OKC Thunder: Firing Billy Donovan won’t solve team’s biggest issues

The “Now I Do What I Want” Mentality has its Pros and Cons

Now it’s time to talk about Russell Westbrook, the face of the franchise, the heart of the city, and the one remaining player who has been part of the franchise since day one. As legendary as Westbrook has been, he’s been a key perpetrator of the Thunder’s stale and predictable offense, particularly at the end of games.

This has been an issue regardless of who’s coaching. Let’s use the Celtics game as an example of how a basic, easy to guard offense cost the Thunder a win. With 4:14 left in the game, the Thunder were leading 94-87. Here is a brief description of the Thunder’s final eleven possessions and how many total passes each play had. I’ve attached the game log here so you can see the time and score as well.

Possession by possession:

1. Westbrook misses a deep pull-up midrange jumper, no passes.
2. Abrines misses a top-of-key-three, one pass.  Thunder grab offensive rebound, Grant misses corner three off Westbrook drive-and-dish, one pass.
3. George misses an elbow three after playing hot potato with Westbrook, two passes.
4. Westbrook pick-and-roll with Adams pass gets deflected and stolen, one pass.
5. Westbrook misses another long midrange jumper, two passes.
6. Westbrook misses a runner in the lane, zero passes.
7. Westbrook finds Adams down low who gets fouled, splits free throws, two passes.
8. Westbrook misses top of key three, two passes.
9.  After a timeout, Westbrook takes the inbound pass and misses a deep three, zero passes.
10. : George misses a contested corner three, one pass. Thunder get offensive rebound. Westbrook’s pass down low to Adams gets deflected out of bounds, leads to a turnover, one pass
11. Abrines misses a contested elbow three, one pass.

Final score, Celtics 101, Thunder 95

Those numbers summarized; 0-10 from the field, 1-2 at the line, two turnovers, one measly point.

Westbrook isn’t totally to blame obviously, but some of the shots he took, specifically the long midrange jumpers off zero passes have become way too familiar, regardless of who is on the team and who is coaching. It’s hard to believe after a timeout, Donovan wanted Westbrook to launch a deep three with no action whatsoever.

It’s these types of performances, that have happened time and time again during the Westbrook era, the only era of Thunder basketball. Here’s the thing about a Westbrook offense. Yes, you don’t necessarily need to rely as much on passing because his ability to break down defenses can generate open looks. However, at the end of close games, when Westbrook is tired, he doesn’t have the same speed to blow pass defenders.

He also doesn’t have the same lift in his jumper. But when you’ve been running the same plays all game, it’s hard to all of a sudden incorporate ball movement and action away from the play. So when you run the same type of basic plays, especially against talented and well-coached teams, you get the finishes like the one last Thursday.

Stats you can’t pass by

The Thunder’s lack of ball movement can be seen with some eye-popping stats. The most obvious is passes per game. Since 2014, the OKC Thunder have been a bottom four team in passes per game.  In each of the past two seasons, the OKC Thunder were dead last in total passes per game.

Over that same time period, the Thunder has been a middle-of-the-pack to slightly below average team in terms of total assists. However, their secondary assists, or passes that lead to assists, have been extremely low.

They have been at least in the bottom six since 2014, twice finishing second to last. This is important because often times, it’s the pass that leads to the pass creating a shot. When a significant majority of your assists come on drive-and-dish threes, it doesn’t encourage ball movement. Teams like Golden State, San Antonio, and Utah have thrived on this advanced ball movement to create easy baskets. For obvious reasons, the Thunder aren’t generating them.

This is Russell Westbrook’s Team

Here’s the hard truth I can’t stress enough. If Westbrook refuses to make changes to his game as well as his approach, it doesn’t matter whose coaching the team. This isn’t high school or college where the coach runs the show. This is the NBA. Russell Westbrook is the most powerful person in the Thunder organization. With one snap of the finger, he could send Billy Donovan out of a job and onto updating his Linkedin page.

What would happen if a new coach called out and/or challenged Westbrook. Would a franchise that has worked so hard to avoid internal conflict be able to handle such a clash? NBA head coaches cannot afford to lose the locker room. It’s why David Blatt got fired in Cleveland and it’s why Tom Thibodeau is about to lose his job in Minnesota.

Young said on an episode of the OKC Dream Team Podcast, even after the loss to Boston, Donovan still hasn’t lost his team. Maybe that doesn’t last much longer, but for Donovan’s sake, he honestly might be better off not changing much and simply hope shots start to fall. If he tries to implement new changes at the expense of Westbrook, things could really start to spiral out of control.