Billy Donovan is moving on after he and the Oklahoma City Thunder agreed to a mutual separation. Prior to joining the team ahead of the 2015-2016 NBA season, he spent 19 years at Florida. That’s crazy if you think about it. Of course, he was only 30-years old when he got the gig, but it felt like Donovan was closer to retirement in 2015 than a career renaissance.
And the NBA of all places seemed a highly unlikely destination considering his ill-fated spell with the Orlando Magic in 2007. That being said, his track record spoke for itself.
Donovan did it all during his time in Gainesville. There were the back-to-back NCAA championships along with a quartet of Final Four appearances and six SEC regular season titles. He coached countless NBA players including Bradley Beal, Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Chandler Parsons, David Lee and Marreese Speights.
Yet, there was something underwhelming about Donovan being hired to replace Scott Brooks in Oklahoma City. He was a fine coach, but it felt like a team with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook needed a more dynamic leader. To his credit, he helped guide the Thunder to the Western Conference Finals where they fell to the Golden State Warriors in seven games.
The Warriors would then lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Draymond Green would send Durant a text message and the rest, as they say, is history.
It would not get any better for Donovan and the Thunder. There were a few highlights, such as Westbrook winning MVP in 2017, but four consecutive first round playoff exits led to a parting of ways between Oklahoma City and Donovan.
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Billy Donovan might not deserve more credit
In the wake of Donovan moving on, he has already been linked to several high-profile openings including the Philadelphia 76ers job. Everyone has been quick to praise the work he did in Oklahoma City highlighting the fact that he dealt with some major roster changes during his time there.
That’s true. His teams did show remarkable consistency going from Durant to a bunch of random guys to Paul George to a Westbrook-less team of role players. However, nothing Donovan did really stood out during his five years with the Thunder.
Winning 48 games and losing in the first round of the playoffs is basketball purgatory and that’s what Donovan delivered over the course of the past four seasons. All the praise being heaped upon him kind of ignores that reality.
It is hard to say Billy Donovan deserves more credit as a basketball coach. When he has had good players, he has won. And when he had above average players, he’s delivered above average results. There is no shame in that, but let’s stop acting like he’s some sort of amazing head coach.
