Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Billy Donovan doesn't sound committed to another season as Bulls coach

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris listened and reacted to Bulls head coach Billy Donovan’s recent comments about his future with the organization. To Rahimi and Harris, he doesn’t exactly sound like someone who wants to return as Bulls coach next season.

The score. This hour is brought to you by Menards. Save big money at Menards. And this ball game is over. Ball game over, season over. The final from Dallas, Mavericks 149, and the Bulls 128. Mercifully, the Bulls season has ended. You may go in peace.

Thanks be to God. That was Chuck Swirsky. This is Rahimi Harrison, Grody on 104-3 the score. And there was a reason to watch the Bulls and Mavericks game last night. It was a fun tribute, by the way, to the former Mavericks of years past. Stacey King's name was on the court over the American Airlines Center. And they were wearing their throwbacks, which I think they should have never stopped wearing. That's another story for another day. But in the meantime, there was also a record watch that was being had. We were trying to see if Nembert was

going to get the assist record. He was too short of tying it. He ended up. up with 23 assists. The Mavericks scored 149 points and the Bulls had 128. But there were a couple of reasons, Marshall, to actually watch this game if you're, if you're into it like we are. Patrick Williams watch? Is that one of the reasons? What was your watch for Patrick Williams?

Minutes points? What? A dollar? He played 36 minutes. He's five of 15 from the field. Well, Laughlin Oberg. Triple double, baby. Let me just tell you.

10 points, 15 rebounds, 10 assists. Leila, this all feels so very... I'm trying to think of the... Antichlymacted. Perfunctory? Keep going? You just keep... I mean, there are several adjectives

you could use to describe this NBA season. Not just through a Bulls lens, but through an NBA casual fan lens. You know why? For the first time in league history, eight teams, the Bulls are not one of them, by the way, but eight teams have finished with 55 or more losses. The Mavericks are one of those teams.

Yeah! Take... And that told you the state of the NBA to me The fact that eight different teams had more than 55 lost That's hard to do Because eventually those 55 lost teams They all got to play each other It's just not good

And the polls as you said 31 and 51 And MacMoclung's out here getting run And Yuki Kawamora's out here getting run Listen Isn't that what you're supposed to do though Shouldn't those guys They should have been doing that for the last however many weeks.

Adam and Stacey have been calling for Mac Mac MacCloon for a long time in these games, and they had every reason to do so. And Mac Mac MacMcclung didn't do the dunk contest because he wanted to be an NBA player, and they still didn't have him on the court as much. Well, he's an NBA player, although being on the whole deal that he's on with the two-way is it free. Is it free somebody if they're not in the league? With Bobby Portis, it's free Bobby P.

I was literally thinking that. I was literally thinking maybe we should have printed the free Mac Mac MacMaclung t-shirts. But it's not free. Essentially, you would have to commit. You would have to commit to MacKulng. Oh, no doubt. But I mean, you're free to Mac MacLong. It doesn't have the same ring.

Mac. I see what you did there. Commit McClung. Is that what you're all saying? Well, he just started going to the Max Crosby. Mack. Listen, Colin Sexton. We have enjoyed your time here on the Bulls.

We thank you for your service. it's time to move on. These are the, like, watching the game, Leonard Miller. Do you believe that Leonard Miller is a rotation player on a good NBA team, a playoff-bound NBA team? This is a basketball segment, and every time somebody says the name Leonard, and I know I'm in Chicago, I think you're talking about Leonard Floyd still, bears. Oh. So, okay, there's a thing. So that's where my brain is still with the name Leonard and sports in the city.

But yeah, I watch the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. the, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, condensed game of the Bulls and the Mavericks. I did not watch it in real time. My stupid random self got home at 630 yesterday from the flight. And I was like, I'm going to have some Bulls game. What? Why?

Why? Yeah, I didn't do that. I was watching what was going on with the White Sox because I wanted to figure out what happened because I couldn't watch that game because I was watching the Cubs game. I was watching the Masters on the plane because we had no Wi-Fi. But we had the Masters. That's fair. That's fair as well.

