotion? Seriously, name your price and we’ll pay it.
Billy: It’s not about money or security. I’m ready to move on and that’s what would be best for everyone.
Michael: We think it would be best for everyone if you stay here for the rest of your life. You don’t even have to actually work if you don’t want to. We can just give you an advisor job or something like that.
Billy: Thanks, but I think a clean break is best. And with all due respect, I wouldn’t be interested in a lifetime job that does nothing other than take money from you guys. I mean, what kind of a jerk would actually be interested in something like that?
This is a genuinely weird feeling as a Bulls fan. Nearly everything has gone right over the last month or so.
1. AKME were fired despite just signing extensions last year.
2. The Bulls managed to hang onto their draft position despite Milwaukee doing everything they could to overtake them.
3. Portland makes the playoffs giving the Bulls a second first round pick this year.
4. Phoenix also makes the playoffs which locks that pick into 15 instead of having the potential to drop to 16 (not a huge deal, but still a positive) due to Portland and LAC having identical records.
5. Billy basically quits, which forces the Reinsdorfs to give full control to whatever new front office comes in. The Billy requirement could very well have turned some potential hires off from the job opportunity.
Come on, Silver, bump us up into the top 4, please!! It doesn't even need to be #1. I think anyone in the top 4 would have a very good chance at becoming a star in the league.
(Posted this in the previous thread before this article came out.)
I don't like The Chicago Bulls being a leadership training ground (with the trainer being John Paxson) but if lowering expectations I agree it wasn't a dismaying list
Generally agree. Maybe the only negative news is how many guys projected as mid-1st rounders are choosing to forego the draft and go back to school. That will thin out the crop at #15 and have a cascading effect all the way down to #38.
I REALLY want us to hit a Top 4 pick but if we don't pull a ping pong ball, I'm still advocating to try and use #9 and #15 in a trade to move up. The best path forward for any rebuild is finding a star and there might be a few at the top of this draft.
Anybody forego the draft that you feel like would have been a good fit at #15? Mullins is the only person that comes to mind that had been mocked in that area, and I wasn't stoked about him coming to the Bulls.
Would be thrilled to move up to the top 4 - I've got a feeling the price would be mighty, mighty steep.
I saw Thomas Haugh mocked to the Bulls and he might have been interesting. Not a Mullins fan either, but if someone was going to grab him between #10 and #14, then they're now gonna take a guy the Bulls might want.
Ahh, I didn't see that Haugh is going back, too. Kind of surprising since he's a junior - that NIL money must be pretty nice. Hear you about the ripple effect.
I really don't like Haugh. Or Mullins. But their being gone does increase scarcity in the middle and makes it more likely that some of the guys you'd like more will get taken sooner. (As you said.. cascading effect)
I think Patrick Ngongba was also projected to go around 15 as well. Not saying the Bulls necessarily should have targeted him there, but he would have been an option due to their need for centers. He recently recommitted to Duke for next year.
Could be worse, certainly. Part of me wonders if Matt Lloyd is an inevitability and all of the search firm machinations and leaked candidate lists are a retread of the Bears HC search last year, when Ben Johnson was always the guy but Poles spent weeks interviewing anyone with a pulse...
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you keep on ragging on everything Bulls, you'd have to admit that the Reinsdorf's are the issue, and their employees accepted the jobs with certain constraints. You wouldn't deny the team coaches, or the coaches jobs, would you? Same for the GM.
Most teams teams hire a rookie GM and HC, rather than a retread; it's easy to blast the owners either way.
Yes, they'll be young and lose a lot. That's what many hoped for. Don't worry, be happy.
If they develop, the Bulls could go the formulaic: Hire a winning FA player and a HC with a resume. You could write several years' worth of articles today.
I want to defend Will Hardy from the "bozo" slander! He's shown how good he can be as a coach when he's allowed to be.
I hope the Bulls can look towards OKC and Utah as examples for how to build when you have no money to spend (or in this case, you just don't want to spend).
My major concern is:
Why are we not seeing more names come from the OKC/Boston pipelines? These are clearly the two best run franchises in the league and neither leverage market advantages. I'd love to see more folks from those organizations on the list, especially for executives.
Coach-wise - I think Donovan was considerably better than he was given credit for and got good results from the team. He has never been interested in a rebuild (wonder if he might head to Washington, Portland (if they'll pay him...), etc. to kickstart a post-rebuild team. Huge win to have an executive search untethered by loyalty to him. I think it's hard for anyone not inside basketball to know who the great young coaches are but hopefully, a good executive can find that guy the way OKC, Utah, and Boston have.
