Round Table Discussion: OKC Thunder at a Crossroads

How much – if any – blame does Billy Donovan deserve for this?

Barbee: He definitely deserves some blame for this. Dion’s leash was too long. He has value when he is playing well, but when he is not, he needs to come off the floor. The biggest issue on this team is defense, and I’m guessing Donovan’s thinking was that Dion’s post defense could help if he was switched onto LeBron. Waiters did a decent job a few times, however, his offense was so bad it did not make up for it. 

Hixon: He deserves some. I initially thought he had a worse game than Dion, but after taking some time to think about it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. He played Dion 32 minutes while he was having his worst game of the season, but considering the other options were Morrow and Foye who were also having bad days, I don’t think he could have done much different in that regard.

Hallett: The coach always deserves some blame. However, he tried to use the players that he had to the best of his ability. He needs to get the players playing with greater cohesion and tweak the defense. Roberson coming back will help this. Unfortunately Waiters is scoring at the same efficiency as Roberson but without the defense.

Ramil: Hard to say, as you can see that his decisions have failed but, are sound in premise. Leaving Dion to work through his issues to gain confidence (as he did with Kyle Singler earlier this season) is a good move as a person, but not as a coach, because both simply continued to struggle. And his lineups have been inconsistent and show a lack of flexibility that is confounding.

Woods: It has to be some, right? It’s difficult to blame a new head coach too much in the first season, but the issues with the Thunder seem to be more glaring than issues with some of the other strong teams out West.

Next: What About Sam Presti?