Billy Donovan has to take control of the Oklahoma City Thunder
By Tony Heim
Billy Donovan is a great basketball mind. Donovan’s biggest weakness however, is one of the main hindrances holding the OKC Thunder back.
If you’re an Oklahoma City Thunder fan you have an opinion on Billy Donovan. My guess is 95% of those opinions are negative. I personally align with the other 5%, but I want the majority of Thunder Nation to know that I 100% understand where they are coming from.
That’s why we gather here today.
The Thunder are in a precarious predicament. At 8-11 they currently are on the outside looking in of the playoffs. In the past week they’ve destroyed the defending NBA champions only to be handled by a consummate bottom-five team in the league. While it’s clear what Oklahoma City’s basketball identity should be – suffocating defense, constant attacking on offense – we’ve seen nothing but sporadic play for 19 games. It’s been brutal to watch.
Many have placed the lack of consistency on the coaching staff, specifically Billy Donovan. While I agree that Donovan deserves most of the criticism he’s received, I draw the line at firing him. There’s three basic reasons why:
- He’s proven he knows how to win. We are quick to forget about the 2016 Western Conference, the span where Donovan outcoached Rick Carlisle, Greg Popovich and Steve Kerr in successive series. The Warriors ultimately outlasted the Thunder, but that’s because OKC stopped making shots in the last three games of the series. Donovan’s modifications from series-to-series gave the Thunder a chance to make it to the NBA Finals – his players didn’t follow through (more on that idea soon).
- The players are behind him. Lesley McCaslin’s pre-game report on Saturday night mentioned how the Thunder aren’t blaming poor coaching for their lack of execution, rather themselves. Which brings me to my next point.
- Donovan’s gameplans are consistently spot-on. As you all know Donovan provides us with a coaching corner before every game – in those segments/McCaslin’s reports we get an idea of how the Thunder are going to/want to play in any particular game. The problem is the players rarely follow said plan. The Mavericks matchup on Saturday highlighted that perfectly. Going into the game Donovan said OKC was going to attack the rim and force Dallas to stop their penetration. Instead we got an assortment of jump shots. He said they were going to focus on controlling the glass against one of the worst rebounding teams in the league – they finished with only 39 total boards.
At this point you must think I’m crazy. The fact that the players aren’t responding to what he’s preaching means he isn’t following his basic job description. You’re right – Donovan’s lack of control is the main reason why the Thunder are 8-11 and not 13-6. But because this issue is relatively easy to fix it’s not worth the risk of alienating a locker room that is in win-now mode.
Billy D, if you’re reading this I’m only asking you to do one thing: go back to your roots and coach this team as if you were at Florida.
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Donovan’s college tenure is defined by an innovative motion offense that never solely focused on one player. Instead of modifying his system once he entered the NBA, Donovan completely overhauled it to fit his roster (i.e. Russell Westbrook).
That’s where he went wrong.
The best NBA coaches make their players assimilate to their systems. Gregg Popovich forces players to play his way or else be benched/traded/cut. Steve Kerr changed the way Steph Curry approached his offensive game. Brad Stevens made Kyrie Irving play defense.
Donovan has the brilliant basketball mind to create a revolution for Westbrook, Carmelo and PG, but he hasn’t shown the strong-armed personality that’s needed. Except when he was at Florida coaching 18-to-22-year old’s. Considering the Thunder are collectively playing with the basketball IQ of 12-to-16-year old’s, it’s time Donovan reaches into the archives and brings back Florida Billy D.
Isolation basketball has been the Thunder’s biggest issue this season, yet they’ve proven countless times that they have offensive sets they can run. Here’s a play OKC ran directly after Donovan took a full timeout on Saturday:
Legitimate movement from all five guys on the court led to an open corner three. How fascinating – Donovan gave them a set to run and it worked. The reason we don’t see this more isn’t because the Thunder don’t have the sets to run. It’s because Donovan doesn’t force his players to run his sets, he has them read and react to the game.
There’s only so much leash you can give gunners like Westbrook and Anthony though. Donovan is adamant about keeping his stars happy, but at some point they need to be shown that their selfishness is only hurting the team. He’s got to confront his players a la Popovich. Westbrook may not enjoy being critiqued in this manner but it’s only going to make him a better player. And if it doesn’t, that’s on Russ for being too hard-headed.
I leave you with this: who is available that is any more intriguing? Mark Jackson is always in the conversation, but look at what happened the season after Jackson was replaced by Kerr. An NBA championship. Jeff Van Gundy is the only other proven coach without a job. That’s because he is seemingly comfortable doing television.
Donovan’s constant rotation experimentation can be excruciating, but we’ve seen the benefits come Playoff time. The Thunder’s top-ranked defense wouldn’t be that way without Billy D. We are so infatuated with Donovan’s faults that we fail to see the positives that he’s brought to OKC.
Billy Donovan has provided the foundation for his players to compete for a championship. What he hasn’t done is forcefully impress on them what the end results could/should be.
Next: Player Grades from Thunder's Loss to Mavericks
If Donovan starts coaching the Oklahoma City Thunder like they were the Florida Gators we’ll see a drastic change. If not we’re going to watch the same reoccurring problems for 63 more games.
Your move Billy D.