Donovan’s Dishes: From bad to good for the OKC Thunder

After a week off the Dishes last week, today I come back and look at some of the coaches comments after a poor start to the week. The week certainly got better for the OKC Thunder.

Billy Donovan is fast becoming my second favorite non-player for the OKC Thunder. Number one is still Sam Presti for obvious reasons. Give Presti a paperclip and see what he can acquire. But I digress. We are here to talk about Billy Donovan.

The week started with the Thunder nursing a two game losing streak. Hopefully heading to the lowly placed Sacramento Kings, this streak would end. Wrong – things got worse. The Kings beat the OKC Thunder, putting them in a worse hole.

After the game, Donovan was asked about spacing and movement issues. Watch through to the end of this clip, you will see Donovan is not publicly putting any blame on his players. He is trying to talk up their commitment to this team, their willingness to work for change.  Not only does this give me great hope for the season, it shows Donovan is a true professional.

The next game was against the Denver Nuggets. After that loss there was a closed-door team meeting. There has been a heap of talk in the press about this meeting so I will not spend time on it here. What I will say, however, is it appears Donovan has been told to coach harder.

LA Clippers game

I do not question Donovan’s commitment, but I know he puts tremendous faith in his professional athletes to do a job. However, in the third quarter against the Los Angeles Clippers, Donovan called a timeout after 29 seconds of play as per Royce Young.

To me, this shows Donovan is willing to take the reins and call his players out rather than letting them just play. For me, this could be a crucial part of the evolution of Billy Donovan the college head coach to NBA coach.

Yes, your athletes a paid very well to do a job. However we all need to be told where we are going wrong from time to time. It is the first time in his NBA coaching career he has had the ability to do this. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook ran the team in his first year. Last season he had to rely on Westbrook alone.

Now with two other new superstars, Westbrook wants to play so they stay around. Donovan is able to coach in a manner which keeps his players involved and get the team to win, something we can’t take for granted moving forward.

In the same game, Donovan is seen getting in the ears of the referees more. Against Portland, Carmelo Anthony was ejected – I wanted Donovan to get a tech foul at the least. You have to show you are willing to stand up for your players.

Brett Dawson captured Donovan doing just that in the Clippers game. Donovan is a really good coach in my opinion, but to be great you have to know when to cross the line occasionally.

Mavericks game

I will let you know I was nervous about the game against the Dallas Mavericks. One reason I was  nervous is because I wrote the preview. So far this season the team has not won when I do that. Turns out I need not have been. Westbrook did his normal spark plug thing and Paul George had his second tremendous game in succession.

Every so often, I like to hear the opinion of a coach about a great game. Hearing Donovan praise George for his efficiency, his court awareness and impact on the game shows that fire and brimstone are not the only ways to coach.

Players need to hear the bad, but they also need to know their coach has their back when they are good.

Come back same time next week for more Donovan’s Dishes where we serve up the best of the OKC Thunder coach from the previous week.