Coach Billy Donovan discussed his future with the Bulls and the rumors

PHILADELPHIA — Billy Donovan was never looking for legacy. The Bulls coach hasn’t chased down notoriety, the Hall of Fame, or a payday.

What he made clear on Wednesday, however, was what he will be searching for when the season ends are answers.

And while Donovan never came out and said it, the answers he hears from ownership and specifically his front office will carry a lot of weight in the decisions he makes in his immediate future.

The Sun-Times reported on Tuesday that there was growing momentum around the building that Donovan could be looking to move on once the season ends, and that of course was the topic of discussion for the coach before the game with Philadelphia.

“When I got into coaching I never did it for the money piece of it and I never really did it for notoriety,” Donovan said. “I love the game, I loved competing, and I felt like outside my parents, the people that had the most influence on me in my life were the guys that coached me.

“I never really thought, ‘Hey listen, I’m going to get into coaching because I want to be in the Hall of Fame.’ I wanted to get into coaching to win and the competing part, and trying to get a group of guys how to compete, so I never looked at it from a legacy standpoint as much as the season comes to an end, how are we going to work to get into a place where we’re really competing and how do we build this out moving forward? Those are the things that we need to talk about.

“Selfishly, competitively, I want us to be in that situation where we’re playing in real legitimate, not that these (regular-season games) aren’t legitimate, but you’re in the playoffs, you’re going through a seven-game series and you’re trying to advance and move on.”

Something Donovan hasn’t had the chance to do much in his six seasons, making the postseason just once.

And while the Donovan critics point the finger in his direction, the fact is he’s been given one perennial All-Star in an aging DeMar DeRozan and arguably got some of DeRozan’s best basketball out of him.

For the most part, executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas gave him one legitimate playoff-caliber team and when Lonzo Ball went down with a season-ending injury the tires seemed to fall off.

Now the Bulls will be heading into a third attempted rebuild and Donovan needs to hear a plan that he can get behind.

“Whatever words you want to use we’re pivoting right now, so a lot of it is going to be me sitting down with ownership, with Arturas, to find out, ‘OK, what’s the next step?’ “ Donovan said. “Because I think the biggest thing with the moves that were made at the (trade) deadline was, ‘OK, how do we get out of the middle? And if we’re taking a step back, what do we have to do to take a step forward where we’re actually building something where, yeah, we may have to go through a plan again, but how are we going to get into a playoff?’ “

There were rumors the last 24 hours that North Carolina would be reaching out to Donovan after firing Hubert Davis, but Donovan said his focus was on the Bulls and the remaining 10 games.

And while Donovan all but dismissed a return to college a few years back, NIL and the transfer portal have changed the landscape enough where there could be an attraction.

“I’ve had times in college where you’re not in the tournament and you’re not in the mix,” Donovan added. “That’s always disappointing because you want to be in the mix of trying to win a championship. I want to be in that situation. I understand it doesn’t happen overnight and in the blink of an eye. It takes a lot of hard work and diligence; you’ve got to build and really identify the players you want to have.”