As most probably know, Nike-Florida's Billy Donovan was reported recently to be considering leaving D1 for the NBA, a move he had considered making previously after winning his second consecutive ring back in the naught decade.
Now, @globaljaybird posted that Billy Donovan may be considered for the OKC job.
This the change and its timing now might make some sense in the grand scheme of SHOEWARS.
Donovan, a Pitino disciple (note Pitino is now reputedly contracted with adidas, as is his school Uof L), has long appeared a right way guy at Nike-Florida in the SEC.
IMHO, an early faint indicator of Donvan being a right way guy was him somewhat surprisingly turning down the UK job once, which was his alma mater, given the background issues Billy Gillispie faced at UK, and then given the apparent UK state of mind that lead it to hire Coach John Calipari, as Calipari was leaving Memphis without knowing about all the ringers that played for him for a couple years and that lead to Memphis vacating a season or so in the wake of Cal's leaving.
But IMHO a more concrete indicator of right way guy status came when Donovan hired former St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts, who was reputedly forced out of his head coaching job at St. John's by some reputed group of AAU and juco coaches in the triboroughs that had reputedly sharply curtailed his access to recruits, according to reports by a New York City newspaper.
For a refresher, Roberts was a former KU assistant of Self's at Illinois, who, after head coaching St. John's and then assisting Donovan at Florida, next rejoined Self at KU as an assistant--a role he presently admirably fulfills to our great good fortune.
While Roberts was an assistant of Donovan's at Nike-Florida, he reputedly began recruiting recent KU star Joel Embiid.
When Roberts moved from Donovan's Nike-Florida staff to Self's adidas-KU staff, adidas-Joel Embiid appeared to follow Roberts to KU.
The reason for recounting all this old news is to indicate that Coach Donovan appears to be one of the reputed right way guys of college coaching and one who stood up and hired Coach Roberts, at a time when Coach Roberts appeared perhaps something of a hot potato as a recruiter, given his reputed conflicts with certain AAU and juco coaches noted above.
At least from a fans remote vantage point, it appeared that a Nike-contracted head coach, Billy Donovan, was lending a former head coach a helping hand that had stood up to some of the reputed wrong way types and been forced out, as a result.
Further, it refreshes that Nike contracted Donovan lost a strong shot at Embiid, who chose adidas-KU over Nike-Florida, perhaps in part because Roberts left for KU. Since Embiid before image seemed on a track for being a potential big time endorser down stream in his NBA career, Nike probably did not celebrate with champagne Embiid's shift to adidas-KU, or Donovan's principles, that enabled the situation.
Consider the above as context for what has seemed to transpire recently.
Nike-UK, coached by John Calipari, who has only won one ring with several recent apparent talent stacks, has appeared to be the SEC school that gets sharply more draft choice quality players, than Nike-Florida under Donovan, despite Donovan having won two straight rings in the apparent pre-stack era.
Next, Nike-LSU, coached by a coach with no rings, and just getting started as a D1 major coach, just got stacked with reputedly the best recruiting class in the country, according to some analysts, whereas two-ring Donovan, at Nike-Florida, did not.
Put more succinctly, two guys with fewer rings and equal or lesser track records, and one with a history of not knowing about infractions occurring on his watch, are getting bigger talent stacks at Nike contracted programs in the SEC than is Donovan at Nike-contracted Florida.
It might be a little tough to stomach for a great coach like Donovan, who should be in the prime of his D1 coaching career.
It makes one wonder: might Donovan be some kind of a victim of SHOEWARS aka an apparent competition between PetroShoeCo-agent complexes?
It will be interesting to see if Donovan changes to adidas, if he moves to the NBA, especially OKC, where Self, contracted with adidas, has long been rumored as a possible prospect for OKC, because of personal relationships with OKC ownership.
It would be a shame for college basketball to lose a person of apparent right way character of Billy Donovan, but maybe Donovan has grown tired of the asymmetric distributions of draft choice grade talent.
Whatever, I wish the best for Billy Donovan, who appears to have the kind of character, and competitiveness, and coaching chops to be successful in college or the NBA. Wouldn't it be great to see him go to the NBA and win two titles and break the record of our own Larry Brown. I can't think of many non-Jayhawks that I would wish well in pursuit of breaking Larry's record of being the only coach to win an NCAA and an NBA ring. But Billy Donovan would be quite alright with me.