Some exciting finish. The only thing that happened of importance to me was after the game. That's it. We've been trying to figure this out for a while now. Billy Donovan maintained consistently and was for his word when he said, talk to me about this stuff after the season. He wanted to focus on coaching his team. The future for him, whether it be with the Bulls or somewhere else,

was going to come after the season. He really didn't have time to think about who was going. going to be the VP of basketball operations, the general manager, and the like. And Sam Smith did the damn thing yet again. Excellent post-game questions. He made the trip. And here's what he asked about whether or not the new GM should bring in his own head coach. You know, is it appropriate that if you're going to bring in a new, you know, top-level

manager, you know, should he already have the coach? What do you think about that? should somebody who gets hired in that job, should he have that coach or, you know, do you have any opinion about that? Yeah, I think that's part of the certainly would be the discussion, you know, with ownership, and I said this before. One, I really appreciate, you know, Michael and Jerry's support. I really appreciate the relationship with the both of them. I think, and I said this before, I think maybe some of Michael's comments, I understood what he was saying in terms of support of me. But I'm very, very confident that Jerry and Michael are going to do what's best for the Chicago Bulls.

And they should, you know, and we all need to because we work for the organization. So that's probably some of the things we probably need to discuss, quite honestly, you know, when we get at some point this time this upcoming week to be able to do that. You know, I, you know, totally understand it from a lot of different levels. and those are the conversations that I need to have with Jerry and Michael about. Does that sound like a guy who is committed to anything yet? Because that was not my take. So I heard this and I was like, all right, this actually sounds normal to me

because he just got done coaching a game and he's got a lot on his plate as far as what to think of. Specifically, first thing, exit interviews to the players. And then we know he's not meeting with ownership. tomorrow or I guess today. And I felt like this was going to be a process that took some time. He needs a couple of days to just think about what he wants. He had said this also, I believe, in the same press conference.

Somewhere along the way, Sam had asked him about reflecting on it. We thought the most important thing for you guys to hear was what we just played. Sam and Casey do an excellent job every day. There's no doubt about that. Casey Johnson as well, who was on with our morning show today. He was on with Molly and Haugh. but for them for them to ask the pointed questions like this one of them was how would you look back on this season and unique is the word billy used there's no doubt about that but i also think it was it was uniquely exhausting you know from a from a level of him having to deal with two deaths in the family and his father being one of them and then what happened regarding the trade deadline and jaden ivy and the like you this is not a season you can replicate so therefore it is unique but at the same time.

Once again, he's finding really graceful ways to describe. What I can only imagine is incredibly trying. He deserves some time to rest. I would call the season dysfunctional because any season that starts with one vision, a 5-0 start. I can't just remind people that the Bulls were 5-0 to start the season. They were 5-0.

And then the vice president of basketball operations, our church, Karnas Chauva, saying midway through the season, we're going to do something different this time. And then that different was worse than what, you know, the grass really is not always greener on the other side. What they did was not good in terms of what they got back as far as draft capital, in my opinion. But were you happy that at least, and the bar is in hell, but that at least they got draft

capital back for some of the expiring contracts? Sure. And because you got to get something back, right? And they hadn't in the past. And so they did that. And then maybe that opens eyes as to why they hadn't gotten stuff in the past because they didn't know how to get stuff back. I don't know. I mean, I feel like the trade deadline became the search for the nine or ten very good players that Arturis Karnas Chavez spoke of. Like, we're just

going to take flyers on all these guys. A lot of them, we've scouted previously. And that's what became the idea. We know that it wasn't executed to its finish. That obviously happened when they decided to fire Arturis Karnasovas and Mark Eversley. But Billy Donovan, when he talked about this, I think he translated to me what was what I gather. which is the organization wanted to compliment him. They don't want to punish him for what happened around him. It's just procedurally this is not usually how it goes. And that's the disconnect.

I don't know that there is a disconnect, though, between Billy Donovan and ownership in the same way that there is between, or was, I should say, between Mark Eversley, Archerich-Karnas-Sovas and ownership, and or Billy, and or Billy because we were told how bad of communicators they are. And when you take that into direct...

I think we also experienced it from the lack of press conferences. Yes, clearly. And in contrast, every time someone did have to step up to the podium, J.N. Ivey specifically comes to mind. That's when your head of front office, the people who made the deal to bring Jaden Ivey in, should be front and center and taking accountability for where that decision led.

