MINNEAPOLIS — It was time for a change.
Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan rarely voices his opinion about front-office maneuvering. But he shared a sense of inevitability after the Bulls traded Zach LaVine this week to the Sacramento Kings, continuing a yearlong process of breaking up the team’s core.
It had nothing to do with LaVine, who has been the franchise centerpiece since Donovan took over the Bulls in 2020. Donovan praised LaVine for his adept scoring and growth on and off the court, especially this season as he shook off a frustrating 2023-24 season to shoulder the responsibility of leading a young roster.
But even with LaVine playing the most efficient basketball of his career, the Bulls couldn’t make any headway in the Eastern Conference — a stagnancy Donovan knew couldn’t last.
“We all felt the same way,” he said. “It was kind of like we were stuck in the middle and we needed to pick a direction. And I think that everybody was on board with that.
“I’m all for doing what’s best for the organization and I think all the way from top to bottom, everybody felt the same way.”
Donovan also knows what comes next. Trading one star isn’t enough for a team to plunge into a rebuild. The Bulls have plenty of work left in this trade window if they want to kick-start a process that would involve a nosedive in the standings and a shift in focus to young players such as Matas Buzelis.
Before Tuesday’s 133-124 win over the Miami Heat, Donovan was prepared for more roster upheaval ahead of the 2 p.m. Thursday trade deadline.
“My feeling is they’re going to still continue to try to do things,” Donovan said of the front office.
That also means change for Donovan, who is preparing to start over from scratch if the front office successfully positions the Bulls to begin a youth movement through the draft.
This is a new experience for Donovan — at least at the professional level. When he made the leap from college to the NBA, he inherited a powerhouse Oklahoma City Thunder roster that was headlined by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and consistently competed at the top of the Western Conference.
Donovan described that situation as a luxury. When his tenure with the Thunder ended in 2020, however, Donovan’s exit was shrouded in speculation that he didn’t want to helm the team’s impending rebuild — of which the Thunder now are reaping the rewards with young stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.
If that were truly how Donovan felt, there would be a certain irony to his current position. But Donovan wants to clear the air: He’s not deterred by the concept of a rebuild.
“There was a lot of things said or put out there publicly that I had no interest in a rebuild — that’s not true,” Donovan said. “I never said that. Never felt like that. … To me, it’s all about the direction and where we’re going, what we’re doing — and do they want me to be a part of that?”
Donovan believes his success as a college coach at Florida — which could land him in the Naismith Hall of Fame this year — was predicated on an ability to rebuild rapidly as players departed every few years.
But the process of sustaining success in the pre-NIL era of college basketball was markedly different from that of rebuilding an NBA roster. The draft lottery is an imperfect mechanism. Player development takes years. And teams lose a lot on the way, a reality that often results in a coaching change.
For now, Donovan is all-in with the future of this young Bulls roster. But when it comes to how that future will actually manifest, he’s waiting anxiously like anyone else in Chicago.
“Clearly we’re making a shift,” Donovan said. “I want to be part of building something, but what direction we go in and how we are going to build and what we’re going to do — I don’t think anybody inside the organization has those answers right now, just because I don’t know if anything’s totally complete at this point in time.”