Agreed. Like the way OKC, Boston, Utah, ATL, NO and Brooklynn either have or are putting together good rosters. Hope that whomever the Bulls hire is patient. It may take a season or two to put together a sustainable winning team.
It's apparent that the earliest the bulls will compete is 2030...so for the new FO, please trade matas this season or next before it's too late. He will not be here to witness any level of sustainable success.
I'm okay with trading Matas if we get good value in return, but there's nothing stopping a highly skilled FO from building a team that can compete earlier than 2030. (By compete, I mean start making playoff appearances with the chance to win series.) The Bulls have some decent assets, two 1st rounders this year, some surplus 2nds, and no albatross contracts (PWill is awful, but in terms of % of our cap it could be worse, and maybe we can stretch-and-waive). And we've got very good cap flexibility.
I'm not saying I expect the team to be in the 2028 ECF or anything, but turnarounds can happen pretty quickly, especially with a little luck. And we know the 'Dorfs will get nervous if the team is bad for too many years in a row and attendance suffers.
I’m still convinced Donovan is a good NBA coach. He might be, but I’m not convinced. Both teams he led had to go into complete rebuild/tank mode. That, to me, is the key indicator. The best coaches don’t do that. Or, if they do, they stick it out and do the coaching necessary to come out of the rebuild.
While I wouldn’t want to work for the Bulls anyway, I think it’s smart for him to step away. He can easily blame his badness on AKME, and he’ll probably get another job if he wants, maybe as soon as this season.
I don’t dislike him, but I’ve never been a fan either. Glad they’re moving on.
Thank you Billy Donovan for realizing that you are not the right coach and that your methods will stagnate the Bulls and continue to make them a laughingstock around the league. The Bulls current best players are good enough for the bench if you build the bench the right way. We need to focus on the weaknesses of the top teams around the league and see what they don't have in order to build a winning team to contend. Please stop talking about getting Zion because if he was the answer for Chicago, he would have been the answer for where he is. You get what you pay for.
If you really want to give the Bulls a chance to contend, Reinsdorf should sell the Bulls to another billionaire that is not a tightwad. Maybe Reinsdorf can try buying some Home Depots or invest in bitcoin. He should leave the NBA to people who have a heart for the sport and watch the games on TV. Forget Wes Unseld or anyone else that was infected by the previous management.
We need a proven coach that is a quick thinker and knows how other coaches think on the court. We need a coach that is steps ahead of coaches on the opposing team and none of this is possible with a keep a lot of money focused owner and office. We can be economical and smart with picking talent at the same time. This will take proper research on whoever is going to be the next front office. I heard a rumor that there is an agent out there who may be picked for the GM spot who was responsible for finding guys like Donovan Mitchell and Trey Young. I would consider him before picking a buddy from another team. Give Chicago a winning team and they will appreciate it by showing up big time for every game. It's happened before.
if the Bulls were big-time, they'd poach Mike Schmitz from the Blazers as their new owner is running the interesting gambit of coming in saying he's a cheap fuck
problem is Reinsdorf wants owners like that - better for everyone, a low tide sinks all salaries - so he won't see it as an opportunity
It has been proven over and over again with Reinsdorf since the early 80s that it's a matter of principle for him. Ownership solidarity against the rising tide of contract inflation and player autonomy. He's been a driving force in collective bargaining agreements (and strikes/lockouts) in the MLB and NBA for his entire career as an owner. And he's certainly raised and trained Mikey to follow in his ideological footsteps.
Bulls hires are always going to have to be on board with the way the Bulls' ownership thinks. It doesn't make it impossible to be really good (6 rings in the 90s, and maybe a couple more with some better luck in the 2010s) but it just reduces the number of possible strategic pathways to being really good.
You left out that Jerry Krause built championship teams around MJ twice. And when Krause got the job he didn't trade MJ to make it his team, when MJ was not the GOAT but was considered a high scorer who didn't make his teammates better. Of course, MJ and Phil showed their gratitude... not.
This season the Bulls led the NBA in attendance. The team was .500 a couple weeks before the trade deadline. Then came the (for AKME atypical) firesale, to complete the teardown phase of the rebuild announced a couple of ago, all of which the Reinsdorf's must have agreed to or ordered. The next management team will also have a couple swings at it.
