The View from OKC: Donovan "Hardly Has Any" Job Security
If you're curious about what they're thinking in OKC, this was written by a sport radio host in Oklahoma City - speculating on what it means that Billy Donovan is at the top of the Michigan rumor mill.
LINK.
This guy admits he has no intel that Donovan has been contacted about the job. It's just his speculation as an OKC beat guy.
I thought this was the most telling paragraph:
"So if Michigan, who has been to two Final Fours in the past six years and five Sweet Sixteen’s over that same period, offered Donovan a multi-year deal that a two-time National Champion coach would command, it would be hard for me to believe that Billy wouldn’t seriously consider taking the job."
Show me the NBA coach that is a legendary former player at Michigan and is in the process of being fired from his current job... if Manuel can't get that coach to come, then you might have a comparison to be made
Rudy T!!! Warde, go get him!!
I was just listening to Sam Webb and he sort of hinted that someone once gave a Florida player a 20% off Bed Bath & Beyond coupon and Donovan knew about it, so he's not a fit here.
Sadly, that is probably closer to accurate than we want to believe.
Probably. Michigan is going to get in it's own way I think. Warde probably has many "Michigan Men" high upon their soapboxes, thumping their chests telling him how Donovan cannot be considered.
We / our fanbase / our alums need to stop this shit right now.
It's the Beyond part that's got me nervous.
Bring. Him. Home.
Warde: Make it happen.
Hoping for other teams cast-offs... This has Rich-Rod written all over it.
Yeah because trying to hire a guy with two national titles is totally the same thing.
Just offer Donovan the highest salary in college basketball. Why Michigan continually hamstrings itself I will never understand. The only schools that can potentially offer more money are in the SEC. If he doesn't want the job at least they tried.
As for people who think we can't get a top tier coach because of what happened at UCLA, remember UCLA (1) has a moron for an AD; (2) has to pay way more money because of cost of living adjustments; (3) and actually has way less money than you would think.
Just get out the fucking money cannon and hire a great coach.
Warde better figure out that the BASKETBALL is what is important. I loved watching Beilein's style of play and how even when they were overmatched talent wise they rarely got blown out. Donovan checks the Basketball box, the recruiting box, the elite in big games boxes better than anybody outside of the blind swing for the fence candidates. The "he might have done something sometime" excuse if that's what he's going to use if he doesn't at least pick up the phone is 1000% unacceptable.
Seeing as just 3 months ago I deposited $ to get bball season tickets for this upcoming season, I for one will be speaking with the checkbook. There are enough quality candidates to get with what Beilein built. I am willing to throw the deposit away should a coach be hired that does not immediately fulfill the sense that the program will still be good, with the opportunity to move into being consistently elite.
Question: Does the Yak Line move you? Is Yaklich (or Washington) good enough to keep your tickets?
For me personally, no, that internal promotion would not be enough for me. It's true that I'd rather have that than someone like Moser (or anyone else of that ilk), but I wouldn't keep throwing money at tickets.
No, not keeping them for any of the assistants. I think Yak could very possibly be a good, maybe even great coach someday, but I feel like a smaller institution should bear the burden of that risk, not UM.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying I need Donovan or else. I'm saying make the best BASKETBALL hire you CAN make. In order to be able to make the hire, the coach has to be willing to come.
Also, I loved the integrity that JB brought to the program, I'm not advocating stooping down to other program's levels. What I am saying is if there is a good hire out there that can be made and it is not made because the tree of integrity is in question, that's not a great position in my opinion. I think you could count on one hand how many "basketball forests" there are with a "tree of integrity" standing tall in them. UVA and Gonzaga are the only ones that come to mind. If the tree has been chopped down then I don't want that coach, but if it's not chopped down, it's a judgement call on the tree itself and in that case I'd rather judge the forest.
I know this has already been posted in multiple threads, but just going to leave this here for everybody who thinks Donovan is a homerun hire.
Stu talks to Horford the younger about his transfer and time at Florida.
Relevant portion starts at the 14:00 mark
https://anchor.fm/athletespost/episodes/Ep--11--Jon-Horford-e398j8
So Jon Horford is mad at Donovan because he was suspended for making bets with a teammate on the bench during the game and mad at Beilein because he never visited him to stay for his 5th year. What a joke.
I'm sure there is a bit of sour grapes mixed in there, but if you heard nothing in there to give you pause, then I don't know what else to say.
Should it be disqualifying? Maybe, probably not
Should it be concerning? Absolutely
Actually, if what Horford is saying it true, that's pretty f***ed up. Multiple kids failing drug tests--forced religious things--yeah that s*** would not play well in Ann Arbor.
Why are so many of the old posters on this blog so soft ?
