Billy Donovan's Name Reportedly "Floating Around" For Vacant Sixers Job
Let’s get it back to the Sixers.
Oklahoma City parted with ways with Billy Donovan following their game seven loss to the Houston Rockets, ending a five-year run.
He’s available now if the Sixers are interested, which apparently might be the case:
Billy Donovan's name has been floating around as a potential Sixers head coaching candidate this month, per sources. But the first order of business for Philadelphia is to get its front office situation sorted out. https://t.co/dsxzSENpZV
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) September 9, 2020
Donovan is an interesting name. His first Thunder team went 55-27 and lost in the Western Conference semifinals to Golden State in seven games. That was the famous Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook team that went up 3-1 on the Warriors and then lost three straight, leading to Durant’s departure the following season.
He coached OKC to four-straight winning seasons afterward, but each ended in a first round exit. The Thunder arguably overachieved this season following the departures of Westbrook and Paul George, running more pick and roll and playing a less frenetic, half court type of offense with the current personnel set.
Donovan is a veteran coach who might be able to get more out of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, and he did coach Al Horford at Florida, so there’s a connection there. Still, any coach who comes in is going to have to try to work with pieces that don’t necessarily fit, and we’ve determined that it’s going to be a struggle for anybody.
As for the front office situation KOC mentions, Keith Pompey at the Inquirer is reporting that Alex Rucker might not be back:
“Multiple league sources don’t expect executive vice president of basketball operations Alex Rucker to be back next season. Brand has received a lot of criticism for the Sixers’ shortcomings and poor decisions. However, Rucker has been heavily involved behind the scenes in a lot of the decision-making, according to sources. Philly originally hired him as VP of analytics and strategy in October 2016 after seven years as the Toronto Raptors’ senior analytics consultant.”