Maybe the hottest (realistic) candidate, Taylor Jenkins, was just hired by the Bucks. Pretty surprising it was this fast, but unlike the Bulls, the Bucks do have a GM in place (for better or for worse)
So the Bulls offered him the GM job in 2020 and he turned it down, then they interviewed him for the EVP job and he effectively turned them down again. Why does he keep interviewing??
"Sources have informed Charania that Chicago even offered Brown its general manager role beneath Arturas Karnisovas in 2020 but ultimately declined. Marc Eversley eventually booked the gig."
yea they could have easily used Ayo, Coby or hell even CJ McCollum....all 3 could have been gotten without any 1sts. Not sure wtf they were thinking. Reed could still be good one day but he is not ready and Amen Thompson should not be a primary ballhandler, he doesn't have the handles and most importantly the decision making.
Another Jerry victory. If Billy really did get a secret extension, him resigning means Jerry won't have to pay it!
I'd bet he's getting a big check, out of 'respect'
Here's Shams. I'm not sure I totally believe that Billy isn't getting a parting gift:
> “They offered him any amount of years that he wanted to stay as coach, any type of extension he wanted, even a high-ranking managerial role. But Billy Donovan wanted to keep coaching and he actually had an option in his contract for next season and he decided to decline it and step down as head coach,”
Billy "I Hate it Here" Donovan, everyone!
Michael: We’d love for you to stay, Billy. Just name your price.
Billy: That’s nice of you, but I think it’s time for me to go.
Michael: Do you want more money? Years? A promotion? Seriously, name your price and we’ll pay it.
Billy: It’s not about money or security. I’m ready to move on and that’s what would be best for everyone.
Michael: We think it would be best for everyone if you stay here for the rest of your life. You don’t even have to actually work if you don’t want to. We can just give you an advisor job or something like that.
Billy: Thanks, but I think a clean break is best. And with all due respect, I wouldn’t be interested in a lifetime job that does nothing other than take money from you guys. I mean, what kind of a jerk would actually be interested in something like that?
*Paxson shifts in seat nervously*
This is a genuinely weird feeling as a Bulls fan. Nearly everything has gone right over the last month or so.
1. AKME were fired despite just signing extensions last year.
2. The Bulls managed to hang onto their draft position despite Milwaukee doing everything they could to overtake them.
3. Portland makes the playoffs giving the Bulls a second first round pick this year.
4. Phoenix also makes the playoffs which locks that pick into 15 instead of having the potential to drop to 16 (not a huge deal, but still a positive) due to Portland and LAC having identical records.
5. Billy basically quits, which forces the Reinsdorfs to give full control to whatever new front office comes in. The Billy requirement could very well have turned some potential hires off from the job opportunity.
Come on, Silver, bump us up into the top 4, please!! It doesn't even need to be #1. I think anyone in the top 4 would have a very good chance at becoming a star in the league.
(Posted this in the previous thread before this article came out.)
And the leaked list of executives all look like totally reasonable hires with high upsides!
Bulls might be starting something fun.
I don't like The Chicago Bulls being a leadership training ground (with the trainer being John Paxson) but if lowering expectations I agree it wasn't a dismaying list
Generally agree. Maybe the only negative news is how many guys projected as mid-1st rounders are choosing to forego the draft and go back to school. That will thin out the crop at #15 and have a cascading effect all the way down to #38.
I REALLY want us to hit a Top 4 pick but if we don't pull a ping pong ball, I'm still advocating to try and use #9 and #15 in a trade to move up. The best path forward for any rebuild is finding a star and there might be a few at the top of this draft.
Anybody forego the draft that you feel like would have been a good fit at #15? Mullins is the only person that comes to mind that had been mocked in that area, and I wasn't stoked about him coming to the Bulls.
Would be thrilled to move up to the top 4 - I've got a feeling the price would be mighty, mighty steep.
I saw Thomas Haugh mocked to the Bulls and he might have been interesting. Not a Mullins fan either, but if someone was going to grab him between #10 and #14, then they're now gonna take a guy the Bulls might want.
Ahh, I didn't see that Haugh is going back, too. Kind of surprising since he's a junior - that NIL money must be pretty nice. Hear you about the ripple effect.