Jon Horfords opinion is fucking irrelevant. He was fucking soft bench player. Who cares what he thinks. He's salty he never lived up to even 1/4 his big brothers hype
Too bad everything we keep hearing, from Sam Webb at least, is that Warde won't hire him.. Cuz yeah, a two-time NC winning coach who's clean, as far as we can tell, isn't a good fit at Michigan.
Do it.
Hire Donovan.
Offer him anything and everything.
Can we will this into being? If we all wish and click our heels together and do the 75 things clemson does before a football game can we get this obviously competent coach to come to ann arbor?
No. These are the most telling paragraphs (from a radio host with no connections):
All of this is conjecture, of course. Just like the odds that have Donovan so high on their list. Sure, it makes sense and that is what Vegas is looking for. It appears to have some logic so that people will put some money down and bet on it...
But there isn’t anything actually to it. There have been no reports that Donovan is interested in the job. There have been no reports that Michigan is interested in Donovan.
There isn’t a real threat that Donovan would be hired away. And while it does make sense, for now, there is nothing to it.
That is what people are getting all worked up over. A fucking pipe dream with absolutely no substance whatsoever. And we have to read idiotic post after idiotic '1201' post about how Warde Manuel is bungling a process that has barely even begun. We're not even at the "David Cutcliffe said 'No'" portion of this coaching search and people with no patience and no perspective want Manuel fired over it. Get a grip.
We are competing against nobody. We're the only program in the country looking for a coach right now. Our class is signed. Practice doesn't start for months. There is no rush whatsoever. Manuel and his team can take their sweet ass time and they should.
Brady Hoke was fired on December 2nd. Jim Harbaugh was hired on December 30th. And that was with recruiting barreling toward signing day. There was urgency to that search and it still took 4 weeks. FOUR WEEKS!
Yet we've got mental midgets in here burning Manuel at the stake for not having a currently-under-contract NBA head coach in Crisler Arena after TWO DAYS!
Keep up the good work, MGoBoard.
This process should be over in less than 10 days. That is typical these days.
And JH wasn’t hired until then because he refused to leave before his season with SF was over. I think he was announced as the coach a couple days after that.
EDIT: Just looked it up and Mike Young at VT and Nate Oats at Bama were both hired less than 5 days after their predecessor left. This should be done no later than the middle of next week.
Your 10-day timeline is typical because everybody is always racing each other to hire the best coach available. VT and Alabama were in a rush because if they didn't get Oats or Young, somebody else would have. There was a reason for them to move so very quickly.
Those reasons don't apply to us. We're in a unique position where there is no competition, but also no available hot prospects. There is no rush. 10 days or 10 weeks, it does not matter. This needs to be done by September, not next week.
Football waited 4 weeks because that's how long it took to line up the right guy, idiot fan timelines be damned. (Again, after 8 days in the football search the Cutcliffe nonsense started. Why? Because media morons had nothing to go on and started throwing shit against the wall. Impatient fans lapped it up.)
That's where we stand now. Nobody knows anything. We haven't even started. Sit down and let Warde do his job.
What? It doesn’t need to be done until September, are you kidding me? Just think about that a little harder.
Midnight Madness is in October. That's the first day you can officially hold basketball practice leading up to the new season. As long as we have a coach sometime in September, he'll be ready in plenty of time to practice with his team.
This won't take until September, but we technically have until then. The fact you couldn't piece that together tells me all I need to know about who I'm talking to. Take care.
I can figure that out just fine. If we hire a coach in September he won’t have a team to coach in October. The 2019 class will be long gone and some of the current team will be out the door as well. No coach will want a team with 7 scholarship players. Waiting until September will decrease the pool of coaches willing to accept an offer that close to the season to a very low number. I get that this won’t take until September but the coach needs to be in place as soon as possible to get the roster solidified before everyone moves on to more stable programs.
Dude, we will lose our recruiting class if we don't get a coach soon. Jalen Wilson and Bajema aren't going to come to Michigan without a coach. And we still need a 3rd
Jalen Wilson and Cole Bajema are far more in tune with what is happening than you two, or me. They've signed LOIs. They're not going anywhere until a hire is made. Keep panicking though. (I think the other guy said we'll be down to 7 players. I laughed. A lot.)
And we don't need a 3rd freshman. That's Adrien Nunez from last year. Absolute end of bench guy. We will never roll 12 deep when 3 of our returning starters are mainstays. We don't need a 3rd, nor a 4th. It would be nice, but just like waiting for Harbaugh killed the 2015 class, hiring the right guy is more important than rushing complete bullshit. They're not going to hire the first asshole through the door because you're paranoid.
