Former Thunder Coach Inks Extension With Chicago Bulls

Following a fun 2019-20 season, Billy Donovan and Sam Presti discussed the future of the bench boss as the Oklahoma City Thunder were set to embark on a rebuild.

Ultimately, the head coach elected to leave Bricktown for the Windy City, being hired by the Chicago Bulls to pace the sidelines for a historic franchise.

In his Chicago Bulls tenure, Donovan sits at 195-205 in 400 games. His tenure in the NBA has been split evenly between the two franchises as he sits at 800 games. Donovan was 243-157 in his five seasons in Oklahoma City.

This offseason, the Bulls head coach flirted with the New York Knicks with their job opening, a team he played for during the 1987-88 season and represents his hometown club.

Ultimately, Donovan elected to stay put in Chicago and over the weekend inked a multi-year extension with the Chicago Bulls, as reported by ESPN's Shams Charania.

After the departure of Donovan, the Oklahoma City Thunder elected to hire current head coach Mark Daigneault. The unknown bench boss at the time was an in-house hire being a five-year head coach for the Thunder's G League affiliate, the OKC Blue and as an assistant on Donovan's staff at the end of his tenure in OKC.

Daigneault spent time at the University of Florida with Donovan and is a branch off of his coaching tree. To this day, the Thunder head coach speaks glowingly of Donovan and is peppered with questions about the New York native every time the two face off with one another.

In five seasons with Oklahoma City, Daigneault is 211-189 with the Thunder taking OKC through a rebuild and winning coach of the year in 2023-24 before capturing a championship in the 2024-25 season.