OKC Thunder head coach Billy Donovan enters do-or-die season
By Noah Schulte
Coherent and elite talent
In the past few years, the front office has provided him with weird collections of patchwork players, but this is the first roster Donovan’s had that actually make sense since Kevin Durant left for Golden State. Most of the roster from last year is returning, so having that year of experience playing together should immediately raise the ceiling of wins for this team.
They even traded arguably their worst player from last year in Carmelo Anthony for a desperately-needed backup point guard in Dennis Schröder who should contribute right away.
Oklahoma City has agreed to trade Carmelo Anthony and a protected 2022 first-round pick to Atlanta for point guard Dennis Schroder and Mike Muscala, league sources tell ESPN. Anthony will be waived, and he will join team of his choice. Rockets are frontrunner.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 19, 2018
All of this is even without mentioning expected internal improvements from last year. Their best defender, Andre Roberson, will be returning from injury and before he went down the team boasted one of the toughest defensive units in the league.
Roberson’s return should immediately boost their ceiling. And although he had a down year in 2017-2018, Patrick Patterson could have a real impact this year and resemble player he was in Toronto.
Plus, they’re still returning two of the top-15 players in the NBA right now in Russell Westbrook and Paul George who routinely can go off like this:
On paper the OKC Thunder look like they could be a dark-horse contender this year if things break right and could easily be one of the top teams in the Western Conference. So there really isn’t an excuse for Donovan if the team doesn’t perform well this year.