The Chicago Bulls were one of multiple teams that turned down the New York Knicks' request to interview their head coach. Billy Donovan, who has been with the Bulls since 2020, was reported to be high on the Knicks' list of head coaching candidates to replace Tom Thibodeau.
Now, just a week after that news, it was reported by NBA insider Marc Stein that Chicago is set to offer Donovan a contract extension. He signed his last deal with the Bulls before the 2022-23 season, but it is set to end at the end of next season.
The Bulls are in the process of extending coach Billy Donovan's contract, league sources tell @TheSteinLine.
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 15, 2025
Donovan, of course, was one of five coaches under contract that the Knicks sought permission to speak to.
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The 60-year-old has a 195-205 regular-season record with the Bulls, with a lone playoff appearance in 2022 coming as a first-round loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Billy Donovan's Hall of Fame Coaching Resume
Donovan has more than three decades as a head coach in both collegiate and professional basketball. He began as an assistant with the Kentucky Wildcats in the early 1990s, then was hired as the head coach of Marshall University later in the decade.
In 1996, Donovan was hired as the head coach of the University of Florida, where he spent the following 18 seasons. Famously, he led the Gators to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007 on a team highlighted by NBA veterans Al Horford and Joakim Noah.
In his tenure at Florida, Donovan led the team to 14 March Madness appearances, two championships, and became the second youngest college coach to win at least 500 games.
Donovan then made the move to the NBA, where he led the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 243-157 regular season record from 2015 to 2020. He helped guide them to the postseason in each of those years, highlighted by a conference finals appearance in 2016.
Under Donovan, Chicago has a slightly below .500 record in the regular season with one playoff appearance. The Bulls have made the NBA Play-In Tournament in each of the last three seasons, losing to the Miami Heat on each occasion.
Regardless of the team's recent history, Donovan has one of the best coaching resumes in the sport. That is why Chicago wants to keep him around to attempt to turn around this current Bulls roster.
The Chicago Bulls Going Forward
After losing DeMar DeRozan and trading Zach LaVine, both of whom went to Sacramento, Chicago landed the 12th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Their top offseason priority is re-signing Josh Giddey, who, along with Coby White, looks set to lead the team over the next few seasons.
The Bulls also look likely to trade center Nikola Vucevic, who, at 35 years old, doesn't fit with the team's rising stars and was a major part of their below-average defense over the past few seasons.
Chicago has also been rumored to trade Lonzo Ball, previously missed more than 1000 straight days with complicated injuries. For either Vucevic or Ball, they hope to get back a young, defensive-minded player in return.
Chicago has been in the middle of the pack for the entirety of Donovan's time coaching the team. They've had All-Star caliber players, but haven't been able to string together a season with more than 46 regular season wins.
If the Bulls do choose to give a contract extension to Donovan, it shows that they fully support him leading this new team going forward. During his time with the Florida Gators and OKC Thunder, he proved to be able to lead teams to great seasons; it just hasn't happened yet in Chicago.
On April 5, 2025, Donovan was announced as the newest member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. While the Bulls have struggled to excel out of mediocrity with Donovan, giving a contract extension to a Hall-of-Famer is probably the right move, especially considering the Knicks wanted to steal him from Chicago.