Billy Donovan's six-year run as head coach of the Chicago Bulls ended on Tuesday, with the coach releasing a statement announcing he was stepping away to allow the franchise's incoming head of basketball operations to build out the staff on their own terms.
"After a series of thoughtful and extensive discussions with ownership regarding the future of the organization, I've decided to step away as the head coach of the Bulls to allow the search process to unfold," Donovan said in his statement. "I believe it is in the best interest of the Bulls to allow the new leader to build out the staff as they see fit."
Chicago reached the postseason just once during Donovan's tenure and is now entering a full rebuild. According to ESPN's Shams Charania, the Bulls had not pushed Donovan out. Quite the opposite.
"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," Charania reported. "But Billy Donovan wants to keep coaching, and he actually had an option — his own option — in his contract for next season, and he decided to decline it and to step down today as head coach."
The Bulls are now searching simultaneously for a new head of basketball operations and a head coach to lead the rebuild. Charania said the front office search has already begun interviews, and Donovan effectively wanted to step out of the way before a new executive inherited a coach they did not choose.
ESPN's Brian Windhorst argued that the Bulls should have made this call a year earlier, when the Knicks had serious interest in Donovan and Chicago talked him into staying.
"He was interested in doing this a year ago. The Knicks job was open. He was interested in going to New York. They talked him into staying a year, and frankly, they should have listened to Billy. They should have let him go last year," Windhorst said. "They should have started a rebuild last year. Now, they're starting a rebuild. And Billy did this once before when he was in Oklahoma City, left in 2020. They started a rebuild. I don't know if you're aware, they won a title by 2025."
That last point lands hard in Chicago. The Oklahoma City Thunder's teardown after Donovan left produced the 2025 NBA championship, and it is the blueprint the current Bulls front office is quietly trying to replicate. Donovan's departure now mirrors that 2020 OKC exit almost step for step.
ESPN front-office insider Bobby Marks laid out Chicago's rebuilding kit on Tuesday's NBA Today. The Bulls control two picks inside the top 15 of the 2026 draft — their own at No. 9 and Portland's pick at No. 15 — along with roughly $60 million in projected cap space. Marks also noted last year's lottery pick, Noah Essengue, has essentially not played this season because of injury and will effectively join next year's class of rookies inside the rotation.
"That's a lot to work with if you're the new front office, and certainly who they hire as the coach," Marks said.
Donovan is expected to become one of the most attractive coaching candidates in the next hiring cycle, whenever that next cycle arrives. Both the Knicks last summer and UNC Charlotte during the season reportedly made runs at him. Windhorst expects the 60-year-old to resurface quickly.
"When Billy is now in the market, he will have a number of options, whether he wants to go short term here or if he wants to wait a little bit longer and see what develops," Windhorst said.
For Chicago, the next move is hiring the basketball operations boss who will inherit two lottery picks, real cap space and a clean slate — the first time the franchise has truly had all three since the Jerry Krause era.
