Paul Sullivan: Can the Reinsdorfs hire the right combo to end Bulls fans’ malaise?

CHICAGO — Billy Donovan is gone after six seasons as the Chicago Bulls coach, and the search for his replacement begins.

But first things first, as Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf are busy sifting through candidates for the next head of basketball operations, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, who listed several league executives and one super-agent the Reinsdorfs plan to interview.

We can only assume they were all “sold on” Donovan as coach, since Michael said they wouldn’t hire anyone who wasn’t a Billy fan.

But now that Donovan has taken himself out of the picture, what will the next Bulls honcho be looking for in a new coach?

Someone who can rebuild the team and develop young players, show patience, communicate with the media, get along with management and help improve the team’s image with a skeptical fan base that doesn’t trust ownership.

In other words, they’ll need another version of Billy Donovan, perhaps a younger and cheaper model.

We got only a brief glimpse of what Donovan could do with a roster full of talent, back during the winter of 2021-22 when DeMar DeRozan was “King of the Fourth,” Lonzo Ball was quarterbacking the offense, Alex Caruso was evolving from cult hero to defensive star and Ayo Dosunmu was a precocious rookie.

The Bulls suddenly had an identity, and the future looked bright.

We all know what happened next — the career-altering injury to Ball, Grayson Allen’s cheap shot flagrant foul on Caruso in Milwaukee that fractured Caruso’s right wrist, and the eventual downfall from Eastern Conference leader to sixth-seed with a 7-15 finish, followed by a quick, first-round playoff loss to the Bucks.

That was their only playoff appearance during Donovan’s Bulls’ tenure. A recurring theme over the last four seasons was a lack of movement by Artūras Karnišovas to alter the direction, resulting in three play-in teams and this year’s dumping of assets at the trade deadline to better their odds at a top draft pick.

After a 51-loss season, Donovan’s teams wound up a combined 34 games under .500 the last four years, though he was absolved from any blame by Michael, and Jerry reiterated in Tuesday’s press release there “was never any question” they wanted Donovan to return.

But that probably would’ve meant more losing for Donovan, and with “Hall of Fame member” on his resume, who needs that? He deserves a chance at going out on top, and that seemed unlikely with another rebuild underway.

So that leaves the Reinsdorfs with a clean slate to hire a management and coaching combo that can resurrect a franchise with one playoff appearance — and one solitary playoff win — in nine years. Charania reported they even plan to look at Creative Artist Agency co-head Austin Brown, the super-agent who attended Evanston High and repped Zion Williamson when the oft-injured player got a five-year, $197 million extension.

Outside-the-box thinking? Maybe the Reinsdorfs are trying something new?

They desperately need to get this right. The last time Bulls fans were really excited was before Game 3 of the Bucks series in 2022 when they came home tied 1-1. The Bulls responded by losing by 30 points, their second-worst playoff loss in franchise history. They haven’t won a playoff game at the United Center since 2015, when Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler and Joakim Noah were still around and Tom Thibodeau was coach.

It only seems like a lifetime ago.

Was there anything Donovan could’ve done that would’ve changed the course of the Bulls’ history, other than asking the Reinsdorfs to replace Karnišovas a couple years earlier?

Donovan installed an up-tempo offense in 2024-25 after trading DeRozan and Caruso, but the Bulls were never more than a play-in contender, and dealt LaVine in February to end that long and dysfunctional chapter. No big offseason additions were made last summer, as the Bulls counted on Josh Giddey, Coby White and second-year forward Matas Buzelis to carry the offense.

When that failed, a trade deadline garage sale was in Donovan’s future, leading to the end-of-season crash that finally saw Karnišovas get axed.

The decision to leave was Donovan’s, and he said in a statement that he made it “to allow the new leader to build out the staff as they see fit.” It was the right call, of course. Any new head of operations should be able to pick his own coach instead of being forced to live with the owner’s guy.

So Donovan leaves with his reputation intact, even as his win-loss record obviously suffered over the last few years. He’s a good guy and incredibly patient with the media, never losing his cool or getting upset over repetitive questions about what went wrong with his team.

Karnišovas’ poor communication skills meant Donovan almost always was the spokesman for management’s decisions, even up to the Jaden Ivey debacle last month. Hopefully the next executive is more willing to take some heat.

It’s hard for many to remember the embarrassment of the Jim Boylen era, but Donovan’s arrival immediately improved the atmosphere. When the Bulls hired Donovan in September 2020, LaVine learned about it while livestreaming a video game.

“Oh, damn, we got Billy Donovan as our next coach,” LaVine said. “Wow. That’ll be good … really good coach.”

The hiring of Donovan sent a message that the status quo was no longer acceptable, and for a while, it wasn’t.

But now the Bulls are back to being a franchise living off its 1990’s aura, almost three decades after Michael Jordan’s departure.

Fans still flock to the United Center, no matter the brand of basketball being played. It’s like Wrigley Field without the ivy.

“We’ve created this great environment, and we work hard at it,” Jerry told the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal in 2018. “We don’t just open the doors and expect people to come in. Even if we don’t win, people leave having had a good time. Sometimes I think we’re running a three-ring circus with basketball as just a sideline. But it’s a great night.”

Maybe that’s the problem. The basketball should never take a backseat to halftime entertainment or Benny the Bull’s antics.

It’s time for the Reinsdorfs to change that, and it starts with making the right hires and putting the focus back on the court where it belongs.

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