Here's a bet for both of you. I'll nuke my own account if there's a new hire introductory press conference BEFORE next Thursday, 5/23. You do the same if they hire somebody 5/23 or after. Let's see who's right. Deal?
Because they are in tune with the process that means they should and would be patient? We are at risk of losing them if this drags because there is so much uncertainty. They will look to get to a more stable situation before the spot elsewhere potentially fills up. If we were to lose those 2 and a transfer isn’t farfetched, then we will be at 8 scholarships. And that includes Austin Davis (I doubt he transfers).
Even if we were to somehow keep all 11, the current coaches are recruiting to fill the last spots with guys who can be immediate help. I wonder why that is? To say they will be fine with the current 11 is disregarding the needs of the roster that our coaches have acknowledged.
I agree that they will interview multiple guys and have a thorough search, but that can be done in less than 2 weeks.
Hahahaha you dumbass. Played out just like I said. Hire announced on 5/22 and it was evident who it would be the day before. Introductory press conference timing doesn’t matter since they can have that whenever. The important thing is he can hire assistants and go recruit.
i get your point, but this needs to be done in the next few weeks for recruiting purposes. i don't work for any search firm, but you should be able to vet your list of candidates in a week or so. then, go down your list and start making offers one by one. it should not be a long process.
Yes and no.
Yes, this should be done in a few weeks to a month. I agree because there's a guy in an office who is working on this daily and will likely have it worked out by then.
No, this doesn't NEED to be done in any time frame. Recruiting is essentially done. If we don't add to Wilson/Bajema, we'll move on with 11 without consequence. We essentially had a 7-man rotation last year. 13th seat was empty. 12th seat was Nunez who never got a second of meaningful playing time. Are you saying we NEED to hire somebody as soon as humanly possible because we can't compete in 2019-20 without the next Adrien Nunez waiving a towel and jacking garbage time bricks?
So let all your players wait in the wind until September...that’s not smart! Otherwise if this takes an extended time you will look as clueless as UCLA did during their search.
A pity this is buried at the bottom of the thread, because it is great.
It shouldn't take nearly as long as the Harbaugh process (which actually started earlier than Hoke's firing, as we all know) but if it goes past the middle of next week I won't be disturbed unless things have been really bungled along the way. But evaluating this now, literally 48 hours after the news broke, is silly.
It shouldn't be a pipe dream though.
It makes perfect sense for both parties and should be pursued aggressively by Michigan.
Doesn't matter if OKC wants him gone. Does he want to come back to college is the bigger question (along with will Warde even contact him?) Even if he got fired, would he rather take the year off, go commentate or be a color analyst somewhere, lick his wounds, and get another NBA job next year? Which he would probably be offered one.
OKC could literally roll out the red carpet for him that stretched all the way to Ann Arbor. Does he even want the job? Guess we'll find out.
This is the guy I want more than anyone. Hopefully it happens.
Heard from an insider that Donovan is visiting Ann Arbor this weekend. Hold onto your butts!
We're you playing counter strike last night?
I already have the feeling I'm going to be greatly disappointed with our next coach.
You can't look for another guy like beilien because there are none. Literally one of the best coaches ever and you're going to replace him with guys with similar values? Values are great and all, but we could hire a priest and he would be booed if we started 0-3.
We don't have to become a completely dirty school. We do need to throw a stone in the pond once in awhile, just not jumping in.
The arena was just starting to get some excitement this year. Why? Because not as many boring old rich farts go to the basketball games. It's the one revenue sport where you can get tickets somewhat reasonably and the real fans who actually cheer and get excited can contend.
I hope we go after Donovan. I hope we take at least a look at Howard. Please no 70 year old bald white dudes with okay records in middling conferences who are nice people.
You can’t go looking for another Beilein. Mindset needs to be you WILL have something different. Plan for it. Expect it. Look for the ‘new’. The unexpected. Innovate and move forward.
I hope our AD gets outside consultation on hiring a basketball coach. Pay a retainer fee to get a top consultant to advise us.
Generally speaking, for an enterprise of this size, no hire of this magnitude is done without an executive search partner. I can pretty much guarantee that one of the leading firms (like Korn Ferry) in the space is working this deal.
wouldn't it be funny if said search firm recommended a coach from another team that just got hired using the same search firm? talk about double-billing clients...
If you are on the side of wanting Donovan there is one good omen out there. He hasn't gone straight to the press and let everyone know that he has no interest. Normally in this situation they either let everyone know early and they take themselves publicly out of contention or they are willing to listen and stay quiet while their agent handles things.
This is a good point.
It would be a good point if OKC was still playing. Who is interviewing Donovan now? How many NBA coaches are interviewed weeks after their season ends? I doubt Donovan calls up media members just to state he has no interest.