I really don't like Haugh. Or Mullins. But their being gone does increase scarcity in the middle and makes it more likely that some of the guys you'd like more will get taken sooner. (As you said.. cascading effect)
I think Patrick Ngongba was also projected to go around 15 as well. Not saying the Bulls necessarily should have targeted him there, but he would have been an option due to their need for centers. He recently recommitted to Duke for next year.
the lottery is in chicago this year too so rev up the rigging dreams
"and their top-10 lottery pick plus 21 year old Noa Essengue from last year’s draft"
Just a heads up, yfbb, but Essengue can't legally drink yet (he's 19).
thanks I'll correct. I think I was originally writing how there were multiple 21-and-other options
Drinking age is 18 in France where he's from! So my math says French 19yo = USA 21yo. #science
It's the same reason I started letting my dog order cocktails when she turned 3.
My current guess is they’re going to hire Matt Lloyd and he’ll hire Micah Nori.
Could be worse, certainly. Part of me wonders if Matt Lloyd is an inevitability and all of the search firm machinations and leaked candidate lists are a retread of the Bears HC search last year, when Ben Johnson was always the guy but Poles spent weeks interviewing anyone with a pulse...
I don't know. Austin Brown is an Evanston Township High School grad. Might have a #houseinthearea
I hear Steve Kerr is available
I recognize you're being facetious, but Kerr would 1) cost too much and 2) has a feud with John Paxson the decider
Oh man, so feuding with Pax is a disqualifier? Dang. I had just typed up a 500-word response advocating for Vinny Del Negro's triumphant return.
in fact Reinsorfish the young mispelled "Billy Donovan" for "John Paxson"
hey, he's not a basketball mind ^^
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you keep on ragging on everything Bulls, you'd have to admit that the Reinsdorf's are the issue, and their employees accepted the jobs with certain constraints. You wouldn't deny the team coaches, or the coaches jobs, would you? Same for the GM.
Most teams teams hire a rookie GM and HC, rather than a retread; it's easy to blast the owners either way.
Yes, they'll be young and lose a lot. That's what many hoped for. Don't worry, be happy.
If they develop, the Bulls could go the formulaic: Hire a winning FA player and a HC with a resume. You could write several years' worth of articles today.
yet another Bulls embarrassment, they publicly throw themselves at billy and he still says 'yeah no thanks'
I want to defend Will Hardy from the "bozo" slander! He's shown how good he can be as a coach when he's allowed to be.
I hope the Bulls can look towards OKC and Utah as examples for how to build when you have no money to spend (or in this case, you just don't want to spend).
My major concern is:
Why are we not seeing more names come from the OKC/Boston pipelines? These are clearly the two best run franchises in the league and neither leverage market advantages. I'd love to see more folks from those organizations on the list, especially for executives.
Coach-wise - I think Donovan was considerably better than he was given credit for and got good results from the team. He has never been interested in a rebuild (wonder if he might head to Washington, Portland (if they'll pay him...), etc. to kickstart a post-rebuild team. Huge win to have an executive search untethered by loyalty to him. I think it's hard for anyone not inside basketball to know who the great young coaches are but hopefully, a good executive can find that guy the way OKC, Utah, and Boston have.
Agreed. Like the way OKC, Boston, Utah, ATL, NO and Brooklynn either have or are putting together good rosters. Hope that whomever the Bulls hire is patient. It may take a season or two to put together a sustainable winning team.
It's apparent that the earliest the bulls will compete is 2030...so for the new FO, please trade matas this season or next before it's too late. He will not be here to witness any level of sustainable success.
I'm okay with trading Matas if we get good value in return, but there's nothing stopping a highly skilled FO from building a team that can compete earlier than 2030. (By compete, I mean start making playoff appearances with the chance to win series.) The Bulls have some decent assets, two 1st rounders this year, some surplus 2nds, and no albatross contracts (PWill is awful, but in terms of % of our cap it could be worse, and maybe we can stretch-and-waive). And we've got very good cap flexibility.
I'm not saying I expect the team to be in the 2028 ECF or anything, but turnarounds can happen pretty quickly, especially with a little luck. And we know the 'Dorfs will get nervous if the team is bad for too many years in a row and attendance suffers.
trade matas for what, someone like matas
Even if they don't compete until then, he'll be 25 in 2030. I think we can give it a minute.
I’m still convinced Donovan is a good NBA coach. He might be, but I’m not convinced. Both teams he led had to go into complete rebuild/tank mode. That, to me, is the key indicator. The best coaches don’t do that. Or, if they do, they stick it out and do the coaching necessary to come out of the rebuild.
While I wouldn’t want to work for the Bulls anyway, I think it’s smart for him to step away. He can easily blame his badness on AKME, and he’ll probably get another job if he wants, maybe as soon as this season.
