Notable update emerges about Billy Donovan’s NBA future

Billy Donovan may indeed be in his final days as the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.

There is “a growing chance” that the Bulls head coach Donovan will leave the team if executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas stays. Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times made that revelation in a report on Tuesday.

The news comes with the Bulls having recently been eliminated from postseason contention. At 29-46 on the year, Chicago is out of the running for even the NBA play-in tournament.

Donovan, 60, is in his sixth season as head coach of the Bulls after taking over in 2020. But he sits at a subpar 224-251 (.472) overall during his time in Chicago and has only gotten the Bulls to the playoffs once (a five-game loss in the first round during the 2021-22 season).

Meanwhile, Karnisovas has also been with the Bulls since 2020 and was one of the decision-makers behind the team’s initial hire of Donovan. Clearly though, the two are no longer seeing eye-to-eye amidst Chicago’s continued losing. Notably, a report earlier this month also claimed that Donovan might be on the outs with the Bulls, and now we know that Karnisovas’ presence may just have something to do with it.

If Donovan does ultimately decide to walk away from Chicago, he might already have a strong job opportunity waiting for him elsewhere. In recent days, the former NCAA national champion head coach Donovan has been linked to a potential return to the college ranks with a prestigious program.