Let’s start with this: Billy Donovan is a very good basketball coach. He’s currently a head coach in the NBA, and only 30 of those spots exist. Donovan’s been seated at that exclusive table for over a decade. Prior to that, he won back-back-titles at Florida, in addition to reaching four Final Fours and three title games. Including those Final Four runs, Florida reached the Elite Eight seven times under Donovan. This was all accomplished in 19 seasons between 1996 and 2015. For anyone asking whether Billy Donovan can coach basketball, the answer is an emphatic yes.
So, why are there concerns?
In Donovan’s last season, Florida finished 16-17. News reports suggesting burn-out filled that season. Donovan’s interest in the NBA dated back to 2007. Donovan was on record stating the appeal of the NBA to him was it’s “strictly basketball” focus. Articles with anecdotes about the tiresome needs of boosters and recruiting demands joined the fray. Those elements combined to create a narrative: Donovan loved coaching, but he no longer loved coaching in college.
Donovan’s record in the NBA has been underwhelming. He made the conference finals in his first season with the Thunder, but then four straight first round playoff exits brought his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder to an end. Donovan moved to Chicago, where the Bulls have missed the playoffs five times and lost in the first round the one time they qualified. In short, with the exception of that first season, Donovan’s missed the playoffs five times and exited in the first round the other five times. He has not been a resounding success.
So, why does Donovan suddenly want to return to college coaching, at a program where the off-court demands and expectations clearly exceed even those at Florida circa 2015?
An easy answer is that the college game now resembles the NBA. That’s an obvious comparison to make with players getting paid and college programs adding GMs and other “front office” supports. Those same arguments were made in error about Bill Belichick, and they miss some crucial differences.
First, the NBA and NFL own their rosters, with the critical building blocks locked into multi-year deals. While the role players can come and go on one-year deals, the foundation of any professional roster is stable. The New England Patriots don’t have to worry about the Miami Hurricanes stealing their quarterback the day before a transfer portal closes. The team that drafts Caleb Wilson will own him for two years, with two more years possible at the team’s option.
Pro teams can opt to blow the whole thing up and start over, but that’s a rarely exercised option. In college, the norm increasingly seems to be a rebuild every season. In many ways, the roster stability of Donovan’s era in college more closely resembles the NBA of today than the current college landscape. Back then, a letter of intent effectively locked down a player for four years, at the coach’s discretion. Key players were kept, while recruiting misses were encouraged to move on in favor of the next recruiting class. Now, key pieces mean bidding wars, and a single portal miss can cripple a team’s prospects for that season (see: Evans, Kyan).
Second, the NBA and NFL are configured for the mutual benefit of the owners and players via collective bargaining. For the owners, that means parity protections: a salary cap, draft, free agency rules, compensatory picks, wage scales, and harsh tampering penalties. Coaching success in the pros comes down to exploiting very thin competitive margins available via forced parity. The college game, on the other hand, clearly comes down to acquiring top talent via top spending, with few guardrails and cutthroat tactics. Recruiting remains the most essential element for success in a college program. Money will get a program into the conversation, but the coach’s relationship with a player must close the deal.
That’s not the NBA. Yes, NBA teams have to recruit free agents, but landing elite talents happens far more frequently via trades or the draft than courtship. Tommy Lloyd, right now, is courting next year’s roster and has been all season. So is Dusty May. So is Nate Oats. So is Jon Scheyer. So is every college coach with any ambition to improve his team next season. The next Carolina coach can’t just have experience with it; he needs a driving passion for it. Otherwise, that coach will be out-worked and out-recruited. The UNC brand won’t fill that gap.
Third, pro coaches answer to a GM and owner, perhaps a superstar player as well. In the college game, NIL has empowered a collective of boosters like never before. LSU boosters took up a collection at halftime of the Tigers’ game against Texas AM to raise $54 million to fire Brian Kelly. UNC boosters held a meeting the day after the VCU loss to force the firing of Davis, merely by closing their wallets on next year’s roster. A General Manager and Athletic Director can’t be surrogates in those relationships, something Davis learned the hard way. That’s a crucial job requirement and skill set that the NBA just doesn’t contemplate.
Boosters want more than wins as their return on investment. They want access. They want to feel special. They don’t want to feel like an ATM, no matter how passionate they might be about UNC basketball. Just like recruiting, UNC’s next coach will need to embrace, not just tolerate, that side of the job. In the NBA, a salary cap precludes a coach ever going to ownership and asking for more money. In college, it’s a key part of the job requirement. So is the delicate balancing act of keeping those boosters engaged yet simultaneously at arm’s length from the locker room.
College basketball and the NBA have a lot of similarities. They also have some crucial differences, and those difference rank #1 and #2 in the college coaching job description. In other words, the differences matter more than the similarities. Billy Donovan has the potential to be a very good college coach if it comes to that. However, his experience in the NBA only matters if he can out-recruit his peers and genuinely enjoy the hobnobbing necessary to keep UNC’s boosters writing big checks yet staying out of the way. Those are open questions, which makes those significant concerns.
Part Two posts Wednesday and looks at the reasons Donovan left college the first time, his prior opportunities to return, and what might make this time different. In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is the college game just like the NBA? Do the differences matter? Let us know in the comments below.