I don’t dislike him, but I’ve never been a fan either. Glad they’re moving on.
Thank you Billy Donovan for realizing that you are not the right coach and that your methods will stagnate the Bulls and continue to make them a laughingstock around the league. The Bulls current best players are good enough for the bench if you build the bench the right way. We need to focus on the weaknesses of the top teams around the league and see what they don't have in order to build a winning team to contend. Please stop talking about getting Zion because if he was the answer for Chicago, he would have been the answer for where he is. You get what you pay for.
If you really want to give the Bulls a chance to contend, Reinsdorf should sell the Bulls to another billionaire that is not a tightwad. Maybe Reinsdorf can try buying some Home Depots or invest in bitcoin. He should leave the NBA to people who have a heart for the sport and watch the games on TV. Forget Wes Unseld or anyone else that was infected by the previous management.
We need a proven coach that is a quick thinker and knows how other coaches think on the court. We need a coach that is steps ahead of coaches on the opposing team and none of this is possible with a keep a lot of money focused owner and office. We can be economical and smart with picking talent at the same time. This will take proper research on whoever is going to be the next front office. I heard a rumor that there is an agent out there who may be picked for the GM spot who was responsible for finding guys like Donovan Mitchell and Trey Young. I would consider him before picking a buddy from another team. Give Chicago a winning team and they will appreciate it by showing up big time for every game. It's happened before.
if the Bulls were big-time, they'd poach Mike Schmitz from the Blazers as their new owner is running the interesting gambit of coming in saying he's a cheap fuck
problem is Reinsdorf wants owners like that - better for everyone, a low tide sinks all salaries - so he won't see it as an opportunity
It has been proven over and over again with Reinsdorf since the early 80s that it's a matter of principle for him. Ownership solidarity against the rising tide of contract inflation and player autonomy. He's been a driving force in collective bargaining agreements (and strikes/lockouts) in the MLB and NBA for his entire career as an owner. And he's certainly raised and trained Mikey to follow in his ideological footsteps.
Bulls hires are always going to have to be on board with the way the Bulls' ownership thinks. It doesn't make it impossible to be really good (6 rings in the 90s, and maybe a couple more with some better luck in the 2010s) but it just reduces the number of possible strategic pathways to being really good.
We're always just the best player in history away from being undeniable.
You left out that Jerry Krause built championship teams around MJ twice. And when Krause got the job he didn't trade MJ to make it his team, when MJ was not the GOAT but was considered a high scorer who didn't make his teammates better. Of course, MJ and Phil showed their gratitude... not.
This season the Bulls led the NBA in attendance. The team was .500 a couple weeks before the trade deadline. Then came the (for AKME atypical) firesale, to complete the teardown phase of the rebuild announced a couple of ago, all of which the Reinsdorf's must have agreed to or ordered. The next management team will also have a couple swings at it.
Maybe the hottest (realistic) candidate, Taylor Jenkins, was just hired by the Bucks. Pretty surprising it was this fast, but unlike the Bulls, the Bucks do have a GM in place (for better or for worse)
Austin Brown, the player agent who was on the initial leaked list of candidates, has self-removed
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2026/04/caas-austin-brown-wont-pursue-bulls-front-office-job.html
ah well, the important thing is now a lot of Bulls fans know who CAA's Austin Brown is
So the Bulls offered him the GM job in 2020 and he turned it down, then they interviewed him for the EVP job and he effectively turned them down again. Why does he keep interviewing??
they didn't interview him, he was just on the prospective list of candidates
did they offer him the job in 2020? I don't remember that
"Sources have informed Charania that Chicago even offered Brown its general manager role beneath Arturas Karnisovas in 2020 but ultimately declined. Marc Eversley eventually booked the gig."
https://www.bleachernation.com/bulls/2026/04/22/austin-brown-bulls-myers/
Ah interesting, maybe he holds a grudge for the indignity or losing to Karnisovas
The Rockets sure could have used one of Ayo or Coby at the past trade deadline. Reed Sheppard sucks!
yea they could have easily used Ayo, Coby or hell even CJ McCollum....all 3 could have been gotten without any 1sts. Not sure wtf they were thinking. Reed could still be good one day but he is not ready and Amen Thompson should not be a primary ballhandler, he doesn't have the handles and most importantly the decision making.
Ayo with the 40 piece. Aren't these the same throwback jerseys D. Rose dropped 50 in?
Ayo