The lack of due diligence, to such a catastrophic result is a fireable offense, period. The basketball results were a fireable offense. But let's take it out of the NBA as far as how I think Billy interpreted and told us what he thinks of what Reinsdorf said last week.

Say you're not running an NBA team. Say that you're running a regional paper company. See. You're probably not going to fire the assistant to the regional manager, even though the regional manager was bad. But this is not a typical business. But I'll tell you one thing,

when you fire the regional manager and the assistant to the regional manager is there, when you hire that new regional manager, he gets to pick his assistant to the regional manager. Well, here's the scarier part in this extension of this analogy of this random regional paper company. You then typically promote the assistant to the regional manager. Do you not?

If you like hiring from within, depends on how much you believe in the assistant to the regional manager. I think to be fair, Billy Donovan is not Dwight Trude. There's only one Dwight Trude. There's only one Billy Donovan. Well, but to take it even further, if the assistant to the regional manager says, hey, I really like being the assistant to the regional manager, but I don't want to be the regional manager. Now when you bring in the regional manager, don't you have to have him give his say of who he wants to be his assistant? Or you end up with Robert California.

Yeah. Let's see this. We've exhausted this analogy, I believe. We're just telling you the plot of the office. Yes. But that's kind of the thing here is that I think there's being, there's some traditional business thing that's being applied to a non-traditional business.

But either way, Billy Donovan did not sound like a dude who was committed. And I don't expect him to. But if he did lean one way or another more definitively, then that would help us understand what's next. I expect Billy Donovan to be back until he's not back, until he says, I'm not coming back in whatever role, whether that's front office guy. Because would you be surprised if Michael Rinesdorf handed him the keys to the franchise? No, and that's the point.

630. You can text us 312, 644, 67, 630 says, why is Billy the only adult in the room? I hate this team. I don't think he's the only adult, but I think he has been the adult and he's had a lot on his shoulders to say he absolutely. Joe Kelly. He's not. Soothsayer.

He's the guy who tells you like, hey, the I'd of March are bad. And you're like, whatever random soothsayer, I don't believe you. That's like, oh, maybe that guy had a point. It's just bad. It's all bad. Except I actually, I would not have dissed on Joe Kelly. So I would have probably be like, oh, interesting. The Iads of March, you say runs away.

815. Don't you get Will Ferrell first? Yeah. I forget where he came in that order of operations there. What was his name? It was like Alonzo or something on the office. I don't remember. But on the scale of like the he-gone meter for Billy Donovan, after hearing that,

are you changing your scale? Yeah, did it change for you? No, I, he said, there was nothing he said in that press conference that I was like, oh, that's surprising that he said that. DeAngelo. Like the dude who never got traded to the Bulls. G. Angela Russell. Remember that time,

70 hundred times where DeAngela Russell was supposed to be traded to the Bulls? I mean, every team thought they were getting DeAngelo Russell

trade was supposed to happen like a hundred times and it never happened. Everybody forgets about that era. Here's what I'll say about Billy Donovan and what he had to say

after the press conference. Nothing he said surprise me. Nothing made me even raise an eyebrow because Billy Donovan's giving you his real-time thought process, in my opinion, an authentic real-time thought process where he doesn't have some canned answer. He's listening to the question.

He's answering the question as best he can in that moment. And shout out to Sam Smith and others who were asking those questions after. And the point was made in that press conference. And it lasted quite some time longer than a typical Billy Donovan post-game press conference. This might be the last time we hear from Billy Donovan as Bull's head coach. And I think that that possibility, after hearing what? what he said yesterday got more real. Yeah, it didn't for me.

I think he's going to, now I'm not saying he's not going to leave, but I think he could very well be back as the Bulls head coach, and that might be problematic for whoever has to take over the Bulls. Well, that was a great question by Sam Smith, and really the one we all wanted to know. A man who is no stranger to a good conflict or resolution is next. A.J. Piersinski. We wanted to talk to him about Noah Schultz Day.

always good to catch up with him about baseball in general, and he's got something for us. So the two-time all-star catcher, the man himself, is joining us next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie.