Ten years later, Patterson and Donovan connect in OKC
The recruiting battle had been fierce, but Patrick Patterson had forged bonds on both sides.
And so 10 years ago, when Patterson — then a senior at Huntington (W.Va.) High School — chose to take his talents to Kentucky, he wasn’t sure how to break the news to Billy Donovan, whose Florida Gators had been the runner-up. So he didn’t. “I didn’t tell him — that’s how scared I was,” Patterson said. “He found out the day I announced on TV. It hurt me to tell him that, so I pretty much didn’t tell him and had him find out by me announcing. It sucked, but it’s good to be reunited with him again. I saw this opportunity, I was like, ‘I can’t let it pass me by for a second time.’”
That opportunity — following three seasons at Kentucky and seven in the NBA — is the chance to play for Donovan in Oklahoma City. On Tuesday, the Thunder introduced Patterson, a free-agent signee and its probable new starting power forward.
And Donovan, the OKC coach entering his third NBA season, is glad to get his long-delayed chance to coach Patterson.
“I told him when I saw him, ‘It only took 10 years,’” Donovan said.
The wait was no fault of Donovan’s, who made it clear during Patterson’s high school days how much he wanted to coach the 6-foot-9 forward. Donovan had started his college head coaching career at Marshall University in Patterson’s hometown. He built bonds there long before he started recruiting Patterson.
By the time Patterson’s recruitment heated up, Donovan was a fixture at Huntington High.
“I just remember almost every week him just randomly showing up at my high school, saying hello,” Patterson said. “Popping into classrooms, walking down hallways, all the students in the classroom constantly screaming and yelling whenever they (would) see him at the high school games.”
Lloyd McGuffin, then the coach at Huntington, saw the relationship Patterson built with Donovan and he liked the fit of coach and player. He wasn’t alone.
“A lot of people there were surprised when he didn’t pick Florida,” McGuffin said in a phone interview this week.
But Donovan knew he was swimming against the current.
Then as now, Patterson had a close relationship with his parents, Buster and Tywanna, who attended Tuesday’s news conference. Kentucky was a twohour drive from home, and Donovan knew that, along with the “fanfare, the excitement, the enthusiasm there for him” in Lexington would be difficult to overcome.
So Donovan was left to admire Patterson from afar, first while coaching against him in Kentucky-Florida games, then as the Thunder coach, watching Patterson with the Toronto Raptors find ways to impact winning.
“Tough defender, physical, a winner, a guy that can shoot the ball from behind the 3-point line, very, very good passer,” Donovan said. “I’m really excited about kind of being reacquainted with Patrick again.”
There were other factors in Patterson’s decision to sign a three-year, $16.4 million deal with the Thunder. He wanted to play with Russell Westbrook and Paul George, wanted the chance to fight for a starting spot, he said, and “compete for a championship and be with a team that’s just as hungry as I am.”
Still, the chance to reconnect with Donovan, to play for a guy who had been so hard to turn down a decade ago, played a part for Patterson, and it could pay dividends.
“The first thing I thought when I heard he was going there was, ‘Billy Donovan knows how valuable he is,’” McGuffin said. “Patrick’s had a good career so far, and I don’t want anybody to take this the wrong way, but I still think he has untapped potential (if he’s) in the right place. I think this just may be the right place for him to really, really showcase his talents.”