šŸŽ  Coaching carousel - 2026

LOL

https://x.com/CSOonX/status/2041231202707746918?s=20

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LaRussa’s age says unc. The fact that he’s a whiney holier than thou asshole says he’s pure duke. He’s basically the coach k of mlb.

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Seems the UNC opening also allowed Donovan to win a power struggle with the front office. Bulls fired their EVP of basketball ops and their GM today. Although Karnisovas and Eversley were hired before Donovan and presumably were the ones to hire him and sign him to that extension last summer, so maybe there wasn’t a power struggle? Maybe Reinsdorf just liked Donovan more? Who knows with that franchise.

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Random, but did Karnisovas play with Danny Hurley?

A: yeah, overlapped a couple years at the Hall

And Mike Malone was at SH Prep one of those years…

See, it’s all somehow related… and I bet they all played on a team with @DFresh11 at some point too! :joy:

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Bulls fans seem to be happy that they are gone, but also, they are the fan base that suffered through the seemingly immortal front office reign of ā€œGarPaxā€ so maybe they are just happy that it’s possible for their front office to get fired for performance reasons after less than 10 years.

I’m starting to get annoyed at this particular shibboleth getting repeated like it’s some great wisdom:

Malone’s reputation as a coach is high in NBA circles, and having the respect of UNC legends Michael Jordan and Roy Williams played a role in the hire. With college basketball becoming more like professional basketball every year, UNC gets a respected X’s-and-O’s coach who worked in the NBA for nearly a quarter century as a head coach and assistant.

Let’s deconstruct that more…here are the ways in which college basketball is (and isn’t) becoming more like pro basketball, and whether I think they are advantageous for pro coaches coming to college:

  • Players getting paid: More like pros, not really clear to me that ā€œI coached a guy who has gotten money to play basketballā€ before is that much of a difference-maker, especially compared to the college coaches who are relatively less grumble-y about the whole situation.
  • Roster turnover: Way worse in college than the NBA! I don’t think being a NBA coach is an advantage here.
  • Style of play: This gets a little fuzzy, but I can accept that a NBA coach can sell a style of play attractive for recruits with NBA aspirations; seems to have worked OK for Kevin Young at BYU.
  • Working with a front office setup: This is a mixed one from my view. Yes, NBA coaches have experience working with dedicated personnel management staffers vs. being the dictator in charge of everything. But NBA coaches notably don’t need to do things like ā€œask the guy who owns 10 local car dealerships for moneyā€ or ā€œGo to Peach Jam.ā€ They just need to keep good relationships with their ownership group and front office, and let their front office go after their targets.

The pro coaches who might be more experienced in what the college game is currently like are probably Euro coaches. Their rosters can turn over a ton more from season to season, they already have to deal with Misko all the time, etc.

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That was more over the Ivey situation I thought… Also those guys sucked.

Anyone know the track record of nba coaches without college head coaching experience (or any experience in the past 20 years) to college head coach. Avery Johnson is the one that immediately comes to mind

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Larry Brown had the college HC chops but returned 14 years later and was….not great.

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Slander! He was pretty good. He established a program at SMU and did pretty well before they were in a good conference.

Confused young Tony Bennett in That coastal Texas tourney (but we won)

I love Larry brown…

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I can never tell if this is really just referring to the need to kiss the ass of high schoolers and their handlers, but you still have to do some of that! Especially at a blue blood where you’re trying to bring in 5 stars.

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He made the tourney once and lost to UCLA (kevon looney, norm Powell) on some ref fuckery, if I remember correctly…

He didn’t set the world ablaze but was solid.

Here’s his context: took over from some no name (I had totally memory holed this…) and left Jankovich with a solid roster.

Not all no-college experience guys, and a lot were NBA assistants but briefly off the top of my head:

Woodson did… oof

Hoiberg is doing great, but he was college before

BYU guy was an NBA assistant and hadn’t been in college in well over a decade, and I think he’s been fairly underwhelming relative to the resource

Stoudamire was an NBA assistant?

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Stackhouse.

It could be the Ivey stuff, but a couple things. It’d be hard to really blame the front office for the social media activity of a recent trade acquisition when he didn’t have a history of that before the trade. Also it was a buy low acquisition so they didn’t give up much for Ivey.

But more importantly Bulls/White Sox ownership has a long history of keeping people around for years past their sell by date. From Jerry Krause to John Paxton and Gar Forman to Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn and Ozzie Guillen and then Tony LaRussa and others, there’s numerous examples.

This is why I thought Billy Donovan would be crazy to leave for a college job. The lifestyle can’t be beat and he has unmatched job security for a head basketball coach.

Some rumors that Donovan will leave either way after this season to just step away from coaching.

https://twitter.com/TheBenSwain/status/2041274294538219740?s=20

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Total panic hire for UNC. Clearly all the palatable college guys said no so it was Malone or someone like Scott Drew. They can sell Malone as wanting an NBA guy with UNC ties even though they didn’t really want him. They should’ve waited a year. If one play goes differently against VCU then Hubert is still coach. It was an unplanned emotional decision.

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Scott Drew said no to Kentucky I’m not even sure he would’ve taken it. They clearly panicked with the portal opening tomorrow, Donavan apparently wouldn’t talk to them until the NBA season was over

I doubt it was a true panic hire. May not be option A or B but I’m sure there was consideration.

From Hansborough and others it sounds like he’d been around the team a good amount this year. May not have been a name all of us were hearing or perceiving but I’d be shocked if someone in their administration didn’t think after the firing ā€œlet’s at least look into the young NBA champion head coach that hangs around alreadyā€

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