Patterson brings adaptability
Patrick Patterson couldn’t drive.
He could do it well enough on a basketball court, even as a towering power forward in the mid-2000s at Huntington (West Virginia) High School. He went through ballhandling drills with the guards, learned to put the ball on the floor and dash by a defender.
But in a car? That was another story.
“He couldn’t hardly keep it between the lines,” said Jimmy Clayton, who during Patterson’s high school days was an assistant basketball coach at Huntington and the school’s driver’s ed teacher. “He got good. He was a smooth operator.”
Patterson has a way of picking up new things.
The 6-foot-9 power forward – who on Tuesday night agreed to a threeyear, $16.4 million contract to join the Thunder – has a knack to adapt that became apparent at Huntington High and has followed him through college and in the NBA.
Adjustable game
Patterson won three basketball state championships at Huntington. When he came up short as a freshman, Clayton clipped a newspaper photo of Patterson and his teammates in the moments after the loss.
“It wasn’t the dejection,” Clayton said. “I just wanted them to see how skinny they were. We got beat because the other guys were more physical than us.”
From there, Patterson became a weight-room warrior. He became a presence in the post, and the kid who struggled to dunk as a freshman was playing above the rim as a sophomore, Clayton said.
His combination of athleticism and skill made Patterson one of the most coveted recruits in the high school class of 2007. Billy Donovan, who will coach Patterson with the Thunder, then was the coach at Florida, a finalist for Patterson. Donovan “was at Huntington High so much, I thought he was a student in my class,” Clayton said.
Ultimately, Patterson chose Kentucky. It didn’t go as planned.
An injury kept him out of the NCAA Tournament in 2008, and the Wildcats went to the NIT in 2009. Billy Gillispie, the coach who’d signed Patterson and played him primarily in the post, was fired, and John Calipari took over.
Calipari assumed Patterson might jump to the NBA Draft.
Instead, Patterson insisted that he wanted to return, Calipari said via email on Wednesday, to earn his degree in three years, to play in the NCAA Tournament and to learn from the new Kentucky staff how to play more facing the basket.
“He didn’t shoot a 3 before I got there,” Calipari said, and that’s almost true. Patterson had taken four in two seasons, and missed them all. He made 24 of 69 as a junior, and snuck into the NBA Draft lottery, where Houston selected him 14th.
That expansion of Patterson’s game has continued in the NBA. After attempting five 3-pointers in his first two seasons, he took 132 in his third, shooting 38.6 percent.
“He was in the 17-, 18-foot range there for a while, but he kept on telling me, I’m going to be a 3-point shooter,’” Kevin McHale, who coached Patterson in Houston, told the National Post in 2015. “I said, ‘Go ahead, if you make them, I’ll let you shoot them.’”
Now Patterson’s a career 36.8 percent shooter who’s made 305 3-pointers combined the past three seasons for the Raptors.
“He can run like guard and stretch you out, yet he still has the ability to beat you down low,” Calipari said.
Accommodating player
Patterson’s adaptability hasn’t been limited to shooting 3-pointers.
He’s also proven capable of adjusting to changes in circumstance.
In Patterson’s senior year at Huntington High, guard O.J. Mayo – who went on to play for Southern Cal and in the NBA – transferred to the school. He was one of the biggest names in the sport, and Patterson shared the spotlight.
He did that again at Kentucky, where Calipari’s arrival brought a new level of talent, and freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins overshadowed Patterson as a junior. He took it in stride, having big moments even as he often took a back seat.
In the NBA, he’s changed teams – he was traded from Houston to Sacramento in February of 2013, then to the Raptors the following December – and roles. He’s been a part-time starter and double-figure scorer. He’s been a sixth man attempting fewer than six shots a game.
“He’s one of the greatest teammates I’ve ever coached,” Calipari said. “He will defer if he has to, but he can also take over a game. He’ll fit right in with that culture in Oklahoma City.”
And if he needs to adjust to do it, history says he can – whether it’s on the court or behind the wheel.
“We got him rolling pretty good driving (a car),” Clayton said. “It was just like shooting, man. The greatest shooters are the straightest shooters. He got it. He just had to keep it between the lines.”