Sources: Florida's Billy Donovan finalizing deal to become Thunder coach

It's funny. It makes you wonder what happened behind the scenes in 2007 to make Donovan come back and Urban Meyer practically had to fake his own death to get out of Gainesville. Maybe they simply had a change of heart...

 

ESPN says it's official. $6 mil a year.

 

That's "I can do what I want" money.

 

It's an interesting move. It's highly possible that Durant and Westbrook are gone in the next two years. Then Donovan becomes the next Byron Scott.

 

Still a no lose situation. He pockets his 6 mil per year for as long as he's there and will have plenty of schools courting him if and when he wants to return to college.

And here's the underdiscussed part of this: things were suddenly looking bleak for Billy D at Florida. Just had a crappy season followed by a very disappointing recruiting class and not much to hope for next year, the program appeared headed for a downward slide. Instead of taking that slide, he takes a boatload of money to coach an NBA title contender with two superstars and all sorts of options afterward.

Dude definitely knew when it was the right time to get out.

 

You're right. Florida is not expected to be very good next season and two bad seasons in a row wouldn't get him fired obviously, but it might be enough for the NBA to stop calling. He can go 6-76 in each of the next two NBA seasons and still get almost any college job he wants