OKC Thunder Starting 5 mailbag: The Billy Donovan chronicles

Gauging the standard of excellence:

So it is clear that Thunder fans are not too fond of Billy Donovan. What can he do to change their mind?

More from Thunderous Intentions

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

The fans have high expectations going into the season, as they should. The Oklahoma City Thunder are a good team, and possible have the best depth they ever had in OKC.

However, the West is incredibly tough, which matters a lot for first and second round match ups. While OKC is one of the only true locks to enter post season play in the West, that is still a tough path to make it all the way to the conference finals.

In my opinion, Billy Donovan does not have to reach the Western Conference finals to have job security. He needs to reach the second round, and be competitive in the second round. With this squad, a competitive series will likely end in a series win. A competitive second round appearance will be enough in my eyes, in a tough Western Conference, to earn his fifth year at the helm.

Could the Thunder find themselves in the Western Conference finals? Absolutely, at worst OKC is the third best team in the conference, and anyone could make an argument they are the second best team.