Last weekend, it was a standing ovation at “The Swamp,” his old stomping ground.
This weekend, it was a stroll into immortality in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It has been quite the last seven days for Bulls coach Billy Donovan, who was celebrated during a University of Florida football game on Aug. 30, then officially inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday.
But this is not a Bulls story.
As a matter of fact, Donovan’s time with the Bulls since joining them before the 2020-21 season is really more footnote than noteworthy compared to his Hall of Fame achievements.
He was a first-team All-Big East guard who took Providence to the Final Four in the 1986-87 season, then he coached Florida to back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007, turning Gainesville, Florida, into the epicenter of college hoops at the time.
Donovan’s stint with the Thunder was solid. He went 243-157 in five seasons in his first NBA gig and was named co-Coach of the Year in 2020. But when Donovan and the Thunder couldn’t agree on a contract extension, there was a mutual parting of ways.
That’s when the Bulls stepped in.
Executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas headed to Florida just one day after Donovan was back home from Oklahoma City to offer him the job. It’s a marriage that is headed into Year 6 with two contract extensions along the way, including the most recent one Donovan agreed to early in the summer.
So, yes, the Bulls now have a Hall of Famer sitting in their head-coaching chair — and a humble one at that. Through the entire Hall process, Donovan has credited the village that raised him as a player and a coach, insisting that it was not an individual honor.
“It’s just so hard to put into words because you get involved in the game, play the game as a young player, then you are so naïve at 20 years old just to think that your career is going to have you playing forever,” Donovan said throughout the process leading into Saturday night. “Then all of a sudden, the reality hits you, and you’re sitting there saying, ‘OK, what’s my next career path?’ Then you get into coaching, and you’re not sitting there thinking, ‘OK, 35 years from now, this is what’s going to happen.’ You have no idea.
“There are a lot of things I didn’t have control over, and that is really humbling.”
It’s a well-earned achievement for Donovan, but, again, not a Bulls story. Until it is.
That’s what this upcoming season is about for Donovan. He admittedly has made a career out of overachieving, and that’s what it will take to get the Bulls out of stuck-in-the-mud mediocrity.
Up to this point, Donovan has coached to the talent provided. All-Stars have performed at an All-Star level, and top-level defensive players such as Alex Caruso found the path to becoming All-NBA first-team defenders.
Considering the front office’s inability to provide him with elite talent, however, Donovan will need to do more.
Help isn’t on the way.
Donovan will need to coach Matas Buzelis into becoming an All-Star-caliber talent in only his second season in the NBA, make sure Josh Giddey remains the player he was in the last six weeks of the 2024-25 season and continue to raise the ceiling for Coby White.
He’ll need to fix a defense that has slipped the last two seasons, while maintaining the new offensive identity of pace and three-point shooting that he embraced last season.
The Bulls haven’t gotten out of the first round of the playoffs since 2015. Donovan will need to end that drought.
Too much to ask of a coach?
Maybe.
Too much to ask of a Hall of Fame coach?
The Bulls are about to find out.