Billy Donovan’s second season

A look at how he adjusted to the hand he was dealt and how he fared in meeting some goals.

He’s something of a scientist, they say. That’s Billy Donovan’s reputation.

The Thunder coach pushes buttons and makes mixtures, some compatible, some combustible. Donovan is a basketball thinker and a lineup tinkerer.

“The one thing I always love about coaching is that every season is totally different,” Donovan said. “I may come into the same office every day, but every day provides something new, and I find that to be great.”

The thing about experiments is that sometimes they fly, and sometimes they go awry.

In his second season with the Thunder, Donovan experienced a little of both.

When Kevin Durant bolted for the Golden State Warriors via free agency last July, Donovan was left with one superstar on a team built for two. Russell Westbrook was a known commodity, but there were mysteries further down the roster.

The Thunder opened the season with six new players. By season’s end,

it was using eight players who’d played elsewhere in 2015-16. Oklahoma City had winning records in six of the seven months of the season, the lone exception a taxing January in which it went 7-8, losing four of 12 road games and sweeping its only games at Chesapeake Energy Arena. It won 47 games, 1.5 more than the Las Vegas overunder.

Along the way, Donovan tried new things.

Successful tests

Though his preference is for an offense built on ball movement, Donovan handed Westbrook the keys to the Thunder offense and turned him loose, and the results often were spectacular.

“I think a lot of times when Russell plays, because of the ability to attract two defenders and sometimes three, sometimes his passes lead to direct shots,” Donovan said. “Sometimes those guys don’t need to make an extra pass.”

During the regular season, 40.8 percent of the Thunder’s possessions ended with Westbrook taking a shot, getting to the free-throw line or committing a turnover, an NBA record for usage rate.

Westbrook joined Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average a triple double — double digits in points, rebounds and assists — and his 42 triple doubles broke Robertson’s NBA single-season record.

But not all of Donovan’s offensive work was with Westbrook.

He integrated his new players over the course of the season, starting rookie Domantas Sabonis for the first 64 games, employing Alex Abrines as a sharpshooter off the bench.

After a November trade for Jerami Grant, Donovan and his staff helped the former 76er develop his offensive game to include putting the ball on the floor, and Donovan found ways to use Grant at all three frontcourt positions, but primarily as a defensively diverse power forward.

And even with so many new faces, Donovan stuck to his defensive principles. The Thunder finished the season 10th in the NBA in defensive rating, allowing 105.1 points per 100 possessions. OKC was the youngest team in the league to finish in the top 10 defensively.

Failed to launch

Early and often, Donovan talked about the importance of building a team that could compete with Westbrook off the court. Westbrook “cannot be Superman and rescue us from everything,” Donovan said. That didn’t pan out. The Thunder fell apart with Westbrook off the court in its first-round loss to the Rockets, outscoring Houston by 4.9 points per 100 possessions when Westbrook was on the floor and being outscored by 51.3 points per 100 possessions with him on the bench.

Donovan hardly was the only factor in the Thunder’s reliance on Westbrook — the point guard’s style of play and Oklahoma City’s roster limitations were critical — but he never found a consistent second-unit mix.

Victor Oladipo, acquired in an offseason trade with Orlando, never emerged as a viable playmaker in Westbrook’s absence, and it’s fair to question whether the Thunder should have worked to fit him into that role during the regular season.

It’s valid to wonder, too, if he should have pulled Andre Roberson — who went 3 for 21 from the free-throw line in the series — when Houston fouled him intentionally, or made better use of Taj Gibson, who established himself as a matchup problem for Houston defenders.

Donovan can — and almost certainly will — examine those decisions going forward. The experimenter is a meticulous watcher of film, a self-evaluator of what works and what doesn’t.

In his second NBA season, there was plenty of both.

“There is purpose and meaning in every season, and there was purpose and meaning in this season to help us get better,” Donovan said. “And we’ll be better for what we went through